Judge blocks feds from freezing California education funding

By Esther Wickham
The Center Square

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from freezing University of California’s federal funding over alleged violation of anti-discrimination laws.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction last week.

Nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden, Lin ruled that the federal government is barred from restricting funds to UC because the university system does not “endorse the administration,” the ruling stated.

In her decision, Lin wrote that a UC plaintiff had provided “overwhelming evidence” that the Trump administration was “engaged in a concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities.”

“The undisputed record demonstrates that Defendants have engaged in coercive and retaliatory conduct in violation of the First Amendment and Tenth Amendment,” Lin added.

In August, the Trump administration froze over $500 million in federal research funding over claims of antisemitism on the college’s campus.

Faculty, students, and unions within the University of California system sued the Trump administration, arguing that the funding freeze at UCLA violated the First Amendment. The lawsuit was filed by the American Association of University Professors, representing those groups.

“Agency officials, as well as the President and Vice President, have repeatedly and publicly announced a playbook of initiating civil rights investigations of preeminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding, with the goal of bringing universities to their knees and forcing them to change their ideological tune,” Lin wrote.

Her injunction also prohibits the administration from “conditioning the grant or continuance of federal funding on the UC’s agreement to any measures that would violate the rights of Plaintiffs’ members under the First Amendment.”

Over the summer, the administration demanded that the University of California, Los Angeles pay $1.2 billion to restore the frozen research funding and ensure eligibility for future grants, after accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus.

“This represents one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history,” UC President James Milliken said.

The Trump administration has previously settled with universities after funding freezes, such as Brown University for $50 million and Columbia University for $221 million.