The National Institutes of Health director told America he had cured DEI at his agency.
Two watchdog groups just proved the curing never happened.
NIH has been cutting checks for oppression research this entire time – and nobody noticed.
How Intersectionality Became a $257 Million NIH Loophole
Donald Trump banned DEI across every federal agency on day one of his second term.
Trump's National Institutes of Health director, Jay Bhattacharya, published a piece in The Spectator declaring that DEI at his agency was officially "cured."
Someone forgot to tell the grants office.
Two watchdog groups – the Legal Insurrection Foundation and the Defense of Freedom Institute – just released a report showing NIH approved up to $257 million worth of research projects built entirely on the ideology Trump ordered eliminated.
While NIH scrubbed "DEI" from its grant applications, researchers quietly swapped in a single word – "intersectionality" – the academic framework that ranks Americans by their overlapping victim identities. The federal grants database had no idea what to do with it, and Trump's executive orders had never named it, so the money kept flowing.
In June 2026 – a full 18 months into Trump's second term – NIH approved $3.27 million for Johns Hopkins University to study how "interlocking systems of oppression such as racism, sexism, and xenophobia" affect the mental health of female nurses.
That language came directly from the grant description.
Another project – still active and funded through 2028 – is using over $777,400 in federal money to reduce stigma for Chinese immigrant sex workers in New York City.
A third, slated to run through 2031, is recruiting "historically minoritized students" into biomedical research at UC Santa Cruz using the school's STEM Diversity office.
Every single one sailed through because NIH's filters were looking for "DEI," not "intersectionality."
Taxpayer Funded Woke Research Still Running at Johns Hopkins and UC Santa Cruz
Legal Insurrection Foundation President William Jacobson said: "Intersectionality, which is the core of critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion, both historically and ideologically, is a loophole that needs to be closed."
A targeted search of USAspending.gov found 249 federal assistance awards using the keyword "intersectionality" since 2008 – representing roughly $300 million in federal investment – with peak spending hitting $70 to $80 million per year under Biden between 2022 and 2024.
Defense of Freedom Institute President Bob Eitel said taxpayers "should not bankroll an ideological framework that divides Americans into categories of privilege and oppression."
NIH told The Daily Wire that several of the flagged projects are subject to court orders and that the agency is "working diligently to ensure that taxpayer funds support the priorities of the administration."
The agency also noted the Chinese sex worker grant was approved under Biden – true, but it is still running on your dime in 2026.
Courts forced NIH back to the table after it suspended 1,800 DEI-linked grants in early 2025, and the resulting settlement required case-by-case review of each one – most of them shielded from public view, which is precisely how "intersectionality" survived the purge.
Trump Needs a New Executive Order to Close the Intersectionality Loophole
The federal bureaucracy figured out the game fast: if the government bans a name, just change the name.
The rebranding playbook never changes – critical race theory became "culturally responsive teaching," DEI became "belonging," and now that same ideology is calling itself "intersectionality."
Every time conservatives win the language battle, the Left picks a new label and keeps cashing the checks.
The LIF and DFI reports are calling for a new executive order that explicitly names intersectionality as part of the DEI ideological complex Trump already banned – closing the loophole with language bureaucrats can't rebrand around.
Trump's team did real work: they dismantled NIH's diversity offices, eliminated loyalty oaths, removed the bonuses that had rewarded DEI promotion for years.
But $257 million in intersectionality grants got through anyway because nobody thought to name the parent ideology.
Name it, ban it, and close the loophole.
Your tax dollars are still funding Johns Hopkins researchers who think nurses are trapped inside "interlocking systems of oppression" – and until that executive order gets signed, the next batch of grants is already in the pipeline.
Sources:
- Leif Le Mahieu, "From Chinese Prostitutes to 'Oppression': The Woke Research Taxpayers Still Fund," The Daily Wire, October 15, 2026.
- Jay Bhattacharya and Matthew J. Memoli, "How We Cured DEI at the National Institutes of Health," The Spectator, 2025.
- William Jacobson, "LIF to OMB: Strengthen Federal Grantmaking Nondiscrimination by Barring Funding of Intersectionality," Legal Insurrection, July 9, 2026.
- Legal Insurrection Foundation and Defense of Freedom Institute, "Federal Spending on Intersectionality: The Case for Executive Action," August 2026.
- Legal Insurrection Foundation and Defense of Freedom Institute, "Intersectionality – The Rise of a Dangerous Anti-American Ideology and How to Stop It," April 2026.
