A federal judge ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday to restore frozen federal grants to the University of California, Los Angeles, a court filing showed.
In August, UCLA said the Trump administration froze funds totaling $584 million after the federal government reprimanded the school for its handling of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests.
The Los Angeles Times and Politico said US District Judge Rita Lin’s ruling ordered that more than $500 million in funding be restored to the university.
Lin had ordered the Trump administration in August to restore part of the suspended federal funding to UCLA.
The Trump administration has cut or threatened to withhold federal funds to universities over their handling of protests against Israel’s assault on Hamas in Gaza in the war sparked by the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack.
The US government says universities, including UCLA, allowed displays of antisemitism during the protests.
The ruling came as Trump said Monday in a Rosh Hashanah message that his administration has vowed to fight antisemitism.
“As the Jewish community gathers for this special time of spiritual renewal, my administration recommits to upholding religious liberty and ending faith-based persecution — including the scourge of antisemitism,” read the statement released by the White House.
Pro-Palestinian protesters, including some Jewish groups, say their criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its actions in the Strip and West Bank territories should not be characterized as antisemitism and their advocacy for Palestinian rights should not be equated with extremism.
UCLA’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias issued a study last year reporting that Jews on campus were assaulted and threatened while hateful expressions, including a swastika drawn on a classroom chalkboard and a protest sign that read “Israelis are native 2 hell,” proliferated amid the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel encampment movement. Pro-Israeli supporters clashed with students in the campus encampments on at least one occasion.
Lin, a judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, said in her order that the indefinite suspensions of grants from the National Institutes of Health were likely “arbitrary and capricious.”
Lin ordered that research funds from NIH, the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation be restored as part of her preliminary injunction. Her injunction was preliminary as the broader legal case proceeded.
Labor unions, faculties and students in the University of California education system, of which UCLA is a part, sued the Trump administration last week over the freezing of federal funds and other actions that they say aim to stifle academic freedom.
Rights groups say Trump’s actions hurt free speech.
The University of California, Berkeley, another campus in the University of California system, said earlier this month it provided information on 160 faculty members and students to the government as part of an investigation.
University of California President James Milliken said the university system was facing one of the gravest threats in its history. It receives more than $17 billion each year in federal support.
The Trump administration has also faced other legal roadblocks in its funding freeze attempts. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that it had unlawfully terminated over $2 billion in grants for Harvard University.
The government in July settled federal investigations with Columbia University, which agreed to pay more than $220 million to the government, and Brown University, which said it will pay $50 million to support local workforce development. Both accepted certain government demands.
The federal government had proposed settling its probe into UCLA through a $1 billion payment from the university. California Governor Gavin Newsom called that offer an extortion attempt.