To the editor: California knows fault lines. They run beneath us, unseen until pressure builds and rupture comes. Today, UCLA finds itself on one — facing a political earthquake that could shake the state.
The federal government has frozen more than half a billion dollars in UCLA research funding, conditioning its release on a $1.2-billion settlement, restrictions on admitting foreign-born students and forced release of private student and faculty data (“Here are the details of Trump’s $1.2-billion call to remake UCLA in a conservative image,” Sept. 15). These demands aren’t just largely unenforceable — they’re also chilling violations of free speech and academic freedom.
By tying funding to terms no public university could accept, Washington puts lives at risk. It’s not theoretical; progress on cancer treatments, Alzheimer’s care and more will stall, with patients across California bearing consequences.
Like a fault line rupture that destabilizes an entire region, this ultimatum risks shaking the cornerstones of California’s public health and universities.
The tremors have begun. Now, we must protect our foundations — or wait for collapse.
Jeff Seymour, Westlake Village
This writer is co-founder of the California Coalition for Public Higher Education.
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To the editor: Thank you for printing the extortion demands aimed at UCLA from President Trump’s administration. I’m not going to get into details of the hypocrisy of an administration accusing UCLA of violating civil rights as it rounds up people because they resemble a particular ethnicity, contrary to what the 4th Amendment of the Constitution dictates. And I’m not going to linger on the idea that if association is now evidence of guilt, then Trump’s courting of a white nationalist and an antisemite at a 2022 dinner at Mar-a-Lago would be in question.
I’m simply going to highlight one salient factor in the extortion demand, a technique that I learned at the same school that is now being hit up for $1.2 billion. According to the Los Angeles Times, the ransom note states that the administration can come back for more money and make more demands: “The Trump administration says that although the proposed agreement would resolve current federal investigations of UCLA, it would not prevent government from undertaking future investigations, funding cuts or lawsuits.” In other words, the deal is not a deal, but potentially the first of a payment in a protection racket by an administration that is looking more like a group of organized criminals and less like an administration serving its citizens.
Fred Burgess, Camarillo
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To the editor: Absent from the article about Trump’s attack on UCLA was any mention of the highly relevant Sept. 3 ruling by U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Harvard’s suit against the administration. Her ruling pertains only to Harvard — and it’s worth noting that Harvard is a private university and UCLA is a public one, making the situations a tad bit different — but the conditions still precisely mirror the ones Trump is trying to impose on UCLA.
Beautifully written, reasoned and documented, and using Trump’s own words against him, Burroughs pointed out that Trump’s allegations of antisemitism are a mere pretext to impose unconstitutional restrictions on Harvard’s right to decide whom to hire, which students to admit and what to teach. She rejected Trump’s attempt to dictate the ideological makeup of Harvard students and faculty. She noted the value of basic scientific research for America and that crippling science does nothing to reduce antisemitism.
I hope her ruling is giving Gov. Gavin Newsom, the UC Board of Regents and the UCLA legal team the confidence and courage they need to reject Trump’s bullying extortion.
Peter Coonradt, Redlands
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To the editor: “Justice demands a shift in UCLA values” because the Department of Justice under the Trump administration knows nothing of “True Bruin Values.” Well, here they are, as described on UCLA’s website: respect, accountability, integrity, service and excellence. One who has no familiarity with these values can easily demand a shift. But there are thousands of us UCLA graduates and even more beneficiaries of its research excellence who live by these values and now encourage the Board of Regents to remain steadfast to our values yet again.
Vickie Ahumada, Oceanside
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To the editor: This action by the Justice Department, probably on Trump’s and/or Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s direct order, is pure extortion. It seeks to shove a highly conservative cultural shift down the throat of a major liberal arts university. It establishes wildly intrusive federal controls at multiple levels.
Where is the “freedom” of expression that MAGA adherents claim to value so highly? Where is the outrage about “cancel culture”? Is every university going to have to shift from diversity, equity and inclusion to uniformity, inequity and exclusion and back again every time party control of the White House changes?
These demands are an expression of sex-obsessed Christian Nationalism, submission to Israel and aggressive authoritarianism, approaching totalitarian control of education. It’s insulting, offensive and politically dangerous. I would rather see UCLA shut down than substitute MAGA fealty in place of enlightenment principles of human reason, skepticism toward authority, individual rights, societal improvement and dedication to empiricism in place of dogma.
Gary Stewart, Laguna Beach
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To the editor: So not only is Trump and his DOJ attempting to extort $1.2 billion from a taxpayer-funded state university, but he wants to tell that university’s faculty what to think and teach? Sounds downright un-American to me, and as one of those taxpayers, I say UCLA should reject these demands on the strongest of terms. I would much rather have my tax money spent on lawyers to defend the school than submit to this abomination. Trump should speak to the Israeli government about ceasing its slaughter of men, women and children in Gaza rather than whining about antisemitism at UCLA.