The US federal government has suspended research funding to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) following allegations that the university failed to adequately address antisemitism during a pro-Palestine encampment on campus, according to a student newspaper.

The university’s newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reported that UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk confirmed in an email Thursday that federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health notified UCLA of the freeze, citing a US Justice Department letter sent Tuesday to President Michael Drake.

The letter accuses UCLA of violating Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, alleging the university neglected to respond to antisemitic incidents targeting Jewish and Israeli students.

“This is not only a loss to the researchers who rely on critical grants,” said Frenk. “It is a loss for Americans across the nation whose work, health, and future depend on the groundbreaking work we do.”

The funding cut follows a $6.45 million settlement UCLA reached this week with three Jewish students and a professor, who alleged the school allowed a “Jew Exclusion Zone” around the Palestine solidarity encampment established on April 25 in Dickson Plaza.

The Justice Department previously backed the plaintiffs in March, claiming UCLA had tried to “evade liability.”

“This is about our national priorities,” Frenk stated. “Federal research grants are not handouts. Our researchers compete fiercely… proposing work the government itself deems vital.”

The state’s University of California system has not issued a comment. UCLA says it is weighing its next steps and coordinating with the UC Board of Regents.

Pro-Palestinian activists have claimed the Trump administration is targeting their right to free speech by equating opposition to Zionism with antisemitism.

Aug. 1 (UPI) — The University of California, Los Angeles, has announced that it has lost research funding over federal accusations of anti-Semitism at the school.

A pro-Palestinian encampment is seen cordoned off by stanchions on the UCLA campus on Sunday, April 28, 2024. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI

The announcement comes days after the Justice Department said UCLA failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students during pro-Palestine protests that erupted on its campus, as well as those across the United States, in the spring and summer of last year in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza.

The prestigious university did not state the amount of federal funding it would be stripped of, but said it may impact hundreds of grants.

“In its notice to us, the federal government claims anti-Semitism and bias as the reasons. This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination,” UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said in the Thursday letter addressed to the school’s community.

Frenk said the funding affect is under the control of the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies, which will result in the suspension of certain research funding.

“This is not only a loss to the researchers who rely on critical grants. It is a loss for Americans across the nation whose work, health and future depend on the groundbreaking work we do.”

UCLA is one of dozens of American universities that have been targeted by the Trump administration with civil rights and constitutional investigations in connection to protests demanding the schools divest from Israel over its war in Gaza.

Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has been cracking down on institutions of higher learning, in particular elite schools, over a slew of allegations, from not protecting Jewish students to illegally enforcing diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

On Tuesday, the Justice Department told UCLA in a letter that an investigation into its handling of the pro-Palestine protests found it had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by “acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”

That same day, the university reached a multimillion-dollar settlement that includes paying $6.13 million to three Jewish students and a professor who accused the school of violating their civil rights by permitting the pro-Palestine protests.

Frenk said UCLA shares the goal of eradicating anti-Semitism from society, and has taken actions to manage protests on campus as well as launched an initiative to combat anti-Semitism.

LOS ANGELES — UCLA said Thursday that it has been notified that it is losing federal research funding over alleged antisemitism, a move the chancellor called “a loss for America.”

“UCLA received a notice that the federal government, through its control of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies, is suspending certain research funding to UCLA,” Chancellor Julio Frenk said in a message to the campus community. He did not say how much.

“This is not only a loss to the researchers who rely on critical grants. It is a loss for Americans across the nation whose work, health, and future depend on the groundbreaking work we do,” he wrote.

The Trump administration has sought to pressure or retaliate against universities across the country following student protests on college campuses about the war in Gaza. Some Republican members of Congress and others have called the protests and some of the conduct antisemitic.

Frenk said in his message that the federal government cited antisemitism as its reason for the loss of funding.

“In its notice to us, the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons. This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination,” he wrote.

UCLA announced Tuesday that it has agreed to pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged discrimination, which was brought by Jewish students and a faculty member. The lawsuit, filed in June 2024, accused the university of failing to take action when pro-Palestinian protesters set up encampments on campus that spring.

Frenk wrote in the message to the Bruin community — as the UCLA community is known — that antisemitism has no place on campus but acknowledged room for improvement. He said the university has taken steps to combat it and put in place policies about student protests.

The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday.

Frenk highlighted important work done by UCLA, which included helping create what would become the internet, and he said researchers “are now building new technologies that could fuel entire industries and help safeguard our soldiers.”

President Donald Trump pledged during his campaign to crack down on universities because of student protests against the war in Gaza, which Israel launched against Hamas after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that targeted Israeli civilians, including at a music festival.

There is now a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and this week the United Nations said its Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, showed mounting evidence of a worsening famine. The IPC emphasized that its warning constituted an alert and was not a formal “famine classification.”

Columbia University in New York City, which was among the universities the Trump administration targeted over allegations of antisemitism, announced a settlement last week with the federal government in an effort to restore cut federal funding.

Brown University in Rhode Island said Wednesday that it reached an agreement with the federal government to restore funding. It said the agreement resolves three reviews of Brown’s “compliance with federal nondiscrimination obligations.”

In summary The suspensions affect hundreds of UCLA grants and come days after Trump’s Department of Justice concluded in an investigation that “Jewish and Israeli students at UCLA were subjected to severe” harassment.

The Trump administration is suspending hundreds of science research grants at UCLA in response to a Justice Department finding this week that the campus didn’t do enough to halt antisemitism during last year’s pro-Palestine protests.

“UCLA received a notice that the federal government, through its control of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies, is suspending certain research funding to UCLA,” the university chancellor, Julio Frenk, wrote in a public letter Thursday evening.

Frenk, whose Jewish paternal grandparents and young father fled Nazi Germany, faulted the Trump administration for punishing science in its effort to combat “alleged discrimination.”

“With this decision, hundreds of grants may be lost, adversely affecting the lives and life-changing work of UCLA researchers, faculty and staff. In its notice to us, the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons. This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination,” Frenk wrote.

The scale of the suspensions is unclear. At least 278 grants funded by the National Science Foundation are suspended in a move that affects about $212 million in research projects, some that have been ongoing since 2019 or earlier. That’s according to a CalMatters review of Grant Witness, a project by a team of scholars that began tracking the Trump administration’s research funding cuts.

Officials and spokespersons from the National Science Foundation didn’t respond to emails from CalMatters about why the grants were suspended.

“With the support of the UC Board of Regents and the UC Office of the President, we are actively evaluating our best course of action,” Frenk wrote. His letter outlined the various steps the campus has taken to combat antisemitism and anti-Israel bias on campus.

Trump’s DOJ alleges antisemitism

The suspensions are the first known consequence of the U.S. Department of Justice issuing UCLA a notice of violation this week for failing “to adequately respond to complaints of severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment and abuse that Jewish and Israeli students faced on its campus from October 7, 2023, to the present,” a statement from the department said.

The findings largely concern the pro-Palestinian encampments that hundreds of students and faculty erected last spring to protest Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza as part of the majority-Jewish nation’s war with Hamas. Hamas, which dozens of countries — including the U.S. — call a terrorist group but that is also the ruling government of the Gaza Strip, attacked Israeli civilians and soldiers on Oct. 7, 2023, reigniting a decades-long conflict between the two powers.

The Justice Department’s investigation said that “Jewish and Israeli students at UCLA were subjected to severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment that created a hostile environment by members of the encampment.” It also said that UCLA officials “had notice that Jewish and Israeli students were being assaulted and physically prevented from accessing parts of campus by demonstrators.”

The Justice Department letter indicated that UCLA’s leadership last year was “deliberately indifferent to the hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students caused by the encampment.” The letter also faulted UCLA officials for failing to disband the encampment even though its creation violated existing campus policies, as CalMatters reported.

The letter was signed by the U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Gregory W. Brown. They told UCLA it has until Aug. 5 to agree to a voluntary settlement to “ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated and reasonable steps are taken to prevent its recurrence.” Otherwise, the Department of Justice “is prepared” to file a complaint against UCLA in a federal court in September, the Department of Justice officials wrote.

UCLA agreed to a settlement with Jewish plaintiffs

In a related but separate matter, UCLA and the lawyers for the UC system agreed this week to a settlement with several Jewish students who sued UCLA over the encampments last spring.

Last year the federal judge in the case sided with the Jewish plaintiffs who said that the anti-Israel sentiment displayed by protestors in the encampment violated their religious liberties because of their spiritual ties to Israel. “Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” the judge, Mark C. Scarsi, wrote in his preliminary injunction

Various Jewish groups debate whether anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic. The UCLA encampment included Jewish participants.

In the settlement, UCLA agreed to pay the Jewish plaintiffs $50,000 each, for a total of $200,000. UCLA also agreed to donate more than $2 million to several Jewish organizations. Another $3.6 million is reserved for legal fees and other expenses, the settlement said.

UCLA denied any wrongdoing, the settlement stated. A judge must approve the deal.

But that deal was met with outrage by a lawyer representing five pro-Palestinian students and professors, two of whom are Jewish and took part in last year’s encampment. The lawyer, Thomas B. Harvey, filed a legal document in the case to argue that the encampment wasn’t antisemitic and that the settlement itself is flawed. A core theme in his filing is that Zionism is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.

Harvey is one of several lawyers who sued the UC in March for the injuries pro-Palestinian protesters sustained during the encampment last spring when a mob attacked it.

The plaintiffs in the case that UCLA settled this week “never even alleged that members of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment excluded them, let alone because of their religion,” wrote Harvey in an email to CalMatters. “UCLA refused to meaningfully defend its students and faculty against unsupported allegations.”

He continued, writing that UC lawyers “conducted no depositions, interviewed no witness and engaged in no discovery. Judge Scarsi even notes this abject failure in his preliminary injunction.”

Harvey said UC’s interests “appear to be crushing dissent against genocide in Palestine, currying favor with the Trump administration, and generally capitulating when challenged.”

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.

A Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation has found the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) is in violation of federal laws for allowing “systemic antisemitism” against its students and staff.

The finding comes mere hours after the UCLA agreed to pay more than $6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jewish faculty members and students over the school’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus.

Newsweek has reached out to UCLA and the DOJ via email and submission form for comment.

Why It Matters

The DOJ finding is the latest in President Donald Trump’s administration’s unprecedented crackdown on American universities.

UCLA is one of at least eight elite colleges—all in states or districts that voted blue in 2024—that face having their funding and grants cut after being accused of antisemitism over their pro-Palestinian protests or op-eds.

Many have also been told to change their practices to fall in line with the Trump administration’s ideology on diversity initiatives, “wokeism,” and transgender-inclusive policies.

What To Know

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced, after the investigation findings, that she is planning to “force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.”

It is not yet clear if the “price” will be purely financial, in the form of federal and grant cuts, or whether the investigation findings could carry implications for further federal oversight and policy changes at UCLA.

FILE – Students sit on the lawn near Royce Hall at UCLA in the Westwood section of Los Angeles on April 25, 2019. University of California, Los Angeles, officials have ordered all classes to be… FILE – Students sit on the lawn near Royce Hall at UCLA in the Westwood section of Los Angeles on April 25, 2019. University of California, Los Angeles, officials have ordered all classes to be held remotely due to threats. UCLA took the step Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, a day after students returned to in-person instruction and university officials say the move was made out of an abundance of caution. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) More Jae C. Hong/AP

The Office for Civil Rights launched its Title VI investigation into UCLA after the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a lawsuit against the school in 2024, citing viral footage of a Jewish student being blocked from entering a certain part of campus during a pro-Palestinian protest. The plaintiffs claimed the areas amounted to “Jew exclusion zones.”

UCLA has denied any wrongdoing, but earlier on Tuesday, it agreed to settle fully, with $50,000 payments to each of the plaintiffs in addition to $2.33 million for organizations that combat antisemitism.

“We are pleased with the terms of today’s settlement. The injunction and other terms UCLA has agreed to demonstrate real progress in the fight against antisemitism,” both parties said in a joint statement.

Mary Osako, the UCLA vice chancellor for strategic communications, told Fox News Digital that the university has since created a new Office of Campus and Community Safety to manage protests and stop behaviors that violate the school’s policies.

Other Universities Under Federal Scrutiny

UCLA joins a growing list of highly respected institutions facing investigations and federal funding threats under the Trump administration.

On Monday, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched a directed investigation into Duke University and the Duke Law Journal for allegedly violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by promoting diversity in its admission practices.

Harvard University faces approximately $9 billion at stake and has received a list of federal demands from the administration. Cornell University is also targeted for cuts, with at least $1 billion at risk.

Brown University, Northwestern, Columbia, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania have all had grants and funding threatened, while dozens more schools currently face further scrutiny from the Trump administration’s Office for Civil Rights.

What People Are Saying

Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a Tuesday press release, “Our investigation into the University of California system has found concerning evidence of system antisemitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability from the institution. This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand.”

Mary Osako, the UCLA vice chancellor for strategic communications, told Fox News Digital, “Antisemitism has no place at UCLA, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to eradicating it from our community. We have reflected candidly on our progress and are working to expunge antisemitism from our community in its entirety.”

Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund For Religious Liberty, which brought the lawsuit, said on Tuesday, “They are now on notice: Treating Jews like second-class citizens is wrong, illegal, and very costly. UCLA should be commended for accepting judgment against that misbehavior and setting the precedent that allowing mistreatment of Jews violates the Constitution and civil rights laws. Students across the country are safer for it.”

What Happens Next

UCLA faces losing federal funding after the Office for Civil Rights found it had violated Title VI. The Justice Department has not yet confirmed how much the California university could lose, but Bondi said she plans to impose a “heavy price.”