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University of California leaders face difficult choices after the U.S. Department of Justice said this week that UCLA suspended more than $300 million research grants to schools after UCLA said on Wednesday it violated pro-Palestinian protests and Jewish civil rights among federal agencies.
Could they agree to an expensive settlement and potentially cause the rage of taxpayers, politicians and campus communities in a deep blue state that opposes President Trump and his fight to remodel his higher education?
Or will they go to court, take part in a prolonged legal battle, and inviting further debilitating federal action against the country’s best public university system that has been cautiously eschewing a head-on dispute with the White House?
University of California mentors, including James B. Milicken, the president of the entire system. UCLA Prime Minister Julio Frenk and UC’s 24 Regent Committee – California Governor Gavin Newsom is a former member of staff, but only a few days have passed to make the decision.
What led to conflict
The US Atty, according to the survey results published Tuesday. General Pam Bondy and the Justice Department said UCLA will pay a “heavy price” with “intentional indifference” to the civil rights of Jews and Israeli students who have accused anti-Semitic cases from October 7, 2023.
The Justice Department has given UC, which oversees federal law legal matters on UCL and nine other campuses, a week to address anti-Semitism allegations. “Unless there is a reasonable certainty that an agreement can be reached to ensure that a hostile environment is eliminated and that reasonable measures will be taken to prevent a recurrence,” he wrote.
The day after the Justice Department revealed its findings, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and other federal agencies said they had suspended hundreds of grants to UCLA researchers. The letter from the NSF argued that it “differently promoted a research environment free from discrimination” and anti-Semitism in university hospitalizations. The Department of Energy, which cuts grants on clean energy and nuclear power plants, filed similar accusations, adding that “UCLA discriminates against women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces, putting women at risk.”
The first data shared with the Times on Thursday night showed the cuts were at least $200 million. On Friday, additional information shared by UC and federal officials noted that more than $300 million is more than a quarter of UCLA. UCLA has not released total numbers.
In a campus-wide message on Thursday, UCLA Prime Minister Frenk called the government’s move “very disappointing.”
“This widespread penalty in life-saving research does nothing to address suspicious discrimination,” Frenk said.
In a Times Friday statement, an official from the Department of Health and Human Services overseeing the NIH said, “We will not fund the institutions that promote anti-Semitism. We will use all the tools necessary to ensure that we follow the system.”
An NSF spokesperson also confirmed the cuts at UCLA, saying on Friday the university “is not in line with current NSF priorities.” A Department of Energy spokesman also confirmed the cuts, but did not elaborate anything other than pointing to the department’s letter to UCLA.
What’s coming next
In addition to higher education experts on the swift deliberation this week, the Times spoke to more than dozens of current and former senior UC leaders.
Trump has accused the university of being too liberal, illegally employing diversity in ways that hurt white and Asian American students and faculty, and overly tolerant of pro-Palestinian students who are labelled as anti-Semitic opposition along Hamas.
Universities, including UCLA, have largely denied the charges, but school officials have admitted they lacked in meeting the concerns of Jewish students. Over the past two years, the camp has been accused of taking over a small portion of the campus, resulting in denying pro-Israel Jews access to the campus.
With a massive payment announced Tuesday — before the Department of Justice findings — UCLA said it would remove $6.45 million to resolve a federal lawsuit brought by three Jewish students and the university violated civil rights and allowed anti-Semitism in 2024 pro-Palestinian camps. Hillel. Another $320,000 will be directed towards the UCLA initiative and the remaining funds will be spent on legal fees as they fight anti-Semitism.
Through a spokesperson, Frenk and Milicken declined to interview UCLA about what next steps they will take. Friday was the first day of Miliken’s long planned departure for former UC president Michael V. Drake returning to education and research.
However, in public comments this week, Newsom said he was “reviewing” the Justice Department findings and that UC would “respond.”
Speaking at an event at the former McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento County on Thursday, the governor said there will be a meeting with Drake scheduled for the day to discuss the Trump administration’s accusations.
Newsom did not specifically respond to era questions about whether UC would settle down with Trump.
“We’re looking at the latest information on DOJ and checking the deadline for Tuesday,” the governor said. “That’s why we respond.”
In a statement Friday, Newsom said, “We will freeze UCLA’s key research funding — the dollars that seek to study invasive diseases, cure cancer, and build new defense technologies — our country will reduce safety.
What the insider says
UCLA and senior UC leaders spoke in the background because they were not allowed to discuss legal decisions. The universities and individual campuses are under investigation into multiple federal government investigations of suspected use of race in hospitalizations, discrimination against employment against Jews, and civil rights complaints from Jewish students. At the same time, leaders said they wanted a multi-million dollar settlement with Jewish students to buy them time.
“It backfired,” a senior UCLA manager said, reflecting the sense of whiplash felt among many people interviewed. “Within a few hours since we announced our settlement, the DOJ was on our backs.”
Other UC officials said the system is considering Trump’s appeal. Already, various federal agencies or briefs have filed in support of lawsuits over widespread grant cuts affecting all universities in the United States. However, UC itself does not directly challenge the president’s platform to actively punish elite schools for discrimination.
It is unclear whether the lawsuit or settlement will wipe out all remaining investigations.
Mark Yudoff, former UC president who led the system from 2008 to 2013, said he feels the Trump administration is targeting public universities as a way to “issues a statement” about the president’s purpose for higher education, which is beyond Ivy League institutions.
“But this is not Columbia,” Yudof said the New York campus recently reached the White House and recently reached the White House to resolve investigations on alleged anti-Semitism amid responses to Palestinian protests.
On Wednesday, Brown University signed a $50 million contract with the White House. Brown’s payments go to the Rhode Island Workforce Development Program. Harvard is also negotiating a contract with the government on similar accusations of anti-Semitism.
“The University of California is much more complicated,” said Yudoff, who lives in Florida and heads the University of Texas and the University of Minnesota. “One thing is that any issues that could affect UCLA will not affect UC Merced or UC Riverside. But will an agreement be reached on all campuses? If there is a settlement payment, will it affect all campuses based on costs?”
“We can’t see UC make the kind of deals Columbia has made, or Harvard is pondering. We’ll commit public funds to Washington in line with the millions of dollars that California doesn’t rely on politically.”
The Palestinian pro-UCLA group said it disagrees with the premise of negotiations. They point out that many protesters at the camp last year were Jews, and they argue that the focus of the protest-federal complaint is not anti-Semitism.
“We refuse to spin this ironic weaponization of anti-Semitism, and a false information campaign that calls Palestinian freedom anti-Semitists. We reject thinly thwarted attempts to punish supporters of Palestinian freedom, Palestinian teachers of justice.
The whole picture
Higher education experts say the UC decision will set a national precedent. The university’s finances include over $50 billion in operating revenue, donations, retirements, working capital portfolios, and small campus-level contributions. The fund supports facilities across the state, including multiple academic health centers, investment property, campuses, and tens of thousands of former employees enrolled in retirement plans.
Dozens of public campuses across the United States are under investigation or pressure from the White House to change allegedly cheating on Jewish students or to change admissions, scholarship programs, protest rules and more. However, UC has long been the standard personnel, including academic and freedom of protest.
“If you’re Trump, Harvard or Brown’s target is much easier than UCLA or Berkeley – a snooty elite.
Kenneth Marcus, who served as civil rights aide for the education division during Trump’s first term, said the UCLA and the UC system have the benefit of entering a “system-wide agreement that anyone can put behind them.”
A Justice Department letter on Tuesday said it is investigating all campuses but only publishes previous findings of violations at UCLA.
Marcus, chairman of the Washington, DC-based Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Center for Human Rights Center, said the system-wide agreement will “provide the federal government with assurance that Regent is making full changes.”
Sacramento staff writer Talyn Luna contributed to this report.
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