- Hana Cochinwala | Staff
- Feb 18, 2026 (DailyCal.org)
President Donald Trump’s administration dropped its appeal of a federal court order blocking the government from withholding research funding to pressure the University of California into accepting its list of demands.
The dismissal of the appeal preserves a preliminary order issued by a federal judgebarring the Trump administration from freezing federal funds to the university system over allegations of discrimination without complying with procedural requirements.
The lawsuit, American Association of University Professors v. Trump, was filed by labor unions and faculty groups representing thousands of UC employees. This came after the Trump administration withheld nearly $600 million in research funding from UCLA due to alleged antisemitism and other misconduct.
The Department of Justice sent the UC system a $1.2 billion settlement agreement, which would require UCLA to revise multiple policies, including discontinuing all race- and ethnicity-based scholarships, restricting gender-affirming care for minors and banning transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
“The primary theory is that the Trump administration is seeking to punish the University of California for speech by its faculty, staff and students (and that its) trying to coerce the University of California to crack down on speech by those with which it disagrees,”said plaintiff’s attorney Stacey Leyton.
This led the American Association of University Professors and other groups to sue the Trump administration.Plaintiffs in the case alleged the Trump administration suspended federal research grants awarded to UC researchers through agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to force the university into adopting policy changes.
In their complaint, faculty groups characterized these actions as “coercive” and violating constitutional protections, including the First Amendment and the “separation of powers.”They argued that threatened funding cuts harmed research and increased uncertainty for faculty members whose work is supported by federal grants.
“We put in declarations showing that there were no other sources of funds for this research,” Leyton said.“Labs were going to be shutting down. Grad students and other staff of the laboratory were going to be laid off. We were concerned that UCLA and any other UCs that were affected were going to potentially even have to reduce their faculty.”
A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in November 2025. This order will hold until a final verdict is made. This order also reversed prior grant suspensions from the NIH and the NSF.
The Trump administration appealed this injunction but dropped the appeal last Wednesday. The DOJ declined to comment on the matter.
“Our hope is that the victory in the UC case … will really show that institutions need to stand up and that if they do that the courts will enjoin this unlawful behavior,” Leyton said.
