A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from imposing a $1.2 billion fine on UCLA and stipulating deep renovations to the campus in exchange for eligibility for federal grants.
The decision is a major victory for colleges that have been fighting President Trump’s attempts to discipline “very bad” colleges, which he claims mistreat Jewish students, forcing them to pay hefty fines and agree to adhere to conservative standards.
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin in the Northern District of California temporarily renders moot almost all aspects of the more than 7,000-word settlement the federal government issued to the University of California in August after suspending $584 million in medical, scientific and energy research funding to the Los Angeles campus.
The government said it froze the funds after it found that UCLA violated the law by using race as a factor in admissions, recognizing the gender identity of transgender people and failing to take anti-Semitism complaints seriously during pro-Palestinian protests in 2024 — claims that UCLA denies.
The settlement proposal outlines broad changes aimed at pushing UCLA — and the University of California as a whole — ideologically to the right, calling for an end to diversity-related scholarships, restrictions on foreign student admissions, a declaration that transgender people do not exist, an end to gender-affirming health care for minors, the imposition of free speech restrictions and more.
“The government and its executive agencies are engaged in a concerted campaign to purge ‘woke’, ‘left’ and ‘socialist’ views from our country’s top universities,” Lin wrote in her opinion. “Agency officials, as well as the president and vice president, have repeatedly and publicly announced civil rights investigations of top universities to justify cutting off federal funding in an effort to bring the universities to their knees and force them to change their ideological tone. The universities were then presented with agreements to restore federal funding, under which they must change instructional content, limit student anonymity at protests, and support the administration’s gender perspective, among other things. The defendants have submitted nothing to the administration to refute this.”
Lin added: “There is no question that Cal is executing on this precise playbook.”
Universities including Columbia, Brown and Cornell have agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the government to redress alleged violations similar to those at UCLA. The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia have also reached agreements with the Trump administration, focusing respectively on ending recognition of transgender people and halting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Friday’s decision temporarily exempts the University of California system, which receives $17.5 billion in federal funding annually, from continuing negotiations with the federal government to avoid further funding cuts and restrictions across the system. UC President James B. Milliken said the $1.2 billion fine would “totally devastate” the University of California and that the system faced “one of the most serious threats in UC’s 157-year history” under attack from the Trump administration.
This isn’t the first time a judge has condemned the Trump administration’s higher education crusade. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Massachusetts ordered the administration in September to reverse billions of dollars in cuts to Harvard. But the case did not go directly into settlement talks.
Negotiations with the University of California have been slow. At a court hearing last week, a Justice Department attorney said there was “no evidence that any type of agreement with the United States will be reached in the near future.” The attorneys argued that the settlement offer was just an idea and had not yet been approved by the University of California.
Therefore, he said, it would be inappropriate to file a lawsuit. Lin disagrees.
“Plaintiffs’ harm is already very real. With each passing day, UCLA continues to be denied the opportunity to receive new grants, intensifying Defendants’ pressure campaign,” she wrote. “Many UC faculty and staff have submitted statements describing how the defendants’ actions have chilled rhetoric throughout the UC system.”
The case was brought by more than a dozen faculty unions and associations across UC’s 10 campuses, who say the federal government violated their First Amendment rights and constitutional due process rights. The University of California has avoided directly challenging the administration in court and is not involved in the lawsuit.
“This is not only a historic lawsuit brought by various UC unions and the faculty union, but it’s an incredible victory,” said Veena Dubal, a UC Irvine law professor and general counsel for one of the plaintiffs, the American Association of University Professors, whose members are spread across UC campuses.
Dubal called the decision “a turning point in the fight to save free speech and freedom of research in the best public school system in the world.”
Asked about Friday’s results, a spokesperson said the University of California “remains focused on the important work of driving innovation, advancing medical breakthroughs and enhancing the nation’s long-term competitiveness. The University of California remains committed to protecting the university’s mission, governance and academic freedom.”
Zoé Hamstead, chair of external relations and legal affairs for the UC Faculty Association Board of Governors, said she was “pleased that the court has affirmed our First Amendment rights.”
The group, an umbrella group of faculty associations across UC campuses, filed the lawsuit.
Hamstead, associate professor of urban and regional planning at UC Berkeley, said she is “extremely proud to be part of a coalition representing UC faculty, researchers and staff who are challenging growing authoritarianism in federal court.”
Anna Markowitz, an associate professor in the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies and president of the Los Angeles Campus Faculty Association, said her chapter is “extremely pleased with this decision, which will put a pause on the current federal overreach at UC.”
“UCLA faculty are honored to stand with this coalition, which continues to demonstrate that when faced with an administration that targets the heart of higher education, fighting back is the only option,” Markowitz said.
Lam’s injunction is not the final say in the case and she will go through the legal process to decide whether a permanent injunction is necessary. The government can also appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as it has done with other cases, including one brought by University of California researchers that reinstated funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, among others.
The Court of Appeal held a hearing on the case on Friday. Awaiting decision.
