Intervention

From the LA Times: Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday said UC should not bend “on their knees” to the president as university leaders negotiate with the Trump administration to restore more than half a billion dollars in frozen UCLA grants amid antisemitism accusations. 

Newsom chided settlements Trump struck with two Ivy League universities. Columbia and Brown agreed to pay hefty fines and make sweeping campus changes in exchange for the restoration of research money that was also canceled over Trump antisemitism allegations. Harvard too is negotiating with the government over similar charges... The remarks from Newsom were his first public comments about how UC should proceed with Trump, and the first indication — if vague — of how a UC settlement with Trump may or may not look...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-07/newsom-ucla-trump-grant-freeze-negotiations-antisemitism.

Gov. Newsom has been running a non-campaign for president in 2028 and has been attacking Trump regularly on social media. He is threatening to redistrict California to offset Trump's plan to redistrict Texas. He is an ex officio Regent and, in fact, technically president of the Board of Regents. Apart from general budgetary matters, the last time Newsom showed an interest in regental affairs was when UCLA changed athletic conferences. (And the Regents dutifully went along with what he wanted.) As we have previously noted, the fact that UC - unlike Columbia and Brown - is a public institution creates levels of decision making and politics not found in private universities.

If Newsom didn't like the monetary deals made by Columbia and Brown, he surely won't be keen on the $1 billion that the feds have asked in the UCLA case, which we discussed yesterday.

We asked in prior posts who is in charge: The UC president? The UCLA chancellor? The Regents? Now add The Governor to that list.

===

Other documents

From an email received yesterday:

Dear Bruin Community:

I wanted to keep you informed of key developments on the suspension of federal funding to UCLA. President Milliken shared this morning that the University of California has received a document from the Department of Justice related to our federal research funding, and is reviewing it.

I want to reiterate from my first message on this matter our commitment to do everything we can to protect the interests of faculty, students and staff — and to defend our values and principles.

The UC Board of Regents and the UC Office of the President are providing counsel as we actively evaluate our best course of action. I will continue to be in constant communication with you on key decisions and update you on any developments.

We are One UCLA.

Julio Frenk

Chancellor

==

Statement from University of California President James Milliken, Friday, August 8, 2025:

“The University of California just received a document from the Department of Justice and is reviewing it. Earlier this week, we offered to engage in good faith dialogue with the Department to protect the University and its critical research mission. 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. Americans across this great nation rely on the vital work of UCLA and the UC system for technologies and medical therapies that save lives, grow the U.S. economy, and protect our national security.”