About the Case

National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s unlawful withholding of $65.8 million in fiscal year (FY) 2025 Title X family planning program grants. The lawsuit, National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association v. Kennedy, et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

NFPRHA filed its lawsuit on behalf of its members, which include 14 of the 16 grantees that had Title X noncompete continuation grant awards “temporarily withheld” at the end of March 2025 by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS). In total, HHS withheld 22 grants—25% of the Title X-funded network—due to alleged “possible violations” of the terms and conditions of their grant awards, including the requirement that grantees administer Title X projects in compliance with federal civil rights law.

NFPRHA’s lawsuit asserts that HHS had no lawful authority to withhold the grants before making any actual determination that the affected grantees have violated the terms and conditions of grant awards or federal civil rights law and before providing the grantees with an opportunity to remedy any alleged violation. NFPRHA is asking the court to declare unlawful and set aside HHS’s withholding of funds in this manner and to issue a permanent injunction preventing the agency from taking similar action in the future without following the proper, legally mandated process required to be taken before grant funds can be withheld.

Unlike in other cases NFPRHA has brought in federal courts in the last decade, the current case does not seek emergency relief (such as reinstating the withheld grant funding while the case works its way through the courts). This is because just days after HHS withheld the Title X grants, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling in Department of Education v. California significantly raising the risk of seeking a temporary restoration of funds in a federal funding dispute. However, HHS’s actions are unlawful regardless, and NFPRHA is filing this lawsuit both in defense of its currently affected grantee members and to protect its other grantee members against future similar actions.