The Trump administration is freezing $339 million in research grants to the University of California-Los Angeles because it believes the West Coast public university committed a slew of civil rights violations related to antisemitism, affirmative action and allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.

Several federal agencies notified UCLA this week they’re suspending grants over civil rights concerns, including $240 million from the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health. 

The White House has previously frozen or paused funding over similar allegations against private colleges, but UCLA marks a rare case of a public university being targeted.

Until now, Trump had largely focused on elite East Coast universities like Brown and Columbia.

“The University of California – Los Angeles continues to engage in race discrimination including in its admissions process, and in other areas of student life,” the National Science Foundation wrote in a letter to UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk dated Wednesday saying it was terminating grants, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The decision to pull science, medical and other federal grants from UCLA comes after US Attorney General Pam Bondi warned this week the college would pay a “hefty price” for acting with “deliberate indifference” to the civil rights of Jewish students who complained about campus antisemitism following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel and the ensuing Gaza war that spurred campus protests.

The Trump administration recently announced the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division found UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”

The Department of Energy said in a letter it found several “examples of noncompliance,” and faulted UCLA for inviting applicants to disclose their race in personal statements and for considering factors such as family income and ZIP code. Affirmative action in college admissions was outlawed in California in 1996 and struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023.

The letter added UCLA has taken steps that amount to “a transparent attempt to engage in race-based admissions in all but name,” and leaving white, Jewish and Asian American applicants disadvantaged.

It also said UCLA fails to promote an environment free from antisemitism and discriminates against women by allowing transgender women to compete on women’s teams.

Frenk called the government’s decision “deeply disappointing.”

“With this decision, hundreds of grants may be lost, adversely affecting the lives and life-changing work of UCLA researchers, faculty and staff,” he said in a statement.

Frenk said that in its letter the federal government “claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons” to freeze the funding but “this far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination.”

Last week, Columbia agreed to pay $200 million as part of a settlement to resolve investigations into the government’s allegations that the school violated federal antidiscrimination laws. The agreement also restores more than $400 million in research grants.

The Trump administration plans to use its deal with Columbia as a template for other universities, with financial penalties that are now seen as an expectation. 

Earlier this week, UCLA reached a $6 million settlement with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who sued the university arguing it violated their civil rights by allowing pro-Palestinian protesters in 2024 to block their access to classes and other areas on campus.

With Post wires.