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A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered the Trump administration to restore more than $500 million in federal grants to the University of California, Los Angeles, ruling that the government likely violated federal law by cutting the funds without proper justification.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin granted a preliminary injunction Monday, finding that the administration’s suspension of UCLA’s research funding failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires federal agencies to provide clear explanations and follow specific procedures when cutting or withholding funds. Instead, UCLA received generalized form letters informing it that grants from multiple agencies had been suspended, without details or individualized findings.
The decision comes after the Trump administration froze $584 million in UCLA funding in August, citing alleged civil rights violations tied to antisemitism and affirmative action policies. University leaders warned the cuts would devastate vital research programs, including studies on Parkinson’s disease, cancer recovery, and nerve cell regeneration.
Judge Lin’s order restores roughly $500 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, building on her earlier ruling last month that reinstated $81 million from the National Science Foundation after finding those cuts also violated her June injunction protecting UC system funding.
The White House did not immediately comment on the ruling.
The Trump administration has increasingly wielded federal funding as leverage in disputes with universities, targeting institutions it accuses of tolerating antisemitism or advancing diversity initiatives that it claims discriminate against white and Asian American students.
Two Ivy League universities, Columbia and Brown, reached settlements to preserve their funding under similar investigations. Harvard University instead filed suit, and a federal judge ruled in September that the administration’s freeze amounted to illegal retaliation after Harvard rejected its demands.
At UCLA, the administration had proposed a $1 billion settlement to resolve its investigation—an amount California Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned as an “extortion attempt.” University officials said such a payment would “devastate” the institution and cripple its research mission.
With Judge Lin’s latest ruling, UCLA’s most critical federal medical research programs are shielded, at least temporarily. The court is expected to hear further arguments later this year as the legal battle continues over whether the administration had the authority to suspend the grants in the first place.
