Trump has stopped UCLA grant. UC presses back

Federal Judge today ordered the Trump Administration to explain why last week’s stopping about about about about 300 UCLA grant The National Scientific Foundation does not apply by the June order of this judge, which prohibits the Agency from terminating additional grants.

California District Court Judge Rita F. Lin, Set a hearing for August 12S Lin’s order is a response to a Monday by lawyers representing researchers at the University of California. They wrote in their submission to Lin that the scientific foundation should cancel last week’s suspension. Their filing is part of a continuing case that disputes the legality of the 114 grants of the National Scientific Foundation this spring because of the alleged diversity, justice and violations of inclusion. Lin Issued a preliminary order in June He ordered the Scientific Foundation to recover the grant and prohibition of the agency from additional termination.

UC professors’ lawyers believe their submission is the first legal challenge for the National Scientific Foundation’s decision last week to suspend UCLA grant. The lawyers of the Federal Department of Justice, representing the scientific agency, claim that the suspension does not violate Lynn’s preliminary order in June.

The last dispute emphasizes the extent to which current and new legal challenges feed each other. This is also the last chapter in the multilateral efforts of the Trump administration to cancel the funding of the University of Research and punishment of campuses for suspected violations of DEI. Some federal judges have damaged the Trump administration that he has never determined what DEI thinks, but anyway cancels the funding of schools based on these violations.

With Suspensions from last weekAbout $ 170 million grant funding is a pause and UCLA researchers cannot use other funding to conduct their experiments. The National Scientific Foundation is one of the largest sources of subsidies for university research. Campuses rely on funding to make scientific breakthroughs, provide graduates with graduates, and maintain the research apparatus made by the United States, perhaps the world leader in the scientific discovery.

Ucla’s suspensions followed a report from the Federal Department of Justice last week, which accused the campus of not doing enough address anti -Semitism, Particularly related to the events during last year’s propalist protests. The report came months after UCLA assigned a working group to investigate anti -Semitism in the campus and came up with recommendations that UCLA leaders said they would apply.

The Ministry of Justice told UCLA IT There is to this day signal a readiness to reach an agreement to deal with anti -Semitism. Otherwise, the department said it would file a complaint with the Federal Court by September 2.

In June, Lynn ordered the National Scientific Foundation to restore 114 National Scientific Foundation providing the UCLA, which the agency terminated in the spring. It has also banned the agency from freezing most other grants. Lynn ordered two other agencies that end the UC grant to do the same – the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Humanities Foundation. The last two agencies appeal this decision, but in the meantime All three agencies returned UC researchers’ grants until mid -July.

Lin affected two types of grants: Those that federal agencies have canceled with a termination form that uses a vague or common project for the project that does not meet the agency’s priorities, or those for which agencies claim to have appeared on President Donald Trump’s ban on financing of DEI.

After the UCLA grant at Wednesday, the UC researchers wrote to the District Court judge on Monday to argue to argue at the scientific foundation The agency violates her order Because the funding of grants was practically stopped by the stop.

In response, the lawyers of the Federal Department of Justice wrote to Lin on Monday that The suspension is not the same as terminationwhich Lynne barriers in his pre -order in June. And they say that the suspension is not based on Trump’s executive orders, but instead of the scientific foundation accusations that UCLA uses confessions based on competitions, allows transgender women to compete in women’s sport and have not done enough to cope with anti -Semitism in their campus. All three points were placed in a letter Administrator of the National Scientific Foundation Lisa Scott-Moring, sent to UCLA on August 1st.

California banned public campuses from accepting students based on race, as voters in 1996 have completed the practice. Scott-Moring admitted in his letter to Ucla Chancellor Julio Frack that the campus claims he did not use affirmative actions, but wrote that his Holistic Review process was to actual competitions.

The National Scientific Foundation believes that “the process of accepting UCLA’s Holistic Review, which takes into account factors such as the applicant’s neighborhood, family income and profile at school-and invites the disclosure of the candidate’s race through personal statements-a transparent attempt to get involved in the admission based on the race.

While the Supreme Court in 2023 overturned the use of a race in the admission of colleges in Decision 6-3, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote on behalf of the majority that students were free to discuss their identity and overcome the difficulties in the essays to accept.

“Nothing in this opinion should be interpreted as a ban on universities from considering the candidate’s discussion on how race affected his life, whether by discrimination, inspiration or otherwise,” ” Roberts writesS

All three criticisms in Scott-Moring’s letter match thehe policies Trump leads through enforcement actions to reshape higher education and the federal government. They also look like a political book on the game exposed through Project 2025a conservative publication that has formed the current Trump period of serviceS

“NSF is ready to work with UCLA to identify corrective actions in order to bring UCLA into line. UCLA must acknowledge its desire to discuss these corrective actions by August 15,” Scott-Moring wrote.

UC professors’ lawyers say Scott-Moring’s letters are not strong enough to stop grant. “Both letters fail to explain why the particular project was incompatible with the agency’s priorities,” Lynn’s lawyers wrote on Monday. They emphasize the lack of an explanation of why the individual awards were terminated, as it was one of their profitable arguments that made Lynn order the grants restored in June.

And they claim that the distinction between termination and suspension is “purely semantic” because in both cases researchers do not have access to their funding.

“NSF has violated the preliminary order and must immediately cancel the suspension of grants involved in letters on July 30 and August 1,” UC researchers wrote on Monday.