A group of 21 unions and faculty associations representing more than 100,000 University of California employees sued President Trump on Tuesday, alleging he is illegally forcing “ideological dominance” over a UC education, has violated the constitution and endangered jobs by suspending research grants and seeking a $1.2-billion fine against UCLA.
The suit, filed in San Francisco-based federal court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the government’s swift actions against UCLA and the UC system violate employee’s free speech and due process rights. The Department of Justice — which has accused UCLA of not doing enough to stop campus antisemitism — is demanding an overhaul of UCLA policies on hiring, admissions, sports, scholarships, diversity and gender identity.
The suit also claims the government has violated the 10th Amendment, which says powers not given the federal government by the Constitution are reserved for states and the American people. The Trump administration is attempting to “take over day-to-day management” of UC via “coercion” by threatening to cut into the system’s $17 billion in annual federal funding if it does not conform to demands, the suit alleges.
A Department of Justice spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The action is the second suit against the Trump administration filed independently by UC faculty and workers on behalf of colleagues as they aim to reverse federal grant cuts and block government demands to push UC’s mission and values to the right on race, diversity, LGBTQ+ communities and immigration.
“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,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Assn. of University Professors. The organization, which is affiliated with faculty groups on UC campuses, is among the parties that sued.
UC President James B. Milliken has called the more than $500 million in UCLA grant cuts and the proposed fine a “devastating” existential threat to the university system. But he and the UC negotiating team have so far avoided suing the Trump administration.
Tuesday’s legal action represents the mounting frustration among many UC employees over the pace and closed-door status of negotiations that will affect the future of the nation’s top public university system.
“We’re doing this because the UC administration has not yet,” said Anna Markowitz, president of the UCLA Faculty Assn., one of the groups that sued.
Markowitz, an associate professor in UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, said the “goal is to have the UC administration be in a position of strength to begin taking their own actions to fight back. We certainly hope they join us in this suit because we understand they are under intense pressure from the federal government.”
Attorneys filed the suit a day after Milliken publicly warned that the “threat that looms” would be “minor in comparison” to current cutbacks at UCLA and other campuses as the Trump administration continues investigations across the 10-university system.
“The fact is that we are in uncharted waters,” Milliken wrote in a UC-wide message Monday, saying that, in its conflict with Trump, the university faced one of the “gravest threats” of its 157-year history.
Union members and lawsuit supporters plan to rally Tuesday afternoon at UC San Francisco, where the UC board of regents holds its first public meetings since mid-July, before Trump actions against UCLA multiplied.
On Thursday, a pivotal hearing will also take place in a separate UC-Trump case in a San Francisco federal district court. That case was filed by UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley faculty months ago after the government canceled their individual grants.
U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin ruled last month that an injunction in the class-action suit required the U.S. to release $81 million in frozen National Science Foundation grants to UCLA. This week’s hearing will focus on the largest chunk of federal grants to UCLA, about $500 million in NIH funding.
Tuesday’s 123-page complaint covers nearly every aspect of the Trump administration’s foray into UC. While the suit is focused on federal actions against UCLA, it argues that actions at the Westwood campus affect the UC system as a whole, and that demands to remake UCLA could affect swaths of UC employees. It also cites grant cuts or campus changes at campuses, including Davis and San Diego, prior to the federal UCLA shakedown.
In addition, the lawsuit says the government has violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates executive branch rule-making.
The suit cites workers — from faculty and Ph.D. students to librarians and nurses — across the system who have faced grant cuts, budget reductions, layoffs, and alleged curtailing of free speech rights as UC leaders respond to federal directives and funding eliminations related to race, diversity, sexual orientation and gender identity while trying to avoid a campus-by-campus repeat of the more than $500 million in Trump grant cuts at UCLA.
Those suspensions were made under allegations that UCLA does not respond adequately to antisemitism complaints, uses race in admissions and goes against Trump’s view that transgender people should not be recognized by their gender identity.
UCLA says it has made changes to improve campus climate for Jewish communities and does not use race in admissions. It’s chancellor, Julio Frenk, says de-funding medical research “does nothing” to address discrimination allegations. The university has websites and policies that recognize different gender identities and it maintains services for LGBTQ+ communities.
Tuesday’s suit alleges Trump is engaged in a “scheme of targeting, bullying, and unconstitutional actions” that focus on “arbitrary, ideologically driven, and unlawful use of financial coercion” to foist a conservative “ideological dominance” on UC education, hospitals and labs across the state.
“Today, we join the workers of the UC in standing up against federal extortion, job loss, attacks on our students, bans on speech and expression — and against any effort to dismantle core public values that have made the UC great,” said Markowitz, the UCLA Faculty Assn. president.
The groups that sued include faculty associations from each campus as well as the UAW 4811 academic workers union, the AFSCME 3299 union — representing patient care technical and service employees — the California Nurses Assn. and several other organizations.
Among those supporting the case is UCLA occupational therapist Ursula Quinn. Citing the government’s proposed settlement, Quinn said agreeing to it “would be devastating for researchers, healthcare workers, and the whole UC community… We’re already understaffed and under-resourced. Surrendering this money to Trump would send a terrible moral signal to people who work here and could trickle down to impact patient care.”
UC leaders have made clear they will not pay the $1.2-billion fine — saying it would be “devastating” to all of UC — and said they will not violate UCLA’s mission or values to serve all Californians. But leaders have offered minimal public details on how they will respond to the government’s August settlement proposal.
Privately, leaders have said many of the Trump demands cross red lines and that negotiations are moving slowly.
But as federal actions against UC increase — including recent GOP demands for internal documents related to antisemitism allegations at UC San Francisco and at UC Berkeley — UC has indicated its concerns are growing for the future of the system.
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