UCLA in talks with Trump admin to reinstate $584 million in grants

By Maxwell Adler and Liam Knox

 

The University of California at Los Angeles said it has entered into negotiations with the Trump administration to reinstate about $584 million in frozen federal research funding. 

  The move came after the US Justice Department had given the school a Tuesday deadline to enter into a resolution agreement after a US investigation found UCLA violated federal civil rights laws by failing to stop antisemitic harassment on campus.   

“Our immediate goal is to see the $584 million in suspended and at-risk federal funding restored to the university as soon as possible,” James Milliken, president of the UC system, said in a statement Wednesday. 

 

The amount of frozen funding cited by Milliken was considerably higher than a $200 million estimate by California Governor Gavin Newsom last week. The freeze is affecting hundreds of grants from agencies including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

 

The DOJ said last week that UCLA acted with “deliberate indifference” to alleged targeting of Jewish and Israeli students after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. It had threatened to file a complaint in federal district court by Sept. 2 unless the school agreed to enter into talks.

 

UCLA became a flashpoint in spring 2024 as campus protests escalated nationwide over Israel’s war against Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by the US and the European Union. In addition to widespread allegations of anti-Jewish bigotry at the California school, at least 15 people were injured on campus in April of last year when pro-Israel counter-demonstrators attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment by launching fireworks and swinging metal rods. 

 

President Donald Trump’s administration has seized on campus unrest over the war in Gaza to step up civil-rights enforcement at universities across the US. While the administration’s efforts have focused largely on some of the nation’s most elite private universities — including Harvard, Cornell and Northwestern — they have also extended to the public sphere, with the 10-campus University of California system, including Berkeley, facing heightened scrutiny. 

 

Two Ivy League universities, Columbia and Brown, reached agreements with the White House in July after Trump froze hundreds of millions in federal research grants at the schools.  

 

At UCLA, Chancellor Julio Frenk said the university was receiving counsel to “actively evaluate our best course of action.”

 

“We are doing everything we can to protect the interests of faculty, students and staff — and to defend our values and principles,” Frenk wrote in a letter to students Wednesday. 

 

‘Death Knell’ 

In his statement disclosing the talks with the federal government, Milliken, who assumed his role overseeing the state system on Aug. 1, assailed the cuts, saying they “do nothing” to address antisemitism.

 

“The announced cuts would be a death knell for innovative work that saves lives, grows our economy, and fortifies our national security,” he said.

 

Michael Chwe, a political science professor who sits on the board of the UCLA Faculty Association, said the impact of the freezes are already being felt, especially in medical and engineering departments. 

 

“My colleagues who operate labs funded by NIH and NSF grants are saying they were told to stop work immediately last week,” Chwe said.

 

If UCLA entered into negotiations with the government like many Ivy League colleges, Chwe said, it would be “an absolute disaster.” He said he hopes that the university’s position is strengthened by support from the California state government — and Newsom, a Democrat who has positioned himself as an active antagonist to Trump.  

 

For some researchers at the university, the disaster is already here. Carrie Bearden, a clinical psychology professor, said the grant funding her lab’s work studying risk factors for severe adolescent mental illness was suspended. She doesn’t support a deal with the White House but said that for her staff whose jobs are dependent on that money the freeze was an “immediate crisis.” She said she stayed up until 2 a.m. on Tuesday looking for alternative funds. 

 

“We don’t have time to see what the administration will do,” she said, referring to the White House.

 

Last week Newsom called the UCLA freeze a “cruel manipulation” of antisemitism claims, saying cutting critical funding for research “makes our country less safe.”

 

Columbia agreed in July to pay $221 million and to appoint an independent monitor who will review the school’s compliance with federal laws in its hiring and admissions processes. Brown said it would pay $50 million over the next decade to support workforce development programs in its home state of Rhode Island, take steps to improve campus climate for Jewish students, and revise its policies on gender identity in line with new White House guidelines.