The president last week froze hundreds of millions in federal funds to UCLA
Days after revoking $339 million in federal funding from the University of California, Los Angeles, the Trump administration is demanding a $1 billion settlement from the school over campus anti-Semitism and other civil rights violations, according to a Friday report.
Under the proposal, UCLA would pay $1 billion to the federal government in multiple installments, eliminate race-based scholarships, and share admissions data with a federal resolution monitor, CNN reported. The draft deal sent to the school also calls for single-sex housing for women, equal recognition for female athletes, and an end to sex-change operations at the university’s medical facilities.
The proposal also requires UCLA to pay an additional $172 million to compensate individuals affected by violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars employment discrimination based on race, religion, sex, or national origin.
A deal would mark the largest settlement that a university has reached with the Trump administration to date. In return, UCLA would regain its paused funding and be eligible for future federal grants and contracts. Last month, UCLA agreed to pay more than $6 million to settle a lawsuit from Jewish students and a professor who said the school permitted a hostile environment by allowing anti-Semitic protests.
The news comes just a week after the Trump administration withheld $339.2 million in federal funding from UCLA, as part of the president’s nationwide crackdown on anti-Semitism on college campuses.
Last year, UCLA saw one of the nation’s largest anti-Israel protests, sparking bipartisan criticism that the university failed to protect Jewish students and condoned pro-terrorist rhetoric. A federal judge blasted UCLA in a searing ruling last year, writing that school officials stood by as “Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.”
The school has also faced scrutiny over affirmative action policies and allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports.
UCLA “engages in racism, in the form of illegal affirmative action,” “fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias,” and “discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces,” the Department of Energy wrote last week in a letter to the school.
The Trump administration has also withheld billions of dollars in federal funding from Harvard, Columbia, and other universities across the country. Columbia last month agreed to pay $221 million to restore federal funding and settle concerns about campus anti-Semitism and other civil rights violations, while Harvard, which lost nearly $3 billion in federal funding this year, has indicated that it would pay up to $500 million to settle its dispute with Trump.
