The Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, a White House official said Friday, weeks after the Department of Justice accused the school of antisemitism and other civil rights violations.
UCLA is the first public university whose federal grants have been targeted by the administration over allegations of civil rights violations related to antisemitism and affirmative action. The Trump administration has frozen or paused federal funding over similar allegations against private colleges.
The White House official did not detail any additional demands from the administration. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the request and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Trump administration suspended $584 million in federal grants, the university said this week, after the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division announced it had found UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”
Last month UCLA reached a $6 million settlement with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who sued, arguing that the university violated their civil rights by allowing pro-Palestinian protesters to block their access to classes and other areas on campus in 2024.
The university has said it is committed to campus safety and inclusivity and will continue to implement recommendations.
“Earlier this week, we offered to engage in good faith dialogue with the Department to protect the University and its critical research mission,” James B. Milliken, UC president, said in a statement Friday. “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.”
As part of the lawsuit settlement, UCLA said it will contribute $2.3 million to eight organizations that combat antisemitism and support the university’s Jewish community. It also has created an Office of Campus and Community Safety, instituting new policies to manage protests on campus.
And UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, whose Jewish father and grandparents fled Nazi Germany to Mexico and whose wife is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, launched an initiative to combat antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias.
Last month Columbia University agreed to pay $200 million as part of a settlement to resolve investigations into the government’s allegations that the school violated federal antidiscrimination laws. The agreement also restores more than $400 million in research grants.
The Trump administration plans to use its deal with Columbia as a template for other universities, with financial penalties that are now seen as an expectation.
Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press
