UCLA is at risk of losing more than half a billion dollars in federal research funds as the Trump administration continues to pressure the school to address allegations of antisemtism on campus.
The $584 million dollars in frozen funds that UCLA officials announced Wednesday is the first official tally of what is at stake for the school. The sum is far more than what was initially estimated when the Department of Justice announced last week it was investigating the school for violations of civil rights laws stemming from allegations it has failed to protect Jewish students and faculty from antisemitism.
In a school-wide letter sent Wednesday morning and shared with POLITICO, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk confirmed the grant money, which is meant to fund hundreds of research projects in a wide array of fields, is “suspended and at risk.”
“If these funds remain suspended,” he wrote, “it will be devastating for UCLA and for Americans across the nation.”
James Milliken, who recently took over as president of the University of California system, remained tight-lipped about how defiant or conciliatory a posture UC officials plan to take in upcoming talks with Justice officials over the government’s allegations.
In a statement, Milliken reiterated that the school had agreed “to engage in dialogue with the federal administration.”
“Our immediate goal,” he went on, “is to see the $584 million in suspended and at-risk federal funding restored to the university as soon as possible.”
Milliken did push back somewhat against the threat to cut research funding and the idea that UCLA has allowed antisemitism to fester unchecked on campus. “These cuts do nothing to address antisemitism. Moreover, the extensive work that UCLA and the entire University of California have taken to combat antisemitism has apparently been ignored,” he wrote.
Frenk also remained non-committal, saying in his letter that “We are doing everything we can to protect the interests of faculty, students and staff — and to defend our values and principles… as we actively evaluate our best course of action.”
Looming over the school’s strategy going forward are the fates of other high-profile universities the Trump administration has targeted with similar cases in the wake of tumultuous student protests last year over Israel’s war against Hamas. Columbia University, which faced the loss of $400 million in research grants, opted to negotiate with the administration, eventually agreeing to pay $200 million and make some changes to oversight. Brown University recently took a similar path, agreeing to pay $50 million, while Harvard University, which at first forcefully rebuked the government’s claims, has yet to resolve its case.
UCLA came into the Trump administration’s crosshairs after the university agreed last week to a $6.5 million settlement in a lawsuit with Jewish students and a professor, who alleged that the university did not do enough to protect them from harassment and discrimination by pro-Palestinian protesters last year.
On the same day, the Department of Justice announced its allegations against the school with Attorney General Pam Bondi threatening that “DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.”
In an earlier statement, Frenk, whose father was Jewish and fled Nazi Germany, said, “Antisemitism has no place on our campus, nor does any form of discrimination.” He added, “We recognize that we can improve, and I am committed to doing so.”
Through the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump and his administration officials have used the power of the federal government to target his perceived critics and enemies. In addition to going after major universities, the administration has launched investigations into former government officials from past administrations and attacked law firms that have represented clients the president dislikes.
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