A coalition of University of California faculty groups and employee unions sued the Trump administration Tuesday over the federal government’s efforts to “exert ideological control” over the system and its 10 institutions.
Over the past three months, the federal government has cut off at least $584 million in grants to the University of California, Los Angeles, sought $1 billion from the system to restore that funding and delivered a wide-ranging list of ultimatums that would dramatically reshape the state’s university system through political interference.
In their lawsuit, the coalition — which represented tens of thousands of faculty, staff and students within the university system — called the cuts unconstitutional and an “arbitrary, ideologically driven, and unlawful use of financial coercion” that threatened U.S. higher education and advancement.
“The administration has made clear its intention to commandeer this public university system and to purge from its campuses viewpoints with which the President and his administration disagree,” the lawsuit said.
“Campaign to control universities”
President Donald Trump began laying the groundwork for “his administration’s coordinated attack on academic freedom and free speech and campaign to control universities” shortly after retaking office in January, the lawsuit alleged.
Since then, Trump has put dozens of colleges on notice at once via civil rights investigations and targeted specific, often well-known institutions — such as Harvard University and Columbia University — that have invoked his ire.
“Rather than acknowledging educational institutions like the UC as the assets to this nation that they are, the Trump administration views them as barriers to the President’s agenda of ideological dominance,” the lawsuit said.
At the end of July, the U.S. Department of Justice ruled that UCLA had violated civil rights law by failing to adequately protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment. A week later, the federal government suspended $584 million in grants to UCLA over the allegations.
Tuesday’s lawsuit alleged DOJ picked and chose from university documents to make the argument it had wanted to from the start. For example, the agency relied heavily on an October report from UCLA that found antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias on its campus. But DOJ entirely failed to address the improvements UCLA had undertaken since — a factor similar to one cited by a federal judge when she struck down the Trump administration’s $2.2 billion funding freeze at Harvard earlier this month.
DOJ also did not explain what connection the specific research funding cuts had to alleged antisemitism, forcing all university employees to prepare “for the possibility of significant and immediate termination of funding,” the lawsuit said.
The University of California, one of the largest research systems in the country, derives a third of its annual operating budget — $17 billion — from federal funding, according to the lawsuit.
The Trump administration has also unlawfully disregarded the process by which the government can terminate or withhold federal funds, the lawsuit argued.
Addressing the cuts on Aug. 6, system President James Milliken said they did “nothing to address antisemitism,” but said the University of California would enter into negotiations with the Trump administration to have the funding restored.
In the event of a major loss of federal funding, the system would need, at minimum, between $4 million and $5 billion just to survive, Milliken told state lawmakers this month.
Dramatic and expensive ultimatums
On Aug. 8, two days after Milliken announced the forthcoming negotiations, the system received an unprecedented list of wide-ranging demands from the Trump administration tying its federal funding to total compliance, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs cited a copy of the list, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, which the University of California has not made public.
The letter would require UCLA to install a “resolution monitor” — appointed with final approval by the Trump administration — who would hold significant authority over campus affairs.
UCLA would also be forced to provide the federal government regular access to “a wide variety of records” on faculty, staff and students, “as deemed necessary by the resolution monitor.”
“The only exception is for attorney-client privilege, not for speech, association, or privacy purposes,” the lawsuit said.
The Trump administration also demanded that UCLA inhibit speech by its non-citizen students, enact policies to bar international students who are “likely to engage in anti-Western, anti-American, or antisemitic disruptions or harassment,” and implement required trainings to “socialize” international students to campus norms.
“In making these demands, the Trump administration is seeking to impose speech restrictions upon students, faculty, academic employees, and staff employees that would violate the First Amendment if imposed directly either by the university itself or by the federal government,” the lawsuit said.
UCLA would further be compelled to cooperate with all local and federal law enforcement, including immigration authorities, and enact specific restrictions on expressive activities and bar demonstrators from wearing masks.
In addition to the ultimatums, the university would have to pay, at minimum, $1 billion to restore the $584 million in grants.
The plaintiffs, along with state lawmakers, lambasted the proposed payment as extortion. The lawsuit argued that no federal agency has the authority to demand a $1 billion monetary penalty for civil rights violations and disputed the DOJ’s findings.
A legal blockade — maybe
Citing ongoing irreparable harm, the plaintiffs — who do not include the University of California or its institutions — are asking a federal court to block the cuts and coercive actions by the federal government while their case is heard.
The system and its universities have already begun “to alter its policies and practices seemingly in capitulation to the Trump administration,” resulting in a widespread chilling effect, the lawsuit said.
As examples, it listed a new policy allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanded access to the system’s medical centers and the University of California, Berkeley’s decision to turn over the names of 160 students and employees to the federal government.
Since receiving the Trump administration’s letter, UCLA has already begun bracing for more federal cuts.
Todd Wolfson, president of AAUP, framed the lawsuit as a move to combat “the authoritarian takeover of our universities.”
“We will not stand by as the Trump administration destroys one of the largest public university higher education systems in the country and bludgeons academic freedom at the University of California, the heart of the revered free speech movement,” Wolfson said in a Tuesday statement.
The list of plaintiffs includes:
- The American Association of University Professors.
- The American Federation of Teachers.
- AFSCME Local 3299.
- California Nurses Association and National Nurses United.
- Council of UC Faculty Associations.
- Faculty associations from each University of California campus.
- Teamsters Local 2010.
- International UAW.
- UAW Local 4811.
- University of California Los Angeles Faculty Association.
- University Council-AFT.
- UPTE-CWA 9119.
UCLA has already racked up one legal win against the federal government.
Last month, a federal judge ordered NSF to restore the funding it “indefinitely suspended” from UCLA in July — potentially hundreds of millions of dollars — allegedly over antisemitism concerns. The agency did not seek to appeal and said the funding has been reinstated.