University of California faculty, staff and student organizations and labor unions have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, saying the federal government is using civil rights laws to wage a campaign against the university to curtail acad…
SAN FRANCISCO — The Trump administration is using civil rights laws to wage a campaign against the University of California in an attempt to curtail academic freedom and undermine free speech, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by faculty, staff, student organizations and every labor union representing UC workers.
The lawsuit comes weeks after the Trump administration fined the University of California, Los Angeles $1.2 billion and froze research funding after accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus and other civil rights violations. It was the first public university to be targeted with a widespread funding freeze. The administration has frozen or paused federal funding over similar allegations against elite private colleges, including Harvard, Brown and Columbia.
According to the lawsuit, the Trump administration has made several demands in its proposed settlement offer to UCLA, including giving government access to faculty, student, and staff data, releasing admissions and hiring data, ending diversity scholarships, banning overnight demonstrations on university property and cooperating with immigration enforcement.
The Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the office of the UC system’s president.
Stett Holbrook, a spokesman for the University of California system, said that while the university is not involved in the lawsuit, it is part of numerous legal and advocacy efforts to restore and maintain funding.
“Federal cuts to research funding threaten lifesaving biomedical research, hamper U.S. economic competitiveness and jeopardize the health of Americans who depend on the University’s cutting-edge medical science and innovation,” he said in a statement.
