{"id":45183,"date":"2025-11-18T20:09:36","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T04:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45183"},"modified":"2025-11-18T20:09:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T04:09:36","slug":"federal-judge-sides-with-uc-employees-in-free-speech-lawsuit-against-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/federal-judge-sides-with-uc-employees-in-free-speech-lawsuit-against-trump-administration\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge sides with UC employees in free speech lawsuit against Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/users\/profile\/Madeleine%20Kashkooli\">Madeleine Kashkooli | Staff<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Nov 14, 2025 (DailyCal.org)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/dailycal.org\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/a\/5b\/a5b4183f-7b26-4668-9275-b2478d59ba9a\/6917cec294771.image.png?resize=400%2C258\" alt=\"hearing_Hayes Gaboury_file\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Presidend Donald Trump\u2019s administration followed its research funding freeze with a list of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/news\/uc\/uc-releases-1-2-billion-doj-settlement-proposal-with-ucla\/article_62cf6f94-91e1-4743-bfb0-1bce67bb433b.html\">demands<\/a>&nbsp;to UCLA in exchange for the return of its federal funding.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/users\/profile\/Hayes%20Gaboury\">Hayes Gaboury | File<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A federal judge has ordered the federal government to end their coercive tactics against the UC in the latest installment of a coalition of UC employees and students\u2019 lawsuit against President Donald Trump\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin ordered the federal government to cease threats of withholding federal funding, as well as to \u201caddress Plaintiffs\u2019 irreparable harm and to restore the status quo.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision comes after a Nov. 6 hearing in which Lin said she found the plaintiffs had submitted \u201coverwhelming evidence\u201d that the federal government had \u201cpublicly launched a campaign to purge woke and left viewpoints\u201d from the university by freezing nearly $600 million in federal research grants from UCLA over alleged antisemitism, among other issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The administration followed the freeze with a list of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/news\/uc\/uc-releases-1-2-billion-doj-settlement-proposal-with-ucla\/article_62cf6f94-91e1-4743-bfb0-1bce67bb433b.html\">demands<\/a>&nbsp;to UCLA in exchange for the return of its federal funding. These demands include placing restrictions on student protests, discouraging admission of \u201canti-Western\u201d international students, ending \u201cunlawful DEI goals\u201d in admissions, banning gender-affirming care for minors and banning transgender women from women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis looks to me like a classic First Amendment injury, and it is exactly what the administration has said that it\u2019s trying to achieve,\u201d Lin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plaintiffs&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/news\/uc\/coalition-of-more-than-50k-uc-employees-and-students-launches-lawsuit-against-trump-administration-s\/article_1491a158-a7d4-4c33-a7dc-ae86351a112c.html\">launched<\/a>&nbsp;the lawsuit against the Trump administration in September, alleging that the administration\u2019s demands constitute political censorship and retaliation against the university. The lawsuit claims the federal government has violated the First, Fifth and Tenth amendments, Title VI and Title IX, and the Administrative Procedures Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Oct. 9, more than 60 staff members of the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP \u2014 one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit \u2014 submitted sworn declarations to the federal court in which the staff members describe specific incidents including self-censorship and concerns about potential political retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Oct. 10, the coalition filed a motion for preliminary injunction that called for the court to \u201cstop the Trump-Vance administration\u2019s unlawful policy while the case continues,\u201d according to a press release.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the Nov. 6 hearing, U.S. Department of Justice lawyer Abhishek Kambli said, \u201cIt\u2019s questionable whether the third party censorship doctrine is even viable because the easiest path to complete relief for the plaintiff would be to sue the university directly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Lin pushed back against this argument. \u201cHow does that respond to the present harms that are already occurring, the self censorship that is already occurring?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Connie Chan, a lawyer for AAUP, said the defendants had presented \u201czero evidence\u201d that the university was taking actions independent of the pressure from the federal government to \u201cextinguish\u201d leftist ideology on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is the fact that the University of California is allowing faculty and students to engage in this type of protected First Amendment speech that has made University of California the target of the federal government\u2019s coercion campaign,\u201d Chan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge has ordered the federal government to end their coercive tactics against the UC in the latest installment of a coalition of UC employees and students\u2019 lawsuit against President Donald Trump\u2019s administration. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin ordered the federal government to cease threats&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/federal-judge-sides-with-uc-employees-in-free-speech-lawsuit-against-trump-administration\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45184,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45183\/revisions\/45184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}