Judge orders Trump administration to restore $500 million in grant funding to UCLA

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore $500 million in federal grant funding that it froze at the University of California, Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction on Monday, saying the government likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires specific procedures and explanations for federal funding cuts. Instead, the government informed UCLA in generalized form letters that multiple grants from various agencies were being suspended but offered no specific details.

In August, UCLA announced that the Trump administration had suspended $584 million in federal grants over allegations of civil rights violations related to antisemitism and affirmative action.

Lin issued a ruling later that month that resulted in $81 million in grants from the National Science Foundation being restored to UCLA. She ruled that those cuts had violated a June preliminary injunction where she ordered the National Science Foundation to restore dozens of grants that it had terminated at the University of California, which operates 10 campuses across the state.

The White House did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment on Monday’s ruling.

The Trump administration has used its control of federal funding to push for reforms at elite colleges that the president decries as overrun by liberalism and antisemitism. The administration also has launched investigations into diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, saying they discriminate against white and Asian American students.

Two Ivy League institutions, Columbia and Brown, struck deals to preserve funding that was held up by the Trump administration over similar claims that they had not done enough to respond to campus antisemitism.

In the case of Harvard, which pushed back with a lawsuit over cuts to its funding, a federal judge in early September ruled the funding freeze amounted to illegal retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of the Trump administration’s demands.

The Trump administration had proposed to settle its investigation into UCLA through a $1 billion payment from the institution. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called it an extortion attempt.

UCLA has said that such a large payment would “devastate” the institution.

Monday’s ruling concerns hundreds of medical research grants from the National Institutes of Health that include studies into Parkinson’s disease treatment, cancer recovery, cell regeneration in nerves and other areas that campus leaders argue are pivotal for improving the health of Americans.