BALTIMORE — Johns Hopkins University is taking the federal government to court again.
This time against the Department of Defense over cuts to research funding.
Hopkins joined 11 universities and other education associations arguing the cuts could harm national security, while costing jobs and hundreds-of-millions in economic growth.
"DOD's latest action would have an immediate and dire effect on our national security by disrupting research designed to help our military. It would also harm our universities ability to continue research in critical emerging technology areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing that have significant military applications, and that China is investing in heavily," said American Association of Universities, who joined in on the lawsuit. "To put it simply, this cut to university research would make our nation less safe, threaten our future defense readiness, and weaken our global security."
The alleged funding primarily deals with indirect costs, which are reimbursement payments the federal government issues to universities conducting research on their behalf.
In this particular case the Department of Defense wanted to cap those payments at 15 percent, down from 55 percent negotiated under previous administrations.
Hopkins says the move would cost them approximately $20 million annually, equating to about 16 percent of their yearly funding.
For example, during fiscal year 2024, Hopkins received $122 million from the Defense Department.
Of that amount the university claims $32 million went towards indirect costs.
Hopkins has nearly 300 active DOD grants totaling $375 million over the next several years.
DOD's attempt to cap indirect costs, comes months after the National Institute of Health notified Hopkins it would be doing the same.
Much like this time around that too is tied up in a Massachusetts Federal Court, whose Democratic appointed judges have proven to be unfavorable towards the Republican run administration.
Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has vowed to decrease federal spending.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was among the first targeted.
From that alone, Hopkins lost more than $800 million. On top of that, the university says 90 other grants were terminated worth an additional $50 million.