On Monday, the University of California Board of Regents assessed “a path forward” after the Trump administration proposed a $1 billion settlement with the University of California, Los Angeles.
Meredith Vivian Turner, the UC’s senior vice president of external relations and communications, told PoliticoPro the school is focused “on protecting students’ access to a UC education and promoting the academic freedom, excellence, and innovation that have always been at the heart of UC’s work.”
Here are a few terms from the settlement aside from the billion-dollar payout, as CNN reported.
- $172 million to pay out claims for the violation of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
- A ban on overnight demonstration on campus and a revision of the school’s policy on protests.
- The discontinuation of race and ethnicity-based scholarships.
What’s going on at other universities?
University of California President James B. Milliken said in a statement Friday that the university was reviewing a document in the deal it received from the White House.
“Earlier this week, we offered to engage in good faith dialogue with the Department to protect the University and its critical research mission,” Milliken said.
“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.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has already wagged his finger at the Trump White House for demanding “ransom” and changes to the admissions and hiring policies. The federal administration, in return, would unfreeze more than $500 million in frozen federal grants.
“Donald Trump has weaponized the DOJ to kneecap America’s #1 public university system — freezing medical & science funding until @UCLA pays his $1 billion ransom,” the press office for the governor posted on the social platform X.
“California won’t bow to Trump’s disgusting political extortion,” the statement added.
To this, the White House said, “Bring it on, Gavin.”
As The San Francisco Chronicle reported, Trump has blocked funding of at least seven schools. The list includes “Harvard ($2.3 billion), Cornell ($1 billion), Northwestern ($790 million), Brown ($510 million), Columbia ($400 million), Duke ($108 million) and the University of Pennsylvania ($175 million).”
At the heart of the changes
The proposed settlement is much more expensive than the precedent as of late.
So far, two Ivy Leagues — Columbia and Brown University — have struck deals with the Trump administration.
Under Trump, the federal government is moving to alter the way higher education functions, whether that means retaining a sense of freedom over staffing or admissions related decisions. The Trump administration is also exerting pressure to influence policies that collide with culture war topics, like transgender athletes in women’s sports or diversity and inclusion programs.
As the Deseret News previously reported, Columbia will pay $200 million in fines to settle several investigations into discriminatory behavior on the Ivy League campus. That includes the Department of Education and the Justice Department’s inquiry into alleged antisemitism on campus.
It will also pay $21 million to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to settle claims filed by Jewish faculty members, staff and students who work at the university and faced harassment during on-campus protests.
It’s the “largest religious discrimination harassment settlement” in the commission’s 60 years of existence, according to the office’s acting chairwoman Andrea Lucas.
Brown agreed to pay $50 million and also made many concessions, including adopting the federal government’s definition of “male” and “female,” as NPR reported.