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.
