President Donald Trump has demanded a $1 billion fine from the University of California system over what his administration claims is antisemitism in UCLA’s handling of last year’s Gaza-related student protests.
The amount is five times the settlement Columbia University reportedly paid to resolve similar federal accusations. Officials say the fine would be crippling for the UC system, which runs 10 campuses including UCLA.
UC President James Milliken confirmed on Friday that the demand had been received. “As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system, as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians,” he said.
“Americans across this great nation rely on the vital work of UCLA and the UC system for technologies and medical therapies that save lives, grow the US economy, and protect our national security,” he added.
Reports indicate the Trump administration is also pushing for a $172 million claims fund to compensate Jewish students and others allegedly affected by discrimination.
The UC system, often ranked among the top public universities in the US, is already dealing with a more than $500 million freeze on medical and science grants at UCLA.
The White House appears to be following the same strategy it used with Columbia University, which agreed to federal conditions including a ban on considering race in admissions and hiring. Harvard University is reportedly facing similar pressure.
Pro-Palestinian protests in 2024 spread across dozens of US campuses, leading to police crackdowns and clashes at institutions such as Columbia and UCLA. Then-president Joe Biden had insisted that “order must prevail.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who sits on the UC board and is a frequent critic of Trump, urged the university not to bow to the pressure. “There’s right and wrong, and we’ll do the right thing,” he told reporters.
“This is about our competitiveness. It’s about the fate and future of this country. It’s about our sovereignty. It’s about so much more than the temperament of an aggrieved individual who happens to currently be president of the United States,” he said.
Newsom added, “I’ll do everything in my power to encourage them to do the right thing and not to become another law firm that bends on their knees, another company that sells their soul, or another institution that takes the easy wrong versus the hard right.”
