The Trump administration’s freeze on vital research funding has sent students and workers across UCLA into disarray. The federal government’s latest assault on higher education is an unacceptable threat to both our student body and the communities that depend on our institution’s life-saving research.
We recognize this as no more than an act of political theater by the Trump administration: the President is leveraging all arms of the state to distract the people from manufactured famine and genocide in Gaza and encroaching fascism at home. In doing so, he is viciously targeting the most vulnerable members of our community, including people of color and the transgender community. But the fights for an inclusive university and Palestinian liberation are a collective, unified struggle: we cannot allow one to overshadow the other.
The suspension of $584 million in scientific research funding is an attempt to create an artificial divide between the university’s “academic mission” and those who dare to oppose UCLA’s active complicity in the Zionist-led ethnic cleansing of Palestine. We reject this narrative pushed by UCLA and the State alike. The students must continue to stand with Palestine, with migrants, with workers, and with all people suffering under the weight of American imperialism.
There is no dissonance between academia and student activism: research is hollow when it is used to drive displacement, genocide, and imperialism. Only by restructuring UCLA for the people — not for war profiteering — can we be the “truly great university,” with truly transformative research, that Chancellor Frenk speaks of. The real divide is not between student protesters and academic researchers: our fight is against the administration that stands in our way.
Divestment from occupation is not only a moral necessity, but an opportunity to reinvest in our research, our students, our workers, and our community. The announced funding cuts amount to below 2% of the total value of UC assets targeted for divestment — less than 15% of what the UC invested in Blackstone in 2023 alone. Let us remember what is really draining funding from our research.
We also recognize that this funding cut is temporary. Suspended grants will be restored whether the UC acquiesces to Trump’s extortionate demands for a $1 billion settlement or successfully challenges it in court (grants from the National Science Foundation have already been restored). But our already deteriorating right to free expression may never recover.
Despite Chancellor Frenk’s statements to the contrary, Trump is offering his administration the chance it has been looking for: to crack down on student speech and undo hard-fought wins towards equity on our campus. Once UCLA is pitted against the federal government in the public eye, Chancellor Frenk can accelerate his campaigns of repression and regression, claiming to us that he has no other choice.
When this happens, know that it is not capitulation. UCLA’s administration has shown no attempts to preserve our rights on campus, protect undocumented students, support under-resourced groups, or respect workers’ rights. Chancellor Frenk’s recent messaging has made clear that he has no intention to change course.
Instead of challenging the federal government’s baseless claims of antisemitism on campus, Chancellor Frenk escalated the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in his response to funding cuts, indicating that he will continue to use these claims as pretext for greater suppression of student protest. This suppression was already escalating as the academic year drew to a close, from unconstitutional arrests of students at an action commemorating Nakba Day to the unprecedented suspensions and campus bans handed to student activists in June.
We must confront how these actions by UCLA, in addition to past collaboration with the Trump administration, laid the groundwork for this attack. Furthermore, the claims of antisemitism used to justify acts of repression by both the UC and the federal government are easily disproven by the active involvement of Jewish students in campus organizing, from activists holding a Passover Seder in the Palestine Solidarity Encampment to the establishment of the Gaza Solidarity Sukkah last fall.
As the Zionist occupation continues its genocide of Palestinians, bringing the people of Gaza into manmade famine, it is inconceivable that Chancellor Frenk would still give merit to the baseless accusations of antisemitism weaponized by the federal government. There is one very specific reason why protests continue to proliferate on our campus: the UC’s continued refusal to even discuss divestment. If student opposition to genocide really is the reason for federal funding cuts, UC administrators only have themselves to blame.
It’s worrying that due to UCLA’s high-profile repression of pro-Palestinian protest attracting policymakers’ attention, marginalized and historically disadvantaged communities will now be targeted further by Trump to advance his far-right ideology. Transgender people’s wellbeing in particular has been sacrificed in settlements at other universities, and Trump’s goals at UCLA are no different: his proposed settlement would ban gender-affirming care at UCLA Health’s more than 280 locations across Southern California.
The federal government also signaled that it would take aim at race-conscious admissions policies and participation in sports by transgender women, listing them among purported noncompliance with federal law. This compounds Trump’s demands that UCLA end all race and ethnicity-based scholarships, threatening to severely exacerbate inequity at our university.
The escalating severity of Trump’s attacks show that settlements only embolden him in his assault on higher education, students of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. If UCLA chooses to appease Trump, his demands will continue to mount for other universities, intensifying the nationwide inaccessibility of higher education. Our community must reaffirm our commitment to racial equality and LGBTQ+ rights, taking action so Chancellor Frenk rejects these shameful demands.
Amid the broader targeting of Los Angeles’s migrant communities, we must also pressure Chancellor Frenk to not report arrested students to the Department of Homeland Security like Columbia University agreed to do last month. UCLA is already complicit in the militarization and displacement brought by the 2028 Olympics, facilitating the federal takeover of LA by volunteering our campus for the event and inviting federal agents into student housing last spring while ICE prepared to terrorize our communities.
As Trump mobilizes a federal task force to ensure a “safe, seamless, and historically successful” Olympics, we must be prepared for an acceleration of ICE terror in our communities. We must protect the existing (albeit shamefully minimal) protections for undocumented and international students at UCLA and ensure that they are not sacrificed in a deal with the federal government.
Our next steps are clear. Students, staff, faculty, community: escalate. Show Trump that UCLA will not be bullied into silence or complicity. Show UCLA administrators that if they give into Trump’s fascist demands, our response will be more detrimental than anything the federal government can try to throw at us.
The people must not be deterred by this act of political theater. We must remain steadfast in the fight against imperialism beyond our borders and the fascism within. From Los Angeles to Palestine, our struggle continues.
