UC Employees Fight $1.2B Fine, Say Trump Seeks ‘Ideological Dominance’

A group of unions and associations representing more than 100,000 University of California employees sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, claiming its suspension of federal research funding and a subsequent proposed settlement amounts to "financial coercion" and forcing "ideological dominance" over one of the nation's most prominent public university systems.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, claims that the government's actions against UCLA and the UC system violates employees' free speech and due process rights, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The lawsuit comes after Trump's Department of Justice accused UCLA of not doing enough to stop what it calls antisemitism on campus.

Federal officials proposed an agreement in which UCLA would pay the government $1.2 billion to settle the matter and restore research funding that was frozen by the administration in the summer.

• Read more: Trump Demands $1B From UCLA — Enough To 'Completely Devastate' UC System

The settlement proposal also calls for UCLA to drastically overhaul practices on everything from hiring and admissions to curriculum, the Times reported.

The DOJ is calling on UCLA to ensure so-called "anti-Western" foreign students are not admitted, declare that transgender people's identities are no longer recognized, end gender-affirming care for minors at medical facilities and give the government access to “all UCLA staff, employees, facilities, documents, and data related to the agreement," according to the Times.

Tuesday's lawsuit filed by the coalition seeks a court order to block the Trump administration from further use of financial threats to "coerce" the UC system to accede to demands that plaintiffs allege will harm faculty, staff and students, in violation of the Constitution and existing law.

"We will not stand by as the Trump administration tries to destroy one of the largest public university higher education systems in the country and bludgeons academic freedom at the University of California, the heart of the revered free speech movement," Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, said in a statement.

Wolfson's organization, which is affiliated with faculty groups on UC campuses, is among plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

According to the plaintiffs, the Trump administration has attempted to implement a playbook to threaten colleges and universities based on a disdain for the institutions' curriculum, the nature and content of the activity that has taken place at those institutions, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs and initiatives.

"In America, there is no king," said Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, a legal organization representing the coalition of unions and faculty associations.

"Under our Constitution, the President cannot force people to think like he does, believe like he does, nor be exposed to only the ideas he agrees with. Yet, he's trying to do just that. The Trump-Vance administration's attempt to stop students, faculty, and staff at UC campuses from exercising their First Amendment rights and to unlawfully seek to intimidate educational institutions is a callous dismissal of one of the most important pillars of our democracy."

The Department of Justice's settlement proposal comes after it announced it determined UCLA violated the rights of Jewish and Israeli students by failing to "adequately respond to complaints of severe, pervasive and objectively offensive harassment and abuse" between Oct. 7, 2023, and the present.

UCLA soon after agreed to a $6 million fine connected to the finding.

Some UCLA students had complained of antisemitic incidents on the campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. The complaints increased during Israel's ongoing war in Gaza, which Gaza officials said in June has left 55,000 Palestinians dead.

Campus protests included a large pro-Palestinian encampment that was ultimately dismantled in an overnight police raid that ended with hundreds of arrests.

City News Service contributed to this report.