UCLA in talks with Trump administration to end $584M freeze
The university is the first public institution to contend with a targeted government funding freeze.
The University of California, Los Angeles, is negotiating with the federal government to end a research funding pause of more than half a billion dollars, according to the school.
Approximately $584 million has been suspended, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said in an Aug. 6 message to the campus community. James Milliken, the president of the University of California system, said the school has committed to "engage in dialogue with the federal administration" in hopes of ending the freeze, "as soon as possible."
On July 29, the Justice Department notified UCLA that it had violated federal civil rights laws and allowed discrimination to occur against Jewish and Israeli students when it failed to adequately respond to protests in the spring of 2024 stemming from the Israel-Hamas war.
Since then, grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies have been cut off, jeopardizing the university's research apparatus.
"This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination," Frenk said in a July 31 statement.
The funding freeze mirrors similar actions the federal government has taken against other prestigious colleges in recent weeks and months, prompting a series of unprecedented agreements with schools like Columbia and Brown. UCLA is the first major public institution, however, whose research support has come into the Trump administration's crosshairs.
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for Paste BN. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.