UMD joins 10 research universities in lawsuit against defense department research cuts

The University of Maryland filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Department of Defense and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to combat the federal government’s efforts to slash research funding.

This university filed the suit along with 10 other research universities, the Association of American Universities, the American Council on Education and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

The Defense Department intends to implement a 15 percent indirect cost rate cap on financial assistance to higher education institutions, according to a May 14 memo from the department. The lawsuit states this university has a predetermined indirect cost rate of 56 percent for the 2026 fiscal year.

This university estimates if the department lowers the indirect cost rate to 15 percent, it would lose about $7 million in reimbursements.

Indirect costs, according to the lawsuit, are facility and administrative-based costs that include the costs of equipment, maintenance expenses and technical staff salaries.

“Because of caps on administrative costs… universities contribute a significant amount of their own funds to cover such costs, thereby subsidizing the work funded by grants and cooperative agreements,” the lawsuit read.

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This university is joined by other academic institutions, including Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh, as plaintiffs on the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy on Tuesday granted the universities a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Defense Department from instituting its lowered indirect cost rate cap until further notice.

The lawsuit comes after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration began freezing and terminating some federal funding and grants for higher education institutions in January .

The intended slash to indirect research cuts will cause “vital scientific work [to] come to a halt,” the lawsuit read.

As of May, about 70 contracts and grants, totaling about $12 million, have been canceled or paused at this university since Trump’s second term began, The Diamondback previously reported.

Earlier this month, this university joined 17 other universities in backing Harvard University’s federal funding lawsuit against Trump’s administration, The Diamondback reported.

This university did not respond to The Diamondback’s request for comment in time for publication.