Topline:
As the UC system’s leaders grapple with how to respond to the Trump administration’s research grant cuts and threats of lawsuits and a billion-dollar penalty, some community members are taking a defensive stand. Earlier this week, 21 unions and faculty associations representing tens of thousands of UC employees sued President Donald Trump.
Why it matters: The Trump administration’s settlement terms are far reaching, covering hiring, admissions, gender identity and students’ right to protest. The government also wants to install an outside monitor to report on UCLA’s compliance, and there is no guarantee the administration won’t launch future funding cuts or lawsuits. And the research cuts target billions in funding for science labs and medical studies.
The backstory: For months, the Trump administration has used civil rights investigations into universities as a means to freeze or cancel federal research funding, citing schools’ alleged failure to protect Jewish students from harassment.
Faculty weigh in: The UC Board of Regents recently held its first public meetings since the Trump administration cut UCLA grant funding. Ahead of those meetings, over 200 Jewish faculty members from campuses across the state signed a letter to the board “denouncing the federal government’s attempt to hobble the University of California ... under the cynical and pretextual guise of ‘combating antisemitism.’”
Go deeper: UC evaluating ‘every option’ amid Trump administration demands on UCLA
Read on … for a timeline of the federal government’s actions and UCLA’s responses.
For months, the Trump administration has used civil rights investigations into universities as a means to freeze or cancel federal research funding, citing schools’ alleged failure to protect Jewish students from harassment.
This summer, the U.S. Department of Justice turned its attention to the University of California, a 10-campus system with nearly 300,000 students.
And, so far, much of that effort has focused on UCLA.
'One of the gravest threats' in UC history
In late July, the DOJ declared that UCLA had violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the 1964 Civil Rights Act “by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students ... from October 7, 2023, to the present.” In a press statement, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the department would “force UCLA to pay a heavy price.”
Soon after, the administration froze hundreds of science research grants at UCLA, including funding through the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.
In a press statement, UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk underscored that “federal research grants are not handouts.”
“Our researchers compete fiercely for these grants, proposing work that the government itself deems vital to the country’s health, safety and economic future,” he said.
Frenk also let on that the Trump administration’s actions didn’t come as a surprise: “For the past several months, our leadership team has been preparing for this situation and have developed comprehensive contingency plans,” he added. “With the support of the UC Board of Regents and the UC Office of the President, we are actively evaluating our best course of action.”
What followed was an offer from the federal government for UCLA to pay a $1 billion penalty and overhaul a broad range of campus policies and practices — in return, the government said it wouldn't sue the university.
As the L.A. Times first reported, the Trump administration’s settlement terms are far reaching, covering hiring, admissions, gender identity and protest rights. The government also wants to install an outside monitor to report on UCLA’s compliance, and there is no guarantee the Trump administration won’t launch future funding cuts or lawsuits.
Timeline of UCLA's response to federal actions
Here’s how school leaders and the university community have responded to the administration:
- Aug. 4: Attorneys on behalf of UC researchers submitted a court filing signaling that the NSF had defied a preliminary injunction and frozen hundreds of grants to UCLA. According to the filing, Frenk received “a long list of grants that were being indefinitely suspended.” The researchers themselves received “no explanation.”
- Aug. 12: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore the suspended NSF grants.
- Sept. 10 and 11: UCLA hosted science fairs, inviting the public to learn about the research projects that remain frozen. The second day of the event was organized by UAW 4811, the union that represents student workers, postdocs and academic researchers across the UC system.
- Sept. 15: In a message to students, faculty, staff and alumni, UC President James B. Milliken called the Trump administration’s actions against UCLA “one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history.” According to Milliken, the system receives more than $17 billion each year in federal support, including $9.9 billion in Medicare and Medicaid funding; $5.7 billion for research and program support; and $1.7 billion in student financial aid. “A substantial loss of this federal funding would be devastating for our mission and for the people who depend on us most,” he added. “It will mean fewer classes and student services, reduced access to healthcare, tens of thousands of lost jobs across the state and an exodus of world-class faculty and researchers to other states or countries.”
- Sept.16: A coalition of UC faculty, staff and unions filed their own lawsuit against the Trump administration. In it, the plaintiffs allege the grant cuts and settlement demands are unconstitutional. The administration's “economic coercion,” they add, is part of broader efforts to “exert ideological control over the nation’s core institutions.”
- Sept. 16 and 17: The UC Board of Regents, an independent body that oversees the system and plays a key role in federal negotiations, held its first public meetings since the research cuts. During public comment, Jason Rabinowitz, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 2010, one of the plaintiffs in the aforementioned lawsuit against the Trump administration, was the first to speak. “There should be no agreement to pay extortion money,” he told the regents. He also cautioned against the erosion of free speech. Ahead of the meetings, over 200 Jewish faculty members from campuses across the state signed a letter to the board: “Like Jewish people across the country and around the world, we hold various views about Israel and Palestine, U.S. policy in the Middle East and student activism on campus. But we are united in denouncing the federal government’s attempt to hobble the University of California — a bastion of free inquiry, social mobility and essential research — under the cynical and pretextual guise of ‘combating antisemitism.’”
Disclosure: Julia Barajas is a part-time graduate student at UCLA Law.
