September 15, 2025
Press release:
This morning, the University of California Los Angeles Faculty Association (UCLA-FA) and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) representing faculty across all ten University of California (UC) campuses, filed a lawsuit under the California Public Records Act (CPRA) demanding access to the proposed settlement agreement sent by the U.S. Department of Justice to the University of California on August 8, 2025. The lawsuit was filed at 10 a.m. in the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, and requests expedited relief to obtain the record without delay.
The proposed settlement agreement sought by UCLA-FA and CUCFA was sent after the Trump Administration froze nearly $600 million in research funding that had been awarded at UCLA. The Trump Administration has fined UC $1 billion, and sent a 29-page agreement listing other required changes to UC policy. This proposed agreement sits at the center of the ongoing negotiations between the Trump Administration and UC related to the return of research funds. Based on previous reporting, the proposed settlement likely contains a host of policy changes that would affect students, faculty, and staff, and threaten research and teaching at the university system.
“As a public university, the University of California has a unique responsibility to Californians, who fund the university through taxes, benefit from research on earthquakes, wildfires, and the housing crisis, and whose children attend UC for college,” said Annie McClanahan, CUCFA President. “The university system is also the second largest employer in the state, with 280,000 employees. Californians deserve to know if their stake in UC is at risk.”
The Trump Administration would like to conduct negotiations in secret, using the threat of the loss of funding to force the University of California to make vast changes to university policy, as they have done to other universities including Harvard University, Columbia University, and Brown University.
“Negotiations behind closed doors make it impossible to know what exactly is at stake,” said Anna Markowitz, President of the UCLA-FA Executive Board. “We need to know how an agreement might harm the California economy, the academic success of immigrants and students of color, the lives of Trans students and Californians, and our fundamental civil rights. We are asking the university to share the demands, so we can build public support and help UC stand up to this federal attack.”
Prior to this legal action, the faculty groups filed public records requests under CPRA and the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demanding the Trump Administration and the University of California release the proposed settlement agreement. The requests under the CPRA were denied by UCLA and the University of California Office of the President. There was no reply from the federal Department of Justice to the FOIA request. The lawsuit today is the first legal action to insist that those records be provided immediately, before negotiations conclude.
Faculty pursuit of knowledge with full academic and clinical freedom has historically made UC a hub for innovation and a major driver of California’s economy, as well as a key contributor to Californians’ wellbeing. The lawsuit argues that it is in the public interest to be aware of the demands of the Trump Administration, and that this duty to Californians outweighs any government interest in private negotiation.
Link to article: https://cucfa.org/2025/09/faculty-lawsuit-demands-public-access-to-settlement-demands/