A federal judge has issued a sweeping preliminary injunction halting the Trump 
President Donald J. TrumpFile photo
U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin ruled Friday that a broad coalition of faculty, staff and student unions demonstrated the administration engaged in an "illegal weaponization of civil rights laws and federal funding to restrict free speech on UC campuses."
The decision marks a significant victory for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and more than a dozen other labor organizations representing over 100,000 UC employees and students who sued to block what they called a coordinated campaign to punish universities for tolerating progressive ideology.
"For 11 months, the Trump-Vance administration has waged an illegal war against higher education," said Dr. Todd Wolfson, president of AAUP National. "This preliminary injunction makes clear what we have known all along: when faculty, students, and staff stand together, we can save our universities, and we can save democracy."
The case centered on the administration's abrupt cancellation of $584 million in research grants to UCLA in July and August, following a Justice Department finding that the university had violated civil rights laws in its handling of a 2024 protest encampment involving allegations of antisemitism.
Within 72 hours of issuing those findings, the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and Department of Energy froze the funding without following required Title VI procedures, according to court documents. At least one agency also stopped approving any new grants to UCLA.
In her 76-page opinion, Lin found the administration used civil rights investigations as a pretext to force ideological changes at universities, citing extensive public statements by top officials.
The judge noted that Leo Terrell, head of the administration's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, stated in a March interview that "the academic system in this country has been hijacked by the left" and vowed to "bankrupt these universities" and "take away every single federal dollar."
President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance made similar statements before and after taking office, with Trump posting that universities were "turning our students into Communists and terrorists" and Vance pledging to cut funding from schools that teach critical race theory, the court found.
Lin determined this amounted to unconstitutional coercion.
"With every day that passes, UCLA continues to be denied the chance to win new grants, ratchetting up Defendants' pressure campaign," she wrote.
The judge also found the administration likely violated the Tenth Amendment by attempting to hold federal funding—which accounts for more than $17 billion annually across the UC system—hostage to force acceptance of wide-ranging policy changes unrelated to the original civil rights concerns.
The Justice Department offered in August to restore UCLA's funding in exchange for a $1.2 billion payment and sweeping reforms, including restrictions on diversity programs, limits on student protests, adoption of the administration's definitions of sex and gender, and bans on admitting international students "likely to engage in anti-Western, anti-American, or antisemitic disruptions."
Lin found these conditions bore little relationship to the antisemitism findings that purportedly justified the funding cuts. "The undisputed record demonstrates that Defendants have engaged in coercive and retaliatory conduct in violation of the First Amendment," she wrote.
The administration employed similar tactics at Columbia, Brown and Harvard universities, offering to restore funding only after those institutions agreed to pay penalties and make policy changes, according to evidence presented in the case.
Plaintiffs submitted 74 declarations from UC faculty, staff and students describing how they had altered their teaching, research and public speech out of fear of triggering further federal retaliation.
One UCLA professor who studies germline development said she stopped discussing how her research could benefit the LGBTQ community. A law professor ceased covering the Israel-Palestine conflict to protect international students from potential consequences. Other faculty described canceling academic conferences and withdrawing from professional presentations.
"I am afraid that we will be blamed for Trump's attacks, and nobody wants to be blamed for costing the University $1 billion," one faculty member stated in court documents.
UC President Dr. James Milliken called the funding threats "one of the gravest threats in UC's 157-year history," warning that a substantial loss of federal funding "would devastate our university."
Government attorneys argued the case was premature because UCLA had not yet accepted or rejected the settlement offer. They also contended that future funding decisions were not subject to traditional First Amendment scrutiny.
Lin rejected both arguments, finding the injury to plaintiffs' speech rights was "ongoing" regardless of whether UC ultimately agreed to the terms. She also determined the administration failed to follow statutory requirements under Title VI and IX before terminating funds.
The judge noted that despite canceling billions of dollars in university funding across multiple schools in recent months, not a single agency had followed the procedures required by civil rights laws, which mandate hearings, express findings and congressional notification before cutting off funds.
UC has received more than $5 billion in federal research grants annually, accounting for over half of all research funding. The system also receives more than $1.7 billion in student financial aid and nearly $10 billion in Medicare and Medicaid funding for its medical centers.
The preliminary injunction prohibits defendants from withholding federal funding based on viewpoint discrimination and requires them to follow proper procedures under Title VI and IX before terminating grants.
The coalition of plaintiffs includes faculty associations from all UC campuses, along with unions representing nurses, healthcare workers, graduate students and university staff. They are represented by multiple law firms including Altshuler Berzon LLP and Democracy Forward.
