Judge: Trump Can’t Cut UC Funding. UC Leaders Still Negotiate

A poster reads “UCLA Faculty for a Free Palestine” as faculty and staff members demonstrate with students at the University of California, Los Angeles on May 1, 2024. Photo: Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images

In a landmark ruling last Friday, a federal judge indefinitely barred the Trump administration from fining or cutting funds to the University of California system over the government’s bogus claims of antisemitism and discrimination.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin was unequivocal that the Trump administration, which has demanded over a $1.2 billion settlement from the UC system and already cut over $600 million in federal funding, was “engaged in a concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left,’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities.”

The “playbook,”