Twenty-one groups representing more than 100,000 UC employees sued Trump over the $1.2-billion fine against UCLA.
The lawsuit alleges Trump is illegally forcing conservative ideology on UC education through financial coercion and constitutional violations.
UC, which receives $17 billion in annual federal funding, is concerned over further cuts to campuses and hospitals as investigations continue.
As blog readers will know, there seems to be a leaking of information - including about a 28-page list of demands from the feds - from folks at UC/UCLA. But in the piece above, there is one line at the bottom of particular interest:
Privately, leaders have said many of the Trump demands cross red lines and that negotiations are moving slowly.
So we learn that a) negotiations are continuing (presumably the reason UC has not filed its own lawsuit) but b) they are moving at a snail's pace.
Note that if UC does eventually file a lawsuit, the fact that it negotiated first before filing will help its case in any court deliberations. Flatly rejecting any discussion of the demands at the outset would not be seen as reasonable. Of course, having negotiated doesn't guarantee what might happen were the case to end up at the current US Supreme Court. And, as we have noted, "winning" via the courts about the current grants and penalties doesn't necessarily do much about future grant renewals and new grants on which much of south campus (and some of north campus) depend.
UC/UCLA has tended to rely on selling the idea that the Trump administration is using antisemitism as an excuse to foster a larger agenda in higher education. Although that seems to be the case, a focus on the motivation of the Trump administration gets you only so far in court. Either things happened that should not have happened or they didn't. And UCLA has already effectively admitted that things happened in other litigation and by actions later taken including the Frankel case settlement. But it has not settled other outstanding cases that go back to events of 2023-24.
As we have noted before, UC/UCLA would be in a better position should it at some point file its own lawsuit if it cleared the books and separated the past from the present by resolving those cases. Basically, it should take the antisemitism issue off the table, thus depriving the feds of that excuse. Possibly, whoever is making decisions on strategy is waiting for a forthcoming report of a task force on antisemitism at UCLA. By itself, however, the task force - whatever it says - can't settle existing legal cases. Someone else has to decide to do it. It's not clear who decides: The chancellor? The Regents? The UC president? The fact that decision-making is diffuse is not helpful.
Some expensive legal talent has been engaged to conduct negotiations and guide decisions. But here is some free advice from yours truly: UC/UCLA needs to get its house in order and get everyone under the tent before going the legal route.
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