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University president says fine would ‘devastate’ UCLA
The Department of Justice’s proposed $1 billion fine to the University of California at Los Angeles over alleged antisemitism was met with fighting words by the state’s Democrat governor.
Meanwhile, a federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to restore grant funding to UCLA.
Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to sue the Trump administration Friday, describing the fine as “extortion,” KQED reports.
“He has threatened us through extortion with a billion-dollar fine unless we do his bidding. So as long as I am governor, I will stand tall and push back against that,” Newsom said.
A day earlier, the governor also suggested he may resign rather than watch UCLA comply with the Trump administration’s demands, as other universities have done.
“We’re not Brown, we’re not Columbia, and I’m not going to be governor if we act like that. Period. Full stop. I will fight like hell to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Newsom told reporters at a news conference, according to Breitbart.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump’s administration suspended more than $300 million in research grants to UCLA, citing alleged antisemitism and civil rights violations as the reasons, The College Fix reported.
On Tuesday, however, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ordered the National Science Foundation to restore the grants to UCLA, saying the Trump administration “had misleadingly framed its latest attempt to cancel the grants as suspensions,” the New York Times reports.
Lin also wrote that the $324 million in cuts “appeared designed more to suspend research the Trump administration has associated with liberal causes than to sincerely address concerns about racism or antisemitism,” according to the report.
However, the administration wants the public university to pay the fine and agree to several other changes in order for the grants to be restored, The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Trump is demanding $1 billion in California taxpayer dollars to avoid a lawsuit over the administration’s finding that the campus broke the law in its handling of antisemitism claims last year. Presumably the payout would mean the administration would also agree to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding it recently yanked. … Plus, according to terms of the proposed settlement as CNN reported Friday, Trump wants to prohibit overnight demonstrations, require UCLA to discontinue race- and ethnicity-based scholarships, and provide a resolution monitor with admissions data.
Another state Democrat lawmaker also urged the university to resist the Republican administration’s demands.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, issued a statement describing Trump as a “fascist” and a “mob boss.”
“The idea that UCLA would pay Trump tribute (California taxpayer dollars), adopt his bigoted policies, or give him even an ounce of control of the University’s operations turns my stomach and should turn the stomach of every Californian,” Wiener stated. “I’m confident UCLA will not enter into such an agreement, since doing so would violate California law, would violate our state’s core values, and would be straight up morally unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, University of California President James Milliken stated Friday that UCLA leaders are reviewing the demands by the Department of Justice, but the massive fine would “devastate” the institution.
“As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians,” Milliken said in a statement.
Two Ivy League universities, Brown and Columbia, recently agreed to pay hundreds of millions in fines in similar deals with the federal government.
However, Harvard has been fighting back, refusing to comply with the demands regarding antisemitism and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that the government alleges violate civil rights laws.
The federal government’s actions involve investigations into alleged breaches of anti-discrimination laws at some of the top universities across the U.S.
In July, UCLA agreed to a $6.13 million settlement to end a lawsuit filed by Jewish students who were blocked from accessing parts of the campus during raucous and violent anti-Israel protests in 2024, The Fix reported at the time.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include the judge’s ruling on UCLA’s grant funding.
MORE: Columbia to pay $200M to restore federal funds yanked over antisemitism
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks from a podium; Sheila Fitzgerald/Shutterstock
