US judge bars Trump from cutting off University of California funds | US news
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding and threatening heavy fines at the University of California, as the administration attempts to force elite U.S. universities to embrace and promote conservative ideals.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction Friday evening, saying the government was not authorized to demand payments from the California school system because of the administration’s allegations that it is violating civil rights by permitting anti-Semitism and practicing affirmative action.
In his ruling, Lin said the plaintiffs — who include UC professors, researchers and students — submitted “overwhelming evidence” illustrating the Trump administration’s “concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left-wing,’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our nation’s leading universities.”
Lin ruled that the government had a “strategy of launching civil rights investigations” into universities in order to cut federal funding, “bringing universities to their knees and forcing them to change their ideological tone.”
In July, the Trump administration froze $584 million in federal funding for the University of California, Los Angeles, while accusing the university of discrimination and civil rights violations in its handling of 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The administration claimed that UCLA “acted with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”
In October, the administration proposed a deal to nine leading U.S. universities promising funding in exchange for school-imposed policies and changes, including banning race or gender as admissions considerations and hiring and eliminating departments that “punish, demean, and even incite violence against conservative ideas.”
Although the University of California school system was not offered this deal, the University of Southern California – a private institution – was.
California Governor Gavin Newsom responded to the offer by warning that any California university that signed Trump’s proposed settlement would lose its state funding.
Democracy Forward, a progressive legal advocacy group, called the Trump administration’s efforts to influence policy at universities “strong-arm tactics.”
“This is not only a nefarious attempt to stifle speech, it is a betrayal of the constitution and a dangerous step toward autocracy,” the group said in a statement.
