OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
2:45 PM – Thursday, August 7, 2025
The Trump Administration has canceled $584 million in grants for the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), claiming they did not take a strong enough stance against on-campus anti-Semitism.
UCLA recently reached a $6 million settlement with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who sued the school in a civil rights dispute, claiming pro-Palestinian protesters were permitted to block them from accessing certain areas on campus in 2024.
President Donald Trump’s office announced that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Civil Rights Division found UCLA in violation of the Equal Rights Act of 1964 “by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”
In a letter shared with Politico on Wednesday, the university said they are in negotiations to restore these federal research funds.
“If these funds remain suspended,” UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk wrote, “it will be devastating for UCLA and for Americans across the nation.”
University of California President James Milliken decried the allegations of discrimination and pushed back against the federal government’s decision.
“These cuts do nothing to address antisemitism,” Milliken argued. “Moreover, the extensive work that UCLA and the entire University of California have taken to combat antisemitism has apparently been ignored.”
He added that the “cuts would be a death knell for innovative work that saves lives, grows our economy, and fortifies our national security. It is in our country’s best interest that funding be restored.”
In light of recent conflicts between pro-Palestinian and Jewish students and staff members, UCLA has created an Office of Campus and Community Safety, instituting new policies to manage protests on campus. The initiative to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli bias was initiated by Frenk, whose Jewish father and grandparents fled Nazi Germany.
“We are doing everything we can to protect the interests of faculty, students, and staff—and to defend our values and principles, as we actively evaluate our best course of action,” Frenk’s letter read.
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