Two weeks ago, UCLA was optimistic.
For months, it had successfully avoided clashes with President Trump as university leaders declined to publicly criticize him by name over his battle to remake American higher education, first raging against several Ivy League schools.
The morning of July 29, UCLA announced it had settled a federal lawsuit with students who accused it of discrimination, paying more than $2 million to Jewish civil rights groups and millions more in legal fees. University leaders hailed the action as "real progress" to combat antisemitism. Privately, they pointed the Trump administration to the agreement, eager to convince federal officials they had made good with Jewish communities.
The high lasted just a few hours — and touched off an extraordinary 14 days of rapid-fire accusations, investigative findings and a massive federal freeze of UCLA's research funding. It culminated Friday afternoon when Gov. Gavin Newsom unleashed furious comments in response to a federal demand that UC pay a $1-billion fine over a host of allegations against UCLA: antisemitism on campus, illegal use of race in admissions and policies that allow transgender athletes to compete according to their gender identity.
“He has threatened us through extortion with a billion-dollar fine, unless we do his bidding,” Newsom said, adding that California would sue. “We will not be complicit in this kind of attack on academic freedom on this extraordinary public institution.”
Spokespeople for the Justice Department did not respond Sunday to a question about Newsom's comments and legal threat.
The escalating events lead up to decisive moments this week, starting with an emergency meeting of the UC Board of Regents on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday, a federal court hearing will unfold in a preexisting case that could result in some — but not all — UC grants being restored.
Read more: Trump seeks $1-billion fine against UCLA. Newsom says 'we'll sue,' calling it extortion
The developments bring the fight over America's higher education institutions — which has roiled elite private East Coast universities for months — to the nation's most powerful and lauded public university system.
"We are in uncharted territory," said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents more than 1,700 colleges and universities. "We have seen the government come after Columbia, Brown, Harvard and others. But this, now, is a test. Will UCLA be the defender of public universities? Will it strike a deal? And what role will money — taxpayer money — play?"
California is facing off against a president who has been relentless in his aims to rein in what he calls "Marxist" universities that in his view are bastions of liberalism that have done too little to protect Jewish students, have been too soft on pro-Palestinian protests, and rely too heavily on international student dollars.
His administration has accused a host of elite colleges nationwide — Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Stanford and three UC campuses — of illegally considering race in admissions and programming to the detriment of white and Asian American students. In response to pro-Palestinian protests, Trump has said colleges have enabled "jihadists," saying demonstrators are "pro-Hamas" terrorists.
"UCLA is not a random selection," Mitchell said. "The administration has had issues with California, with the governor, for some time. This is part of a larger battle between the administration and the state of California."
What's at stake
Since July 30, when UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk began receiving notices from the federal government announcing grant suspensions — totaling nearly half a billion dollars — UCLA leaders have scrambled to assess the effect on what they describe as life-saving, groundbreaking research. Deans and departments have been told to be prepared for layoffs if the cuts last.
Science and medical professors, whose research labs would not exist without federal funding, have solicited private donations. Doctoral and postdoctoral students, whose tuition and living expenses are often funded by grants in exchange for lab work, are rushing to speed up their graduation plans before stipends become depleted.
Read more: 'A continual assault.' How UCLA's research faculty is grappling with Trump funding freeze
"The federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons. This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination," Frenk said about the messages from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy.
UC as a system and UCLA in particular have been under multiple federal investigations for months:
Alleged employment discrimination against Jewish employees and job applicants.
Civil rights complaints from Israeli and Jewish students.
The alleged consideration of race in admissions practices.
UCLA is also on a shortlist of 10 campuses, including UC Berkeley and USC — that a federal task force on combating antisemitism singled out in February.
The ongoing investigations were launched by the Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services departments.
UCLA leaders thought they were being cooperative by sharing internal records over the months with government lawyers and making progress in quiet negotiations over the accusations, senior UC officials said.
They hoped the government took notice of efforts that could appease the president: a new campus initiative to combat antisemitism, the banning of Students for Justice in Palestine groups, a UC-wide ban on student government boycotts of Israel, quick shutdowns of pro-Palestinian campus protests, and strict discipline of pro-Palestinian students accused of time, place and manner violations during demonstrations.
But the federal government's stance is now clear: It believes UCLA is guilty of all allegations.
The NSF letter said that UCLA "engages in racism, in the form of illegal affirmative action, UCLA fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias; UCLA discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women's sports and private women-only spaces."
What Trump wants
Federal lawyers want UC to pay the billion-dollar fine against UCLA in installments and contribute $172 million to a fund for Jewish students and other individuals affected by alleged civil rights violations.
The settlement demands include ending scholarships that focus on race or ethnicity, forcing UCLA to share more admissions data than it already publicly releases with the government and changes to campus protest rules such as a ban on overnight encampments.
In addition to the sticker-shock fine, some requests have puzzled UCLA leaders — as the UC system has already significantly overhauled many practices outlined by the federal government.
It has ended the use of "diversity statements" in hiring. Last fall, UCLA declared a "zero-tolerance" policy for encampments. The government wants transgender women off women's sports teams. But as a member of the National Collegiate Athletics Assn., the university is already required to follow new association rules that bar transgender players from women's teams.
"It feels like a cut-and-paste job," said a senior UC official about Trump's proposal. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about negotiations. "It's like they took a parts of letters to the Ivy Leagues, cobbled them together and added the words 'UCLA.' "
What comes next
The 24-member UC Board of Regents, which must approve of any settlement or payout to the federal government and would be involved in a suit, has called an emergency, closed-door meeting Monday afternoon. It's unclear whether Newsom, who is an ex-officio member of the board, will attend.
Another pivotal moment comes Tuesday in San Francisco's federal district court. There, Judge Rita F. Lin has ordered the Justice Department to explain why the UCLA cuts are not a violation of a June order in which she blocked certain science grant terminations for all of UC.
The case, filed by UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco researchers, is being argued by Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley law school dean and constitutional expert. If the judge rules in UC's favor, it could apply to NSF cuts that account for about half of those in limbo at UCLA.
In an interview, Chemerinsky said actions against UCLA were "clearly illegal" because "the president lacks constitutional authority to refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress."
He outlined what would likely be California's argument in a suit: The government's actions violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which restricts the president's ability to halt spending that Congress has authorized.
"The cutoff of funds has been without the due process required by federal laws and the Constitution," Chemerinsky said. "Agencies cutting off funds, like NIH and NSF, are violating the Administrative Procedures Act in that the actions are 'arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.' Many of the cutoffs of funds violate the 1st Amendment for being based on viewpoint."
Negotiations still possible
But California faces a risk if it files a suit against the administration's orders.
When Harvard pushed back against billions in similar cuts earlier this year, the Trump administration hit the university with additional costly funding clawbacks and a termination of its ability to host foreign students, an issue it further sued over.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said time — and politics — is not on UCLA's side.
"At some point you have to be ready for fall classes and international students coming in and the campus trying to deal with the uncertainty and losing all your grants," said Tobias. Litigation can take months, if not years, he said. California "might do well in the district courts and then in the 9th Circuit, but I don't know what would happen in the Supreme Court."
After Newsom threatened a suit, UC Regents Chair Janet Reilly told The Times that negotiation is still on the table — but not on the current "unacceptable" terms.
"The university remains willing to engage in a constructive and good-faith dialogue with the federal government but the University of California will always stand firm in protecting the integrity and values of our institution," Reilly said.
Mark Yudof, a former UC president who led the system from 2008 to 2013, believed negotiations were still likely.
"While litigation is certainly a possibility, my sense is that both sides will first try negotiating a settlement," Yudof said. He said the settlement UCLA came to with Jewish students in late July is "likely to be the initial framework for those discussions. Hard to say where it goes from there. The fact that UC is a public university system adds to the complexities."
Mitchell, the American Council on Education president and former top administrator of Occidental College, said a quick resolution would benefit both sides. He said a months-long process — as it's been between Harvard and Trump — would have the potential for "great harm."
"These things, the longer they go on, the worse they get," he said.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Comments