On Nov. 14 the faculty and staff of the University of California won a significant victory over President Trump in his effort to fine UCLA $1.2 billion for resisting his efforts to bend the university to his ideological demands.<\/p>\n
Finding that the plaintiffs submitted \u201coverwhelming evidence\u201d<\/a> that Trump and his cabinet members pursued a campaign of cutting off government funding with the goal of \u201cbringing universities to their knees and forcing them to change their ideological tune,\u201d federal Judge Rita Lin of San Francisco blocked the fine and nearly $600 million in funding cuts. She ordered the money to start flowing again. <\/p>\n Lin\u2019s ruling resembles those by other federal judges who blocked Trump\u2019s funding cutoffs. Faculty and staff representatives, with the American Assn. of University Professors as the lead plaintiff<\/a>, justly celebrated the UC injunction, even though it\u2019s likely that the government will appeal. <\/p>\n It may be hard for an educational institution to ride this out until 2029. For an institution that budgets on an annual basis, three years is a long time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u2014 Dan Schnur, UC Berkeley<\/p>\n But two entities with an interest in the case\u2019s outcome have been silent: the state of California and UC itself. Neither joined the AAUP lawsuit, which was filed in September, and neither has commented since. <\/p>\n It\u2019s not as though the state and the university are blind to the potential impact of Trump\u2019s funding cutoff. When Trump\u2019s demands and threats were made public in August, Gov. Newsom termed them \u201cextortion\u201d and threatened to sue. UC President James B. Milliken said the announced cuts would be a \u201cdeath knell for innovative work<\/a> that saves lives, grows our economy and fortifies our national security.\u201d <\/p>\n Get the latest from Michael Hiltzik <\/p>\n Addressing the UC Board of Regents at its meeting Wednesday, Milliken stated that the university system still faces the loss of more than $1 billion in federal research funding<\/a>, but didn\u2019t mention the AAUP lawsuit.<\/p>\n UC reportedly has continued negotiations with the White House. A UC spokesperson wouldn\u2019t comment on any such talks, even to confirm them. A spokesman for Gov. Newsom said he\u2019s closely watching the numerous court cases challenging Trump\u2019s funding threats, and \u201che\u2019s pleased with the recent court rulings affirming that Trump\u2019s assault on California\u2019s world-class research institutions was reckless and illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s keep in mind what\u2019s at stake in this battle. The University of California is the premier public university system in the nation. It\u2019s the second-largest employer in the state<\/a> and one of the most important providers of healthcare. The productivity of its research is spectacular. Much of the universities\u2019 work is supported by the government \u2014 $17 billion a year,<\/a> including matching Medicaid and Medicare funding and student aid. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were hopeful that the UC system would defend itself legally,\u201d says Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Irvine and general counsel to the AAUP. After UCLA published the administration\u2019s 27-page list of demands<\/a> in August, she says, the AAUP decided it couldn\u2019t wait any longer: \u201cWe couldn\u2019t not sue, they were so outrageous.\u201d <\/p>\n The demands included bans on diversity programs, public demonstrations across much of the campus and provisions for transgender students. UCLA also would be required to refuse admission to foreign students \u201clikely to engage in anti-Western, anti-American, or antisemitic disruptions,\u201d and to comply with Trump\u2019s ban on \u201cgender ideology\u201d <\/a>\u2014 that is, defining males and females as anything other than the sex they were assigned at birth.<\/p>\n The state and the UC system haven\u2019t entirely avoided legal jousting with Trump. California led seven other states into federal court to challenge the Dept. of Education\u2019s termination of $65 million in grants funding programs that included diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. They won at the trial level, but the Supreme Court stayed that ruling<\/a> on grounds that the case may have been brought in the wrong federal court.<\/p>\n The regents also joined a lawsuit brought by the Assn. of American Universities and 13 other universities challenging the Dept. of Health and Human Services limit on reimbursements for overhead costs on government-funded research, which would cost universities billions of dollars. They won at the trial level, but the government appealed that ruling. The state also sued Trump or participated in lawsuits on other topics.<\/p>\n One can understand, even sympathize with, the reluctance of UC to pursue a courtroom fight over Trump\u2019s demands. UC faces the same quandary as other institutions that have tried to reach accords with the administration. <\/p>\n Trump has almost unlimited tools at his discretion to harass his adversaries for years to come through endless \u201cinvestigations\u201d of purported statutory violations, among other things. Courtroom battles take time and money, resources that may never be recovered. Plus with a pro-Trump majority on the Supreme Court, ultimate victory is nothing like a certainty. <\/p>\n And while Trump\u2019s term won\u2019t last beyond January 2029, at which point his anti-university campaign might end, that may be cold comfort for institutions facing an immediate financial crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cIt may be hard for an educational institution to ride this out until 2029,\u201d says Dan Schnur, a veteran political consultant on the faculty of UC Berkeley\u2019s Institute of Governmental Studies. \u201cFor an institution that budgets on an annual basis, three years is a long time, and for a student, it\u2019s three-fourths of an undergraduate experience.\u201d<\/p>\n That brings us to the case the UC faculty and staff made in court<\/a>. It\u2019s as clear and concise a description of the noxious campaign Trump has conducted against American higher education that one will find anywhere. It was accepted almost in its entirety by Judge Lin.<\/p>\n The administration consistently has portrayed the funding cutoffs as a response to what it claims to be pervasive antisemitism at UCLA and other targeted campuses. Yet as federal Judge Allison D. Burroughs of Boston found in September when she blocked Trump\u2019s grant terminations against Harvard, it\u2019s \u201cdifficult to conclude anything other than that [the government] used antisemitism as a smokescreen<\/a> for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country\u2019s premier universities.\u201d <\/p>\n Indeed, the UC plaintiffs show that the funding cutoffs were motivated purely by ideology, and flagrantly infringed on free speech rights. Just a week after Trump\u2019s inauguration, the White House issued an order<\/a> suspending all financial disbursements that involved \u201cDEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.\u201d (\u201cDEI\u201d refers to programs aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion, a favored target of the right.) <\/p>\n The faculty lawsuit quotes Leo Terrell, an assistant attorney general for civil rights and a named defendant, telling Fox News, \u201cThe academic system in this country has been hijacked by the left, has been hijacked by the Marxists.\u201d He said, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna bankrupt these universities. We\u2019re gonna take away every single dollar.\u201d In an interview he said he had \u201ctargeted 10 schools. Columbia, Harvard, Michigan, UCLA, USC… We\u2019re going to take away [their] funding.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit positions the administration\u2019s campaign against UCLA against its similar attacks on funding at Columbia, Brown and Harvard. It also points to the folly of trying to settle with Trump out of court. <\/p>\n\n