TRUMP GOES AFTER UCLA FIRST AND HARDEST BECAUSE IT’S A FAT TARGET

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2025 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“TRUMP GOES AFTER UCLA FIRST AND HARDEST BECAUSE IT’S A FAT TARGET”

 

Go almost anywhere in the multiple medical centers of slogan-obsessed UCLA and you’ll see signs reading “It Begins With U” and “Innovating Patient Care since 1926,” bromides urging every employee from nurses to heart surgeons toward ever-better performances and ratings.

 

So far, the slogans have helped place UCLA’s medical centers first among Western hospitals in the U.S. News & World Report ratings, topping even famed institutions like Stanford University’s hospital, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and UCLA’s sister medical centers in San Francisco, Sacramento and Irvine.

 

But UCLA now also places first in a far less desirable category: It is the university which President Trump seeks to dun the most in federal research and fine money, going after a total of $1.7 billion. That’s in keeping with Trump’s practice of attacking prominent targets, rarely secondary ones.

 

The $1.7 billion represents virtually all annual federal research money UCLA gets, sixth most in the country behind places like UC San Francisco, Michigan and Johns Hopkins, schools which had far less anti-Semitic activity during the 2023-24 school year. By contrast, UCLA sprouted anti-Israel encampments like mushrooms. So in many ways, UCLA was the largest target Trump could find, and his psychology suggests that’s why he singled it out.

 

Fully $500 million of the federal research money was to be taken from UCLA’s medical facilities and research before a judge the other day stopped the process at least temporarily on grounds the demands were made via form letters not listing any transgressions by researchers. The other $1.2 billion is a “fine” for allowing anti-Semitic camps and other anti-Jewish activities on the campus for weeks.

 

Totally ignored were petitions signed by hundreds of Jewish UCLA faculty noting the campus has seen no medically-linked anti-Semitism.

 

Trump’s administration more than any other appears struck with the central injustice of Gaza: Over 1,000 Israelis were murdered and kidnapped, but Israel somehow has been blamed for the entire conflict.

 

UCLA has been widely blasted ever since for its long tolerance of the campus encampments and concurrent interference with other students’ freedom of movement.

 

The overall University of California system says it will resist any federal penalties, a big commitment from this huge institution. Overall, UC campuses get about $17 billion per year from the federal government, including more than $9 billion for the care of Medicare and Medicaid patients and almost $9 billion in research funding.

 

It’s no wonder UCLA doctors show signs of insecurity from the standoff between school and government. “What’s going to happen to my family?” wondered one cardiologist while examining a patient. “Will I and my colleagues have to go somewhere else?” If they do, what happens to all those “Best in the West” awards and slogans?

 

What does America get for its research money? Early on, it got CT (computerized tomography) scans. More recently, there have been a wireless implantable brain device that partially restores vision in some of the blind; drug delivery systems that cross the blood/brain barrier to reach cancers in the central nervous system, and gene therapies for babies born without immune systems.

 

Should advances like these be lost to Donald Trump’s “war on California,” of which the attempted UCLA extortion is one part? 

 

So far, UCLA and the larger UC system appear to be resisting via a mix of lawsuits and compromise. The campus last month announced new protest rules at least partly matching federal demands. UCLA will allow pre-approved overnight events, but not in the campus center. It stopped far short of cutting off admissions of students with pro-Palestinian or anti-American views, as Trump demanded. The rules make clear that campus disruptions and blocking of building access will not be allowed.

   

All this meets many Trump demands.

 

Similar rules have not yet been applied to other UC campuses, including those in urban settings like UCSF and the UC San Francisco school of law.

 

Settlement talks reportedly involve 10 of the 24 members of UC’s Board of Regents, along with President James Milliken.

 

It’s an open question whether Trump appointees will make more demands. Further pressures figure to spur an increase in UC’s emphasis on lawsuits to uphold its rights.

 

Meanwhile, it’s all made the slogan “It starts with U” as good as obsolete, for no campus employee from nurse to specialized researcher did anything to provoke the crisis.

 

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net