University of California staff members hope to use a class action lawsuit to restore their research funding.

University of California faculty members and researchers filed suit against Donald Trump and several federal agencies late Wednesday in what they hope will become a first-of-its-kind class action challenging the administration’s sweeping cuts to research funding.

The flurry of grant terminations has resulted in layoffs, the lawsuit states, and halted a variety of projects, ranging from studies on the effects of wildfire smoke to an effort to make all of Mark Twain’s work available to the public.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, is the brainchild of Claudia Polsky, founding director of the environmental law clinic at the University of California, Berkeley. Though she didn’t face funding cuts herself, she said she felt inspired to organize colleagues — without any institutional backing — to file a suit that could have significant implications for other academics nationwide.