Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that UC shouldn’t “knee off his knees” to the president as UC will negotiate with the Trump administration to recover more than $5 billion in UCLA grant amid anti-Semitism accusations.
Newsom chided the village Trump hit at two Ivy League colleges. Columbia and Brown agreed to pay large fines and make changes to campus where they cleaned, in exchange for restoring research funds that were also cancelled for Trump’s anti-Semitism allegations. Harvard is negotiating with the government on similar charges.
“We’re not brown, we’re not Columbia. If we act that way, I’m not going to be governor,” Newsom said of the university’s settlement, which was announced last month. “During the period. A complete stop, I will fight like hell to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
The Columbia-Brown agreement included highly criticised payments. Columbia pays more than $200 million to the federal government, while Brown is committed to sharing admission data with federal authorities in addition to paying $50 million to the Rhode Island workforce program. The Trump administration has accused elite universities, including UCLA, of illegally considering race when deciding who to acknowledge.
Columbia also agreed to review the Middle East research program and submit it to an external monitor to oversee whether it was after the settlement. Teachers accused university leaders of tolerating the coveted value of higher education of academic freedom, independent of government or political influence.
The remarks from Newsom were his first public comment on how UC should proceed with Trump, and the first indication (if ambiguous) of how UC is doing.
The university system is run by the president and the board of trustees and is independent under the state constitution of “all political or sectarian influence.” At the same time, the governor can exercise political shaking against member-appointed Regents. Newsom holds its original seat on the board.
Speaking in San Francisco, Newsom made a statement between media questions and answers after an event on artificial intelligence workforce partnerships.
“There are principles. Right and wrong. We do the right thing. This is about our competitiveness. It is about our country’s destiny and future. It is about our sovereignty. It goes far beyond the temperament of the tormented individual who is now the President of the United States,” Newsmom said.
Asked about UC negotiations, Newsom said, “They’ll do the right thing.”
“I’m confident. I’ll do everything in my power to encourage them to do the right thing and not become another law firm that bends their knees.
A UC and UCLA spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about Newsom’s comments on Thursday.
UC President James B. Milicken on Wednesday said that the university system “consent to engage in dialogue with the federal administration” after UCLA discovered that activists had violated the civil rights of Jewish students in April 2024 after activists built a pro-Palestinian camp.
Miliken said the negotiation goal was for “suspended and risky federal funding restored to the university as soon as possible.”
Grant suspensions affect research in areas such as neuroscience, clean energy, and cancer. Department of Justice and our atty. General Pam Bondy said on July 28 that UCLA will pay a “heavy price” to act with “intentional indifference” to the civil rights of Jews and Israeli students who have advocated anti-Semitism cases from October 7, 2023.
In a statement across the UC, Milliken said he “does not do anything to address anti-Semitism.” Moreover, the extensive work that UCLA and the entire University of California took to combat anti-Semitism is clearly neglected.
In a campus-wide letter on Wednesday, UCLA Prime Minister Julio Frenk said the suspension of grants was “devastating for UCLA and Americans across the country.”
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