The Trump administration is pursuing a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, according to a White House official on Friday, following accusations from the Department of Justice that the school engaged in antisemitism and breached other civil rights.
In a first against a public university, UCLA faces a widespread suspension of funds due to alleged civil rights violations, including antisemitism and affirmative action issues.
President Donald Trump’s administration has previously withheld federal funding under similar accusations against prestigious private universities. Recent weeks have seen the administration reach financial settlements with Brown University for $50 million and Columbia University for $221 million, while still involved in a more extensive negotiation with Harvard University.
While a White House official has confirmed the settlement request, they did not provide specific details about other demands made of UCLA or further clarify the amount. The official, speaking under the condition of anonymity, was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
UCLA recently announced that $584 million in federal grants had been suspended by the Trump administration. This action followed a Civil Rights Division finding by the Department of Justice that UCLA violated both the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 due to “deliberate indifference” towards creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.
The university faced significant backlash regarding its management of a protest encampment related to the 2024 Israel-Hamas conflict. One evening, counterprotesters attacked the encampment, deploying traffic cones and pepper spray, leading to violent clashes that lasted for hours and resulted in injuries to over a dozen individuals, before police intervened. The following day saw the arrest of more than 200 people after large numbers defied orders to vacate. Subsequently, Jewish students reported being obstructed by protesters when trying to attend classes.
An attack on California?
The University of California’s president, James B. Milliken, said Friday the university had “just received” a document from the Department of Justice and would review it. He said the size of the proposed settlement would “devastate” the University of California, whose campuses are viewed as some of the top public colleges in the nation.
“Earlier this week, we offered to engage in good faith dialogue with the Department to protect the University and its critical research mission,” said Milliken, who started as president last week. “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 Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday accused Trump of trying to silence academic freedom in his attack on such a prestigious public university system.
“He has threatened us through extortion with a billion-dollar fine unless we do his bidding,” Newsom told reporters. Apparently referencing the settlements with Columbia and Brown, he added: “We will not be like some of those other institutions that have followed a different path.”
The $1 billion demand in the UCLA settlement is linked to Newsom’s status as one of Trump’s most outspoken foes, said Peter McDonough, vice president and general counsel at the American Council on Education, an association of college presidents.
“Anyone who thinks this appalling demand is not blatantly political and ideological has their head in the sand,“ McDonough said. “Of course it’s influenced by the fact that UCLA sits within the California system and the California system sits within the state of California.”
Settlements with Trump, and in court
The Trump administration has used its control of federal funding to push for reforms at elite colleges that the president decries as overrun by liberalism and antisemitism. The administration also has launched investigations into diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, saying they discriminate against white and Asian American students.
Last month, Columbia University agreed to pay $200 million as part of a settlement to resolve investigations into the government’s allegations that the school violated federal antidiscrimination laws. The agreement also restored more than $400 million in research grants.
The Trump administration is using its deal with Columbia as a template for other universities, with financial penalties that are now seen as an expectation. For instance, the administration is pressing for a deal that would require Harvard to pay far more than Columbia’s $200 million. Harvard leaders have been negotiating with the White House even as they battle in court to regain access to billions in federal research funding terminated by the Trump administration.
UCLA has already reached one settlement about the 2024 protests. The university agreed last week to pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit from three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who argued the university violated their civil rights by allowing pro-Palestinian protesters to block their access to classes and other areas on campus in 2024.
UCLA initially had argued that it had no legal responsibility over the issue because protesters, not the university, blocked Jewish students’ access to areas. The university also worked with law enforcement to thwart attempts to set up new protest camps.
But in a preliminary injunction a year earlier, U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi disagreed and ordered UCLA to create a plan to protect Jewish students on campus. The University of California has since created systemwide campus guidelines on protests, with an Office of Campus and Community Safety at UCLA.
As part of the settlement, UCLA said it will contribute $2.3 million to eight organizations that combat antisemitism and support the university’s Jewish community. UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, whose Jewish father and grandparents fled Nazi Germany to Mexico and whose wife is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, also launched an initiative to combat antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias.
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AP writer Julie Watson contributed to this report.
