- Swasti Singhai | Senior Staff
- Sep 16, 2025 (DailyCal.org)
Labor unions and faculty associations representing tens of thousands of UC faculty, students and employees sued President Donald Trump’s administration today in federal court for alleged violations of free speech and academic freedom rights.
The lawsuit brings 13 counts against the federal government, claiming violations of the First, Fifth and Tenth Amendments, Title VI and Title IX, along with a number of violations of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Much of the lawsuit centers around demands levied by the Trump administration in exchange for federal funding, including its most recent settlement proposal to UCLA demanding a $1.2 billion fine. The proposal also asked that UCLA limit where and how students can protest, reject international students who are “anti-Western” and end gender-affirming care, among other demands.
“This represents one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history,” UC President James B. Milliken wrote in a statement yesterday. “Losses of significant research and other federal funding would devastate UC and inflict real, long-term harm on our students, our faculty and staff, our patients, and all Californians.”
Throughout the last six months, the Trump administration has also opened a number of investigations into the UC system and its campuses, including UC Berkeley.
On Feb. 3, the Department of Education launched an antisemitism inquiry into UC Berkeley. On March 14, the Department of Education launched another investigation into UC Berkeley’s alleged DEI practices. On March 28, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into UC Berkeley admissions practices. On April 25, the Department of Education launched an investigation into UC Berkeley’s foreign funding disclosures.
“Defendants’ threats and coercive conduct have caused a pervasive sense of fear and intimidation among UC faculty, students, academic employees, and staff employees, who have seen the UC already begin to alter its policies and practices seemingly in capitulation to the Trump administration,” the lawsuit wrote. “Defendants’ coercive threats, and the UC’s foreseeable response, have had a widespread chilling effect.”
One such response referenced in the lawsuit was UC Berkeley providing the names of 160 faculty members, students, academic employees, and staff employees whose names have appeared in reports of “alleged antisemitic incidents.”
The lawsuit also detailed numerous demands made by the federal government and alleged that said demands were unconstitutional.
For example, the lawsuit stated that demands by the Trump administration to share disciplinary records of international students with the federal government “to avoid recruitment of ‘anti-Western’ or ‘anti-American’ international students” would violate students’ expressive rights.
As for the alleged administrative violations, the lawsuit states that grant terminations have been made without any hearing, giving the UC no opportunity to contest any of the federal government’s claims.
Terminated research funding has substantially impacted employees across the UC — National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and Department of Energy grant cancellations have caused labs to cease work on research projects and delay project timelines.
The lawsuit additionally claims that faculty members fearing retaliation from the federal government have engaged in self-censorship with respect to their curriculum, research and association with faculty and student groups.
The plaintiffs seek an injunction against the federal government from using legal and financial sanctions in retaliation for university faculty, students and employees exercising free speech rights. They also seek injunctions against the government for conditioning federal research funding on actions “that would violate the constitutional rights” of the plaintiffs.
The case management conference for the lawsuit, American Association of University Professors v. Trump, is set for Dec. 17 at 11 a.m. in the California Northern District Court.
“The blunt cudgel the Trump administration has repeatedly employed in this attack on the independence of institutions of higher education has been the abrupt, unilateral, and unlawful termination of federal research funding on which those institutions and the public interest rely,” the lawsuit wrote.
Swasti Singhai is a senior staff news reporter. Contact her at ssinghai@dailycal.org.
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