Below, please find our letter to campus leaders calling on UCD to take important steps to protect students and staff:
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March 28, 2025
To: Chancellor Gary May; Chief Campus General Counsel Michael Sweeney; Office of Judicial Affairs Director Stacy Vander Velde; Title IX Officer Wendi Delmendo; Academic Senate Chair Katheryn Russ; Academic Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility Chair Greta Hsu; Academic Senate Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chair Michelle Ko; and Academic Senate Committee on Faculty Welfare Chair Janet Foley.
[Via email]
On March 25th, the Washington Post reported that the Department of Education recently issued highly unusual demand letters to universities that are being investigated by the federal government on charges of failing to respond to alleged antisemitism. The Post reports that the DoE is demanding these universities to hand over lists of the names, nationalities, and ethnicities of any students “that the university notified of potential violations of the code of conduct or who were referred for suspension, suspended, expelled and/or referred to law enforcement.”
Student conduct issues should not be grounds for deportation.
We demand that our University refuse to collaborate.
Our students must know they are safe to live, work, and learn on campus.
We write with alarm and under the conviction that releasing any student’s name to the Trump administration places our entire student body in grave danger. Trump’s recent statement that Mahmoud Khalil–the Columbia graduate student and green card holder who continues to fight deportation from prison–is “the first of many to come,” as well as ICE’s recent targeting of students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests or, as in the case of Ranjani Srinivasan, students who simply happened to be present on campus while protests occurred attest to these risks. The DoE’s demands have nothing to do with good-faith efforts to fight antisemitism; rather, it is part of a sweeping effort to chill free expression and destroy universities as independent institutions capable of fostering democratic exchanges of ideas.
Legal experts interviewed by the Post note that this demand for student names stands on extremely shaky legal ground. If UC Davis has been issued such a demand, or is issued one in the future, then UC Davis administration must challenge this demand’s legality and refuse to comply.
We call upon UC Davis to:
- Inform the campus community if UC Davis has received such a demand, and if so, whether the administration has complied.
- Inform the campus community immediately if UC Davis receives such a demand in the future.
- If UC Davis has given any student’s name to the Trump administration, inform that student immediately. Ensure that free legal assistance is available to all students who may be threatened with arrest or deportation.
- If UC Davis has not received such a demand, commit publicly to legally challenging and refusing any demand for student names, should UC Davis receive one in the future.
- Commit to destroying records of resolved cases, to avoid personal information generated as part of the student conduct process being repurposed for consequences far beyond the original intent.
It is also reasonable to believe that future Trump administration demands for information will expand beyond students to instructors and other university employees and so we expect the university to broadly apply the above calls to all members of the campus. As the shameful example of Columbia University shows, compliance will not save our institutions. The UC system must continue to stand by its stated values and refuse to enable the targeting of students for imprisonment and deportation for their political views.
Sincerely,
The Board of the Davis Faculty Association