The Trump administration is pursuing a US$1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), according to a White House official on Friday (Aug. 8). This move comes weeks after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that the university engaged in antisemitism and other civil rights violations.
The administration has already frozen or suspended federal funding to several elite private universities over similar allegations. Recent settlements include US$50 million from Brown University and US$221 million from Columbia University. Negotiations with Harvard University are ongoing over an even larger settlement amount.
UCLA is the first public university to face a large-scale freeze of federal funds.
The controversy stems from UCLA's handling of protests related to the 2024 Israel-Hamas conflict, during which activists camped on campus. The DOJ's Civil Rights Division released its findings on July 29, concluding that UCLA violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students."
James B. Milliken, the University of California's president, confirmed receipt of the DOJ's findings and pledged to review them. However, he warned that the proposed settlement could devastate UCLA's ability to function as one of the nation's leading public universities.
"Earlier this week, we offered to engage in good faith dialogue with the Department to protect the University and its critical research mission," Milliken said. "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."
California Governor Gavin Newsom accused Trump of attempting to suppress academic freedom by targeting the renowned public university system. "He (Trump) has threatened us through extortion with a billion-dollar fine unless we do his bidding," Newsom said.
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