A federal judge ruled against the Trump administration to keep taxpayer dollars flowing to University of California campuses even though she served as a part-time professor at one of the schools.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in the Northern District of California is listed as being on the adjunct faculty for the University of California San Francisco. Lin most recently ruled in favor of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of researchers from across the University of California system to restore more than $500 million in federal grant money.
The lawsuit is Thakur v. Trump, named for the lead litigant, Neeta Thakur, a faculty member at the University of California San Francisco, where she is a professor in residence at the Department of Medicine.
Lin is an appointee of President Joe Biden, who nominated the former state judge and federal prosecutor in 2022 for the federal judgeship.
The judge is still listed on the University of California San Francisco website as faculty, where she is listed as teaching a course called Criminal Procedure.
“Rita Lin taught as an adjunct at UC Law SF in Fall 2021 and Spring 2025. She is not currently teaching a class at UC Law SF,” John Kepley, chief communications officer for the university, told The Daily Signal in an email. He added that the university was not a party to litigation.
The lawsuit filed in June was instead brought by faculty members from across the University of California system who challenged the Trump administration’s termination of grants across multiple federal agencies. The administration’s defunding was tied to antisemitism on campuses and other civil rights issues.
Plaintiffs in the case claimed the cuts were made without notice or legal authority and sought an injunction to restore funding and block future cuts.
Legal experts note that what qualifies as a conflict of interest, or even the appearance of a conflict, can have a murky definition as far as judges are concerned.
Kepley did not immediately respond to followup inquiries on how much Lin was paid for the adjunct work.
On Sept. 22, Lin issued an order for the administration to reinstate more than $500 million to the University of California system.
The federal agencies named as defendants in the lawsuit include the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The University of California Los Angeles reportedly has the most on the line in the case.
Broadly speaking, a conflict of interest—or perceived conflict of interest—can be determined by the judge herself, said J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
“There is clearly a connection the judge has to this case. The only question is whether that connection could affect the judge’s impartiality,” Adams told The Daily Signal.
“The bottom line is that a lot of what is or is not over the line is in the mind of the judge,” Adams said.
Adams noted that “adjunct faculty positions aren’t lucrative.”
Adams is not involved in the case, but he noted that as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a federal commission, he wrote a letter to UCLA leadership earlier this year about First Amendment violations resulting from antisemitism on the campus.
Judicial conflicts have a technical and legal side, which is a narrow definition, as well as a more discretionary side, said Tom Jipping, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
The federal law regarding disqualification from a case, 28 U.S. Code Section 455, focuses on specific financial or personal interest or bias in the outcome of a case. The law says it could apply if a judge’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
Judges also follow internal conduct rules that are more aspirational in seeking to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, Jipping said.
“Simply because they might not be required by law to recuse themselves from a case doesn’t mean they shouldn’t,” Jipping said. “The perception issue has gotten muddied. But every judge should be committed to protecting the integrity of the judiciary.”
Such matters have been raised in the past. For example, in 2023, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals held U.S. District Judge Michael Watson, who was an adjunct professor of law at Ohio State University, would not need to recuse himself from a case involving the university.
The University of California system has 10 campuses and a single board of regents and a president to govern the system. Each of the 10 schools has a chancellor.
The Daily Signal contacted Lin at her University of California faculty email address and left phone and email messages with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking comment. Lin did not respond. Judges typically do not comment publicly, particularly about cases.
The Daily Signal also reached out to Thakur, the lead plaintiff in the case. Thakur did not respond.
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