William G. Young: the Reagan-era jurist pushing the Trump administration to trial at record speed
After four decades on the federal bench, Judge William G. Young says he has finally seen something new—and disturbing. “I have never witnessed government racial discrimination of this kind,” the 84-year-old jurist declared from his Boston courtroom on Monday, blocking the Trump administration’s attempt to cancel National Institutes of Health grants that funded studies on health disparities in Black and LGBTQ communities. The remark was vintage Young: blunt, constitution-minded, and delivered in a ruling he fast-tracked to trial in just weeks.
Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, Young has presided over headline cases for decades. He champions what he calls the “fact-finding power” of jury trials and runs his court accordingly—collapsing procedural hearings, peppering lawyers with questions, and asking jurors to pose their own queries to witnesses.
Even after assuming senior status in 2021 (a step that usually lightens a judge’s workload), Young maintains a bustling docket. This summer he will oversee two more closely watched challenges to Trump policies:
Student-activist deportations — a July 7 trial testing the limits of executive power and the free-speech rights of international students.
Offshore-wind rollback — a suit brought by Democratic-led states over the administration’s move to stall renewable-energy projects.
Born on Long Island, educated at Harvard and seasoned by Army service, Young clerked for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court before joining private practice and eventually the federal bench. He decorates his courtroom with maritime paintings by his father and once invited a visiting Japanese judge to sit beside him on the bench—symbolizing his belief in judicial openness.
Young has also criticized his own profession. He has blasted rigid sentencing guidelines, pleaded for fewer plea bargains, and warned in a 2003 open letter that “the American jury system is dying” under a wave of settlements and arbitration.
In the NIH grant case, Young spent weeks pressing government lawyers for a clear legal rationale behind the cancellations. Finding none, he ruled the cuts were likely unconstitutional racial discrimination—a decision that joins a growing list of judicial blows to Trump policies, including some delivered by the president’s own appointees.
The judge’s candor has led him to caution lawyers against intimidation and warn that any threats against witnesses will trigger obstruction-of-justice charges. “Trials,” he said, “are meant to be resolved on evidence, with cool, reflective, impartial adjudication of the facts.”
Despite his sharp critiques, Young often signals nostalgia for a less polarized era. In an April order he signed off not as a “United States District Judge” but simply “William G. Young, Judge of the United States,” explaining the change was a tribute to colleagues he has served alongside for nearly 50 years.
In an age of partisan battles and attacks on the judiciary, the Reagan-appointed judge remains committed to the simple idea that courts exist to try cases—and to let facts, not politics, carry the day.
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