Will UCLA wilt like an Ivy? Trump extortion threat is the ultimate test
Trump is demanding $1 billion in California taxpayer dollars to avoid a lawsuit over the administration's finding that the campus broke the law in its handling of antisemitism claims last year. Presumably the payout would mean the administration would also agree to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding it recently yanked. (Californians already pay $83 billion more in taxes than we receive in federal benefits as a state.) Plus, according to terms of the proposed settlement as CNN reported Friday, Trump wants to prohibit overnight demonstrations, require UCLA to discontinue race- and ethnicity-based scholarships, and provide a resolution monitor with admissions data.
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said in a letter to the university community this week that $584 million 'is suspended and at risk.' The loss of those funds, Frenk said, would 'be devastating for UCLA and for Americans across the nation.'
The Trump administration has already blocked more than $5 billion in funding from at least seven private universities: 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).
San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, a Harvard Law grad, assessed the situation best. He described Trump's shakedown as 'classic mob boss behavior' and said 'far too many major institutions are caving to this fascist.'
'The idea that UCLA would pay Trump tribute (California taxpayer dollars), adopt his bigoted policies, or give him even an ounce of control of the University's operations turns my stomach and should turn the stomach of every Californian. I'm confident UCLA will not enter into such an agreement, since doing so would violate California law, would violate our state's core values, and would be straight up morally unacceptable,' Wiener wrote in a statement.
Gov. Gavin Newsom also urged the UC to stay strong, unlike the paper tigers of the Ivy League, against what he described Friday as Trump 'threaten(ing) us through extortion with a billion-dollar fine unless we do his bidding.'
'We're not Brown, we're not Columbia, and I'm not going to be governor if we act like that, period full stop,' Newsom said Thursday in San Francisco when I asked him whether the UC should cut a deal with Trump. 'I will fight like hell to make sure that doesn't happen. There's principles, there's right and wrong, and we'll do the right thing. And what President Trump is doing is wrong, and everybody knows it.'
On Friday, after the DOJ floated the $1 billion ransom, Newsom doubled down: 'We will not be complicit in this kind of attack on academic freedom, on this extraordinary public institution. We are not like some of those other institutions that have followed a different path.'
California has always billed itself as a backstop against Trump. But it's hard to imagine a more clear and urgent test of whether it will live up to that role.
There is a lot at stake here, as all 10 UC campuses rank among the top research universities in the world, according to the U.S. News & World Report 2025-26 Best Global Universities ranking in June. UC researchers produce four new inventions a day and the system is home to nearly 300 of the world's top researchers. Fueled by federal funding, UC researchers conduct 8% of all academic research in the U.S. (Full disclosure: I'm the very proud father of a UC Davis graduate. Go, Aggies!)
Top UC campuses usually land near the Ivies in rankings of top colleges and compete for the nation's elite students. They frequently outperform the more expensive Ivies in terms of a financial return on investment, according to a 2022 study by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce.
'They have the power and the position and the funding to hold the line and serve as an example to universities,' Veena Dubal, a professor of law at UC Irvine and general counsel to the American Association of University Professors, told WBUR. Ivy Leaguers, meanwhile, love to brag about how many A-list lawyers they mint — including eight of the nine current Supreme Court Justices. But what good is all that power if they couldn't tap their elite alums to fight back against Trump?
Instead, they wilted. They did what the wealthy often do when confronted with a difficult situation: They bought their way out.
Columbia paid $220 million in 'tribute' to Don Donald. Brown paid $50 million to the state of Rhode Island, adopted the federal government's definition of 'male' and 'female,' and promised to remove any consideration of race from the admissions process, according to NPR. Harvard is willing to pay up to $500 million, the New York Times reported, a figure Harvard denied.
The Ivy grads among you might be asking: Why doesn't the UC just pay Trump to go away?
First, UC, which relies heavily on public funding, doesn't have the deep pockets the privately funded Ivies do. And there are strict rules on what the UC can tap its endowment for. (Paying off mob bosses is not on the list.)
'Withdrawals are limited to a portion of interest earnings from the funds and only a limited amount of annual earned income can be withdrawn and spent in any given year. Those funds are not sufficient to replace the state and federal funds that UC relies on for its day-to-day operating costs,' according to the UC.
But there's a more existential reason the system cannot pay this ransom: As anyone familiar with a mob shakedown knows, once you start paying for 'protection,' you can't stop.
Even more insidious is that Trump is cloaking his shakedown in the guise of addressing antisemitism on campus.
To appease him, the Ivy League agreed to take certain Trump-approved steps to address such allegations.
'Trump is now using Jews as human shields to achieve political goals having nothing to do with antisemitism,' said Wiener, a co-chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus who has faced antisemitic attacks while in office.
'Trump doesn't give a damn about Jews or antisemitism. He has antisemites in his Administration, he tried to elect a Nazi-aligned government in Germany, he dined with Nazi Nick Fuentes, and he spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. … Revoking science research funding in the name of the Jews is utterly repulsive.Trump is making Jews less safe, and he's making it harder for us to fight actual antisemitism.'
So the next move is yours, UC. The system has long competed with the Ivies for students, talent and prestige. Now it could have the ultimate, well, trump card: It could say it refused to buckle when the very future of higher education was on the line.
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