The UC is facing its biggest emergency yet: a letter from the Trump administration demanding a $1-billion settlement from UCLA after freezing $584 million in federal grants. This is the largest monetary demand yet from a single university, and an escalation in the administration’s ongoing crusade to systematically dismantle US higher education. The demands include not only a payment that would financially devastate the UC system, but also substantial changes to patient care, curriculum, admissions, and more that would irreparably harm our educational mission to serve the diverse students of California and produce knowledge for the public good.
We know that this is an attack on the entire UC system, and that it will not stop with UCLA. Here at Davis, our faculty members have already suffered devastating cuts and suspensions of federal research funding. If UCLA gives in to Trump’s demands, all of our campuses are made vulnerable to further funding cuts and hostile takeovers. And so we’re showing up for UCLA and for the future of research, healthcare, and education in California.
On Monday, members of the DFA joined over 20 UCLA faculty, staff, and students from the Save Our Science initiative and the UCLA Faculty Association as they traveled from Los Angeles to Sacramento to meet with our legislators and tell their stories. Many of them had gotten up at 4AM to make the trip, and they told powerful, harrowing stories: PIs told to euthanize their lab animals and lay off their staff, scientists leaving the country just to continue their research, communities facing the loss of medical care and new treatment breakthroughs they had come to rely on from UC hospitals. As science researchers, future scientists, and health professionals, the Save Our Science group came to the Capitol to ask our legislators to offer the immediate financial relief that UC researchers need to prevent layoffs and the loss of years of scientific progress. We met with California Assembly members Sade Elhawary, Isaac Bryan, and Tina McKinnor and California State Senators Lola Cuevas Smallwood and Scott Wiener. State Senator Wiener said that he would reintroduce SB 829, which would create a state agency that would administer funds to a range of science disciplines to allow California research to remain independent of the Trump administration’s agenda. We are also asking the state to supply emergency funding to cover the immediate shortfall researchers are facing right now.
The DFA is proud to stand with Save Our Science. This is about more than just science at UCLA; it’s about achieving a material commitment from the state of California that can help ensure that our UC President and Regents do the right thing and refuse to sacrifice California’s future to Trump’s attempts at extortion.
Save Our Science will be back in Sacramento next Monday, and once again, we’ll be there, too!
Here’s what you can do to help:
- Sign up to come to Sacramento next Monday with Save Our Science! If you would like to coordinate transportation with other DFA members, you can also fill out this form to get plugged in to a carpool or join your colleagues on the train. No lobbying experience necessary: our legislators simply need to hear from you about your experiences as a UC faculty member and why UC researchers need funding now.
- Sign the UCLA Faculty Association’s open letter, “Stand Up UC,” and UC-AFT’s open letter, “Hold the Line,” calling on the UC system to fight back and defend our educational integrity.
- Join the DFA to get involved in shaping our work this year as we work to build a better UC for all of us.