Key facts
- A U.S. judge ordered the U.S. government to pay over $450,000 in legal fees to the Association of American Universities.
- The fees are related to a court ruling that blocked the Trump administration's cap on reimbursements for indirect research costs.
- The Association of American Universities and other academic groups sued the Department of Defense over the policy.
- The judge found the Defense Department's policy was not 'substantially justified'.
- The legal fees were awarded under the Equal Access to Justice Act.
A U.S. judge has ordered the government to pay over $450,000 in legal fees to the Association of American Universities (AAU) after the group successfully challenged a policy that would have capped reimbursements for indirect research costs.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston awarded the fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, a federal law allowing litigants to recover costs from the government in certain civil cases. The AAU and twelve other universities, along with three academic trade groups, sued the U.S. Department of Defense in May 2025. They argued that the department's decision to cap indirect cost reimbursements for funded research at 15% was unlawful.
Murphy had previously issued a temporary restraining order blocking the cap in June 2025 and entered a final judgment for the plaintiffs in December 2025. The U.S. government appealed this decision but subsequently dropped it. The judge ruled that the Defense Department's policy was not "substantially justified," noting that the department cited similar rate caps from other agencies without acknowledging that those caps had also been blocked by judges.
The Justice Department argued that the AAU should not qualify for fees due to its members' large endowments, but Murphy rejected this, stating the AAU independently funded the lawsuit, which cost over $2 million. He did reduce the AAU's initial fee request of $530,000, deeming it "slightly excessive."