SACRAMENTO, California — Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla said on Wednesday that UCLA could consider reaching a settlement with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen research funding, breaking from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s hardline stance that California “will never bend the knee” to the federal demands.
Padilla told POLITICO that a “minor, negligible” payment or policy change would be appropriate “in exchange for keeping the money going on important research and student support programs.”
“I can’t say they shouldn’t consider it, but it all depends on what they’re willing to budge on or agree to,” Padilla said, noting that he isn’t aware of what proposals are on the table.
Padilla added that any potential settlement may not be palatable to the Trump administration, considering that it is targeting other institutions from the judiciary branch to media organizations, law firms and the Smithsonian Institution.
“We can’t ignore the context here,” Padilla said.
The Trump administration suspended more than $500 million in research funding from UCLA in late July over allegations of antisemitism on campus, just days after the university had agreed to a $6.5 million settlement with Jewish students and a professor over the pro-Palestinian protests last year. It followed that up with a $1 billion settlement demand to restore the funding, along with a host of other sweeping requests that included eliminating scholarships based on race or ethnicity and the use of proxies for race in their admissions process.
Newsom, who sits on the regents, strongly pushed back against the demands, threatening to sue and likening the proposal to “extortion.” He stressed the state would “not be complicit in this kind of attack on academic freedom on this extraordinary public institution.” He called out Brown and Columbia for reaching deals with the Trump administration in recent weeks and said Harvard’s president “must resign” over reports that it was close to settling.
The UCs have revealed little publicly about their strategy, saying only earlier this month that the demands were “devastating” but that leadership was “evaluating” the proposal. A group of regents held closed door meetings in recent weeks and UC President James Milliken held meetings with state lawmakers this week in Sacramento that a spokesperson said “covered a wide range of issues, including the far-reaching consequences of the federal government’s actions against UCLA.”