UCLA to negotiate more than $339 million in medical and science grants with Trump

As federal agencies surprised UCLA by freezing approximately $339 million in research grants, faculty, graduate workers and students are looking for details about the university — what the first public higher education institution targeted by President Trump will do.

Will UCLA challenge the federal government in court to negotiate and potentially pay fines and leverage emergency reserves to support researchers? Like Columbia, Harvard and other elite universities, will UCLA be forced to fire employees?

When Trump fought to remake college, the administration accused UCLA of illegally allowing anti-Semitism, using race in admissions, and having transgender players on sports teams that match gender identity. The Ivy League schools are also criticized by the government’s reaction to last year’s pro-Palestinian camp.

Senior executives outlined a virtual town hall, with about 3,000 faculty members participating on Monday and at department-level meetings, including at UCLA Medical School, which lost hundreds of grants from the National Institutes of Health.

But they warned that there was no final decision.

“There is a time period that can solve the government’s problems with us,” UCLA Research Administration vice president Marcia L. Smith said in the virtual town hall. Smith said leaders are “preparing” to contact the NIH, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, and frozen about 800 grants in the past few days last week — “talk about what kind of information they need to remove these suspensions.”

Smith said she was “very promising” and UCLA would “find a solution.”

Negotiation terms are unclear

There is no mention of the possibility that the University of California will earn payments like Columbia, which last month agreed to an exhaustive agreement with Trump to resume the suspended grant. UC serves as a system to be responsible for federal relations between UCLA and nine other campuses.

Against the backdrop of Monday’s The Times, three senior UC leaders responded to a similar message: UCLA may hold negotiations, but it’s too early to determine the terms. Officials have no right to speak publicly about internal deliberation.

Negotiations will not rule out potential litigation, they said.

“Every public agency nationwide is watching us very carefully,” UCLA vice president Roger Wakimoto said at the town hall on Monday, adding later: “We are not setting the pace at the gate.”

“It’s not only UCLA’s decision, but of course, our prime minister will be closely involved in any path forward we decide, but it will also involve the Regent of the University of California,” Wakimoto said.

Wakimoto and UCLA leaders also said other UC campuses are also providing assistance, including caring for laboratory animals that may need assistance.

UCLA will pay a “heavy price”

Last week’s grant suspension affected research in neuroscience, clean energy, cancer and other fields, following the Justice Department and our ATTY. General Pam Bondi said the UCLA was complaining about the civil rights of anti-Semitic events since October 7, 2023, with “deliberate and unrelenting” actions against Jews and Israeli students.

The Justice Department gave UCLA until Tuesday that it would negotiate the findings. Otherwise, a letter to the UC said the Trump administration will file a lawsuit by September 2. The letter was sent two days before federal agencies began notifying UCLA Prime Minister Julio Frenk.

In a statement since last week, Frenk challenged the idea that UCLA’s so-called anti-Semitism is a reason for obtaining grants.

“The fine for life-saving research does not solve any so-called discrimination … we have a contingency plan and we are doing everything we can,” Frenke said.

In a video posted to social media on Monday, Milliken did not directly address the suspension, but widely mentioned the “challenges” facing the university.

“The challenges and changes faced by higher education are greater than any time in my career,” Milliken said. “At the same time, I know that our work is essential to improving lives, enhancing the economy and providing lifesaving health care, more so than ever before. The future of our country, nation and world depends on thriving, innovative and accessible universities.”

Teachers require active defense

Hundreds of teachers have their own ideas.

In petitions spread across UCLA and UC campuses, professors asked UC to challenge more positive challenges from the government. More and more people sign.

“We don’t have to succumb to the Trump administration’s illegal and unbelief demands… We demand the University of California in the strongest terms that prove our strength as the world’s largest university system and rejected the Trump administration’s malicious demands,” said the petition by UCLA faculty Assn. As of Monday afternoon, the petition had received more than 600 signatures, most of which came from UCLA professors.

“We demand that the UC name these demands as what they are: efforts to erode the strength of American higher education. Each university that falsers legitimates the Trump administration’s attacks on all of our institutions of higher education and we must stand up now. To protect our democracy we must protect our universities. Only when academic workers and the community as a whole collectively organize can we fight back against the threat to our campuses and our democracy,” the petition said.

This also makes another suggestion: UC uses the gap left by the moratorium to bridge billions of unlimited endowments. University leaders have not yet made public whether this is on the desktop.

Carrie Bearden, a professor at the SEMEL Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and Brain at UCLA, is one of the signatures. She is now pending five-year, $2.36 billion in NIH training grants, which fund students engaged in neurogenic research.

“It’s a direct, terrible impact on all trainees. We don’t know what other funds will cover right now,” Bearden said. She said she was told by faculty and staff that she might expect further grant cancellations, which is the way the freezes occurred at East Coast University in recent months.

Vivek Shetty, professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery and biomedical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), also has a $828,154 four-year NIH Grant freeze. His renewal has been 11 years and focuses on training digital health researchers, such as those developing applications and wearables to quickly perform irregular heartbeats, daily diabetes control and remote care.

“Funding freezes the jeopardy of the great concern that will protect us and our families tomorrow,” said Shetty, former UCLA Academic Senate Chairman. “Starting these clever ideas to death today, we put out the entire life-saving idea. Public opposition at the University of California, regardless of its public objection, may acquiesce to Washington’s terminology and painfully realize the deep human and scientific costs of the harsh ordinance.”