JTA — A coalition of California’s main Jewish teams has come out towards the Trump administration’s current demand that the College of California, Los Angeles pay $1 billion to resolve federal antisemitism allegations.
The proposed $1 billion settlement “doesn’t make Jewish college students safer,” the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California argued Tuesday.
JPAC’s assertion comes days after the college stated it was reviewing the Trump administration’s supply. The federal government is pressuring UCLA to simply accept the payout with the intention to unfreeze greater than $500 million in federal funding for medical and science analysis.
A $1 billion settlement for the general public college would dwarf the settlements that different colleges, together with Columbia and Brown, have reached to resolve their very own antisemitism claims. Columbia has pledged to pay $220 million to the federal government, whereas Brown landed on $50 million. Excessive-profile negotiations with Harvard stay ongoing, with the college reportedly balking at a $500 million demand.
In current weeks, UCLA reached a settlement with Jewish college students who had sued over claims the college allowed antisemitism to fester throughout pro-Palestinian protests towards Israel over the conflict with Hamas in Gaza. A part of the $6.13 million settlement features a college pledge of $2.33 million to assist Jewish teams together with Hillel at UCLA and the Anti-Defamation League.
College leaders had hoped this settlement, and its different pledges to curb campus antisemitism, would finish strain from the Trump administration for additional concessions, in line with the Los Angeles Instances. As a substitute, the federal authorities quickly froze over half a billion {dollars} in analysis grants to strong-arm the college to resolve different pending investigations, together with ones associated to race-based hiring and transgender scholar athletes.
JPAC acknowledged that UCLA “has confronted severe antisemitic incidents” however stated the Trump demand wouldn’t assist resolve them.
“It should drive a wedge between the Jewish group and different susceptible teams which are harmed,” the group added. “And as a public establishment, such a settlement would sarcastically divert public funds from different initiatives, together with people who fight antisemitism and hate.”
Protesters contained in the encampment arrange by pro-Palestinian college students and activists wrap scarves on their faces as they display on the campus of the College of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, on Might 1, 2024. (Etienne LAURENT / AFP)
A lobbying group that advocates for Jewish pursuits on the state capital, JPAC includes 39 Jewish teams from throughout the ideological spectrum together with the Anti-Defamation League; numerous native federations and Jewish group relations councils; the Holocaust Museum LA; progressive Jewish social justice teams; Hadassah; and the Simon Wiesenthal Heart.
JPAC has lobbied to curb antisemitism and what it describes as anti-Israel sentiment at a number of of its state’s academic establishments lately, together with main pushes towards the state’s Ok-12 ethnic research curriculum.
Its opposition to the Trump proposal is an extra signal of rising Jewish disillusionment with the president’s aggressive strategy to campus points, which have drawn broad scrutiny as they’ve extracted giant concessions from main universities.
JPAC’s assertion doesn’t point out Trump by identify.
JPAC famous that UCLA had “taken steps to counter antisemitism and make sure the security and inclusion of Jewish college students and college.” The Jewish teams singled out the college’s current hiring of a brand new chancellor, Julio Frenk, who’s Jewish and has pledged to take extra energetic steps to fight antisemitism on campus. (Frenk changed Gene Block, who can also be Jewish.)
Trump has taken explicit intention at California and Los Angeles along with his insurance policies, together with his efforts to deport undocumented immigrants. He and California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, are in court docket this week over Newsom’s problem of his choice to deploy the Nationwide Guard to arrest immigrants in Los Angeles.
Newsom has blasted Trump’s UCLA demand as “extortion,” vowing to not pay it.
“This isn’t about defending Jewish college students — it’s a billion-dollar political shakedown from the pay-to-play president,” Newsom’s workplace wrote in a put up Friday.
Instances of Israel workers contributed to this report.
