Overview
- Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the suit is led by the AAUP and represented by Democracy Forward, alleging unlawful coercion that chills free speech and academic freedom.
- The case follows the administration’s $1.2 billion penalty against UCLA and a freeze of roughly $584 million in grants, after which a judge ordered release of about $81 million in NSF funds while large NIH and DOE sums remain paused.
- A leaked settlement proposal described sweeping requirements for UCLA, including broad data access, an end to certain diversity scholarships, limits on demonstrations, changes to transgender policies, cooperation with immigration enforcement, and oversight by an outside monitor.
- UC leaders call the federal actions one of the gravest threats to the system, which receives more than $17 billion a year, and the UC Office of the President says the university is not a party to the suit but is pursuing efforts to restore funding.
- UC Berkeley notified about 160 faculty, staff and students that their names appeared in materials provided to federal investigators, and prior settlements with Columbia and Brown illustrate a wider federal push using funding leverage.