Trump administration demands UCLA pay $1.2 billion and restrict student freedoms.
Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
Details of the Trump administration’s demands for UCLA — in addition to the previously reported $1.2 billion in payments requested by the federal government — are finally being revealed. A lawsuit filed by the UC faculty union forced the higher education system to release a copy of the draft resolution, revealing provisions that UC first faced nearly three months ago.
The Trump administration has asked UCLA not to admit “foreign students who may engage in anti-Western, anti-American or anti-Semitic disruption or harassment.” In the same paragraph, the proposed settlement agreement says UCLA must “hold international students in compliance with campus norms committed to free inquiry and open debate.”
The federal government has also asked UCLA to ban nightly campus demonstrations and require masked campus protesters to reveal their identities when asked.
Several provisions seek to restrict the rights of transgender people. The document calls for the UCLA School of Medicine and affiliated hospitals to cease “hormonal intervention and ‘gender reassignment’ surgery” on anyone under the age of 18; to stop allowing transgender women to compete on women’s sports teams; to strip transgender female athletes of records, awards and other recognition; and to offer personal apologies to cisgender women ranked below transgender athletes.
California voters banned affirmative action in public education nearly 30 years ago, but the demand letter indicates the Trump administration believes UCLA is not complying. It would require UCLA to prohibit providing information about a candidate’s race, gender, ethnicity or other protected characteristics to faculty or other UCLA personnel with hiring, retention, promotion or tenure decision-making authority.
Other provisions address affirmative action in recruiting and student admissions, including one that reads: “UCLA shall discontinue scholarships based on race and ethnicity.” The proposed agreement states that “agents used to achieve results based on race or sex” are not permitted in select scholarship programs and prohibits the use of such undefined agents in recruiting and admissions.
The document comes after the University of California said in early August it would negotiate with the federal government, citing at least three different federal agencies that had announced a hold on an estimated $584 million in funding. The freeze on funds follows a July 29 letter from the Justice Department to UC, saying it had launched a months-long investigation across the system that had so far concluded that UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in its response to pro-Palestinian protest camps in the spring of 2024.
It’s yet another example of the Trump administration accusing a selective university of tolerating anti-Semitism and cutting off hundreds of millions in federal funding. But unlike Harvard and Columbia, UCLA is a public institution, and its attack by the federal government represents an expansion of the government’s campaign to reform higher education.
Last week, the University of Virginia became the first known public institution to reach a settlement with the government over discrimination claims. The settlement requires no payment, but commits, among other things, that UVA will not use racial proxies; end all diversity, equity and inclusion programming; and ban transgender athletes from participating in sports.
Media earlier reported some of the administration’s demands on UCLA, but university officials did not make the details public until Friday, when the UCLA Faculty Association and the UCLA Board of Governors filed a lawsuit to force them to do so.
“Accepting these demands would undermine everything that makes UC a successful engine of social mobility and economic strength in our state,” Anna Markowitz, president of the UCLA Faculty Association, wrote in an email. “It will harm undergraduate learning opportunities and hinder UC’s ability to be an academic leader on the international stage. It places ideology at the core of the institution rather than decades of experience and scholarly understanding. We oppose this blackmail.”
“UCLA FA and UCLA FA have stood with our union colleagues from the beginning and called for no negotiations,” Markowitz said. University administration, she said, “is facing tremendous federal pressure,” and she urged them to resist — “especially since legal actions by other faculty and staff have resulted in the reinstatement of nearly all temporarily suspended federal funding.”
In fact, UC spokesperson Stett Holbrook wrote in an email: Inside higher education Monday, “As for terminated federal research funding, the number is in the tens of millions of dollars” — a far cry from the $584 million estimated in August.
He issued a statement saying, “UC has made clear that it must evaluate its response to the administration’s settlement proposal, which, like all settlement communications, is confidential. As stated, the proposed $1.2 billion settlement payment alone would undermine efforts to save lives, grow the economy, and strengthen national security. UC remains committed to protecting the university’s mission, governance, and academic freedom.”
White House and Justice Department officials did not respond to interview requests or written questions Monday.
