Judge orders White House to restore part of UCLA's federal funds

UPI

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On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that her previous order had been violated, which said the administration must restore million in research funding back to UCLA (school entrance pictured 2020) from the National Science Foundation. However, it's not immediately clear how much in federal funding will be returned. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 13 (UPI) -- A judge ordered hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to be partially restored to the University of California, Los Angeles, after the Trump administration cut more than a half-billion dollars in federal money.
U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin ruled that the pause violated her previous order which said the administration must restore millions in research funding from the National Science Foundation, but the exact amount that would be reinstated was not immediately clear.
Around 800 grants last month were suspended by the Trump administration over accusations of anti-Semitism on the school campus.
The U.S. Department of Justice claimed that UCLA failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students during pro-Palestine protests that erupted on campus, among others throughout the country over Israel's war with Hamas and the growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
UCLA is in the middle of a billion-dollar settlement proposal with the federal government, following Columbia University, which agreed to pay $221 million in fines to settle similar accusations against the private New York City university.
On Tuesday, former President Joe Biden's HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, now a candidate for California governor, called it a "ransom payment" in a social media post and urged university leaders to "stand strong" in the face of "authoritarian threats."
At UCLA, the funding cuts impacted federal funding via the National Science Foundation and other agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Energy gutting nearly $585 million from the university's bottom line.
But Tuesday's ruling, which was brought on by university researchers, is expected to apply to only roughly 300 grants.
Meanwhile, Lin gave the White House one week to comply with her order or issue an outline why UCLA's funding had not been restored as instructed.
The administration has the option to appeal Tuesday's ruling to the San Francisco-headquartered U.S. Ninth Circuit.
On Wednesday, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., called UCLA the president's "latest target in his war on America's top universities" and noted the $584 million funding restoration was over a third of what was frozen in July.
"We'll keep standing up for academic freedom," Padilla posted on X before Noon.