A judge has temporarily barred the federal government from withholding funding from the University of California, marking the latest development in the Trump administration’s battle with higher education institutions.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin wrote that a coalition of plaintiffs – which is led by the American Association of University Professors and includes other groups representing faculty, staff and students – “submitted overwhelming evidence” showing that the administration is “engaged in a concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities.”
The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the University of California in March. The administration said it would work to determine whether the school has “engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, religion and national origin against its professors, staff and other employees by allowing an Antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses.”
The American Association of University Professors filed the lawsuit in September against a slew of administration officials including Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The complaint accused the defendants of “targeting, bullying” and taking unconstitutional actions against higher education institutions.
Lin’s preliminary injunction, a temporary measure that maintains the status quo until a court hears the merits of the case, concurred with such characterizations. She wrote the administration had “impermissibly conditioned aid in a way that burdens First Amendment rights” and that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of the case.
She also referenced the administration’s similar efforts at other major schools, including its $200 million settlement with Columbia University, $50 million deal with Brown University and a loss in a lawsuit over federal funds withheld from Harvard University.
In a September ruling granting Harvard’s motion for summary judgment, a request for the court to rule on a case without going to trial, U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs said the administration hadn’t proven a connection between withholding federal funds and efforts to combat antisemitism.
“In fact, a review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul of the (Administrative Procedure Act,) the First Amendment and Title VI,” Burroughs wrote.
