Trump administration demands $1B from University of California-Los Angeles

Politico

2 days ago

Under the terms of the administration's proposal, UCLA would pay the money in installments over three years and put another $172 million into a fund to pay legal claims made against it, according to a person familiar with the matter and a draft of the proposal viewed by POLITICO.
The proposal outlines a pitch to transform UCLA's hiring practices and campus climate, plus its athletics and medical programs. It would require the university to designate a senior administrator responsible for reviewing UCLA's policies and programs for diversity, equity and inclusion. That would include hiring practices, campus expression and anti-discrimination policies.
'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,' said James Milliken, who recently took over as president of the University of California system, in a statement that acknowledged the university had received the $1 billion settlement proposal from the Justice Department on Friday.
The outlines of the proposed settlement were first reported by CNN.
The settlement demand stems from tumultuous, sometimes violent demonstrations and protests against Israel's war against Hamas that consumed the campus. The administration alleges that university officials did not protect Jewish students and faculty from discrimination by pro-Palestinian protesters.
The proposed agreement suggests strict limits on campus protests, including prohibitions on overnight demonstrations and requirements that mask-wearing demonstrators remove their face coverings and present identification to campus personnel upon request.
It also demands the university scrap scholarships that are based on race or ethnicity, and eliminate faculty programs that provide incentives for hiring candidates based on race, gender or ethnicity. And in provisions similar to those reached in recent settlements with Columbia University and Brown University in July, the Trump administration is demanding UCLA halt the use of proxies for race in their admissions process — and provide access to admissions and hiring data, including test scores, grade point averages and the race of applicants.