On Friday, January 31, 2025, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) sent to all of its grantees, Health Centers, Ryan White programs and others an email stating the following:

Effective immediately, HRSA grant funds may not be used for activities that do not align with Executive Orders (E.O.) entitled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Action, Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, and Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Defending Women). Any vestige, remnant, or re-named piece of any programs in conflict with these E.O.s are terminated in whole or in part.

You may not incur any additional costs that support any programs, personnel, or activities in conflict with these E.O.s.

Needless to say, this email caused considerable concern for a number of reasons including 1) the E.O.s contained directives to various Departments to review and report back to the President on implementation plans over the next 60 to 90 days, 2) no HRSA grant had been amended to our knowledge with new grant conditions consistent with the above and 3) language such as terminating programs in whole or in part made no sense.

Since the email went out, two federal district courts have enjoined the Administration from implementing or taking any actions in furtherance of the now-retracted directive to pause all federal grants. Whether in response to the Court orders or for other reasons, around midday yesterday, HRSA issued the following retraction in another email, “HRSA rescinds the notice titled “Important Message for HRSA Award Recipients” that was sent to all HRSA grantees on January 31, 2025.”

While this retraction is welcome, the chaos is not. More to come.

For questions concerning the HRSA retraction, please contact Managing Partner Ted Waters or call 202.466.8960.