The University of California has until Friday to release details from a $1.2 billion settlement proposal by the Trump administration, a state court judge ruled Wednesday.
UC tried to keep the details of the 28-page document under wraps but was sued by faculty members who wanted more transparency in its negotiations with the Trump administration.
The document lays out federal demands for policy changes at UC’s Los Angeles campus that align with President Donald Trump’s reimagined vision for higher education across the country.
Acting Presiding Justice Carin Fujisaki signed a one-sentence decision that gave the university system 48 hours to comply.
In September, the UCLA Faculty Association, representing all UCLA faculty in matters with campus administrators, sued the university after it rejected the association’s public records requests regarding the Trump deal. Oakland-based Superior Court Judge Rebekah Evanson gave UC until Oct. 24 to release the 7,300-word proposal. UC appealed the ruling but lost.
The proposal, which was leaked to the Los Angeles Times last month, purportedly involves the Trump administration’s footprint on everything from hiring practices to scholarships, admissions to sports, and gender identity.
If the university agrees to allow the Trump administration to have sway over almost all aspects of campus life and makes public declarations that it has agreed to Trump’s revamped vision of higher education, the government will release $500,000 in suspended research grants from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy to UCLA.
Specifically, the deal would require UCLA to give the government $200 million for five years and set up a $172 million fund for people with claims of civil rights violations. It would also demand that the university ensure foreign students who are “anti-Western” are denied admission. It would require UCLA to pay for all costs of the settlement, including the fee for an outside monitor, and annually release demographic data on people the university hires and students who have applied or have been admitted, broken down by “race, color, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The deal would further require UCLA to make a public statement declaring that transgender people’s identities are no longer recognized, end gender-affirming care for minors at medical facilities, and give the government access to “all UCLA staff, employees, facilities, documents, and data related to the agreement” not protected by attorney-client privilege.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has called the demands “extortion” and said the state will “stand tall and push back.” He has repeatedly said that the UC system should not give in to the Trump administration’s demands, and last month urged administrators not to “sell their soul” to the president. Newsom publicly called out Harvard and Brown universities for agreeing to settle with Trump.
Newsom has also pledged to cut state funding for UC campuses that sign the Trump administration proposal for conservative policy reforms in exchange for federal funding.
