CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2025, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“MANY CALIFORNIA COLLEGES WELL SET TO RESIST TRUMP’S PUSH”
Harvard made itself the
unquestioned leader among American colleges and universities when its president
announced it would not knuckle under to President Trump’s attempts to dictate
what can and cannot happen or be discussed on its campus.
The Crimson risked an
immediate $2.2 billion in federal grants for everything from research on
dementia to development of new forms of artificial intelligence.
Harvard then followed up with
a lawsuit aimed at clawing back those previously authorized and awarded grants,
plus another $7 billion or so in other research funds Trump’s appointees have
threatened to cut off.
Never mind the legalities of
what the government can cancel and when. When Harvard acted, other colleges
that at first bent the knee (Columbia University is Example A of this) suddenly
became braver and changed their minds, saying no to many Trump demands.
So far, the action has not
centered on California. But it has before, and it might again at any moment.
After all, the move against Harvard came via a letter that was sent out before
it was fully authorized, but Trump stuck by it despite the error in timing.
In an effort to stave off
some Trump ire, several California universities had already made moves. The
University of California, for example, set new rules virtually banning
encampments like those that took hold during the winter of 2023-24, in the wake
of the Hamas terror group’s attack on Israel, which saw about 1,450 persons
killed or kidnapped into hostage status. Another move by UC banned campus
chapters of the group Students for Justice in Palestine.
No one doubts it was
Harvard’s $53 billion endowment (think of this as a savings account or ‘rainy
day fund” that can be deployed in emergencies) that enabled its President Alan
Garber’s defiance and his stand for protection of academic independence and freedom
of expression in classrooms.
But what would happen if
California colleges were suddenly targeted seriously? UC Berkeley, for one
example, gets just over $1 billion in federal grants for research on subjects
from wildfires to public health. It gets another $1.5 billion each year to operate
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory elsewhere in the East Bay. UCLA gets
$1.1 billion in federal research money.
Amounts flowing to California
State University campuses are far smaller. And none of the state universities
has an endowment that could let it carry on much research or many other
activities without federal funds.
But there are several
California schools that could carry on quite well. That list is led by Stanford
University’s $36.49 billion or $38 billion endowment, which ranks in the top
four of American universities. (Its exact value carries varying estimates.)
Given that Stanford gets only
about 12 percent of its operating revenue from federal funds and grants, that
means The Farm could run just fine for years without help from the feds.
Inconvenient, yes. Fatal, no. Especially since wealthy alumni would likely step
up to contribute if Stanford felt threatened.
The last time Stanford
previously flashed its bankroll was when it accepted reduced TV revenues for
awhile when joining the Atlantic Coast Conference after the old Pac-12 folded.
A surprising number of other
California schools could also do just fine. Pomona College, with an endowment
of about $2.8 billion, according to Forbes Magazine, uses federal funds for a
mere 1.4 percent of its operations. At CalTech, with an endowment Forbes places
at $3.8 billion, about 9 percent of operating revenue is federal dollars. But
that’s because CalTech runs the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and all its space
exploration programs for NASA. Trump is not likely to interfere with that and
risk becoming “the man who lost the moon.”
Other California colleges
that might do just fine include Claremont McKenna College and Santa Clara University.
Yes, much of the endowment
money held by all those schools was donated for specific purposes. But if any
of them felt threatened, they would likely appeal to donors or their heirs to
loosen those conditions.
So no, other than the big
public universities, Trump probably can't threaten the independence of
California colleges. And that will come as a relief to some.
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