President Donald Trump’s demand for a whopping $1 billion fee from UCLA despatched shock waves by the UC system. For these of us on the within, the announcement elicited a spread of responses. Some college and employees reacted with horror, others voiced growing worry concerning the ongoing assault on tutorial freedom, and a few merely muttered in unhappy resignation to the brand new actuality.
I laughed.
The president has determined to poke the bear— and the Bears and the Bruins, too. Whether or not Trump is aware of it or not, concentrating on the College of California may be very completely different from going after non-public Ivy League establishments with deep historic ties to political energy.
Cease the steal
Pressuring UC to pay a big sum has one other dimension totally: It’s going after state tax {dollars} paid by the folks of California. This could matter to people on the left and the fitting, to those that venerate larger schooling and people who vote in favor of states’ rights in opposition to federal overreach.
Californians throughout the political spectrum ought to repurpose one in every of Trump’s personal slogans: “Stop the steal.”
In contrast to Columbia and Brown, which have paid off the Trump administration, UC is a public establishment. Meaning, as new UC President James Milliken mentioned, “we are stewards of taxpayer resources.” UC should reply to the folks, not simply to boards of trustees or senior directors.
Certainly, as a professor at UC Santa Barbara, I take into account myself to be employed by my fellow Californians. My job is to contribute to the basic mission specified by the state’s “ Master Plan”: to create new information and educate the folks of California. I take my accountability much more significantly as a result of I’m additionally a product of UC; I earned my PhD at Berkeley and stay a proud Golden Bear. I’m absolutely conscious of what a optimistic impact a UC schooling can have on college students and Californians in every single place.
A $1 billion fee to the federal authorities would have big penalties — not solely on the folks’s college but in addition on the final welfare of our state, the world’s fourth-largest economic system. UC is the second-largest employer within the state. We generate $82 billion in financial exercise yearly. Greater than 84% of our college students come from California, and their levels are confirmed to extend their lifetime incomes potential. UC well being facilities deal with hundreds of thousands of individuals yearly, offering important medical care. In response to one putting examine, “The economic output generated by UC-related spending is $4.4 billion larger than the economic output of the entire state of Wyoming and $16.1 billion larger than that of Vermont.”
UC is development engine
We accomplish that largely with the folks’s cash. For each greenback the state invests in us, we generate $21 of financial exercise for the state. All of that exercise generates $12 billion in tax income. We’re an incredible engine of development.
You’d suppose a self-proclaimed genius and “self-made” enterprise tycoon would know deal when he sees one.
To make certain, the supposed bases for demanding the extraordinary fee — antisemitism and civil rights abuses — are very severe. School college students ought to anticipate to confront new concepts they could disagree with, however nobody needs to be focused for his or her beliefs. Full cease.
Many people have already sounded the alarm concerning the growing monetary challenges the UC system faces. Even final yr, we had reached a vital breaking level— and that was earlier than shedding federal grant cash.
However we haven’t given up and neither ought to the folks. All of us should combat again in opposition to this tried seizure of taxpayer funds. It’s not sufficient to depart the duty to political leaders; the folks themselves should ship the message.
Causes for alarm
Californians can proceed to withstand federal incursions by making it clear to the UC Board of Regents, elected representatives and everybody else that Californians won’t tolerate a federal strain marketing campaign to take our state’s assets.
There are lots of causes to be alarmed by Trump’s broader assault on larger schooling. However this time, Trump has crossed the public-private boundary and set his sights on state taxpayers’ cash. As a result of we fund it, UC and every thing it produces belongs to us. Meaning all of us — irrespective of the place we fall on the political spectrum — should cease the steal.
Giuliana Perrone, an affiliate professor of historical past at UC Santa Barbara, is the creator of “Nothing More than Freedom: The Failure of Abolition in American Law.” ©2025 Los Angeles Instances. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company.
Initially Revealed: August 20, 2025 at 3:45 AM PDT
