California Universities Grapple with Trump Threats, Investigations
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, how California universities are grappling with the Trump administration's threats and investigations. On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced it will investigate Cal and UCLA, among others, as part of its effort to end, quote, illegal DEI.

Meantime, the UC system is implementing a hiring freeze in response to threats to slash federal funding. International students are reporting heightened fears of deportation or just traveling home for visits. We hear from faculty members and students about the impact of Trump's recent attacks. Join us. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

Faculty and students at colleges and universities in California are grappling with a slew of actions against the state by the Trump administration. The latest, which came Thursday when the Department of Justice announced investigations at Stanford and three UCs, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Irvine, as part of its effort to end, quote, illegal DEI in admissions policies.

Listeners, how have you been affected by this or other recent actions targeting higher education in our state, from threats to federal funding to revoking the legal status of students? Joining me now is education reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Javed Kaleem. Javed, welcome to Forum. Hi, Mina. Thanks for having me. Glad to have you. So about this Department of Justice investigation, what exactly will the Justice Department be looking for at these four California colleges? Sure.

It is doing a compliance review, which basically means that it is investigating or researching whether these

Four universities are adhering to the law on admissions and race since under California law and under federal precedent since 2023, using race as an explicit factor in admissions is illegal. Now, the Trump administration calls this illegal DEI.

But basically they're talking about affirmative action and that's what their allegation is. - Yeah, and about violations to the Supreme Court decision that banned the consideration of race in admissions a couple of years ago. So has the Trump administration cited any evidence of wrongdoing as a basis for the investigation? - No, not publicly. They had a press release late in the day. It was 248 words.

So they didn't say much. I did ask the Department of Justice for details on that and more information as well. And they did not reply to me. So we don't know much more, although we know some allegations have previously come up in other lawsuits around this area.

Yeah, so not a lot of detail and no timeline. How are the schools responding to those Department of Justice allegations, Javed? The schools are saying they will comply. They will comply and offer any information and follow the law and cooperate. Beyond that, they're not saying much. Of course, the schools also say, and they've been saying this for some time, that

For public universities in California, since 1997, the year after Prop 209 passed, they have not used race as a factor in admissions per California law. And for Stanford, a private university, since 2024, after the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, they also have not used race. So they said they're already doing this, basically. Yeah.

Yeah. So unclear whether the Department of Justice will find anything. But in the meantime, what impact will this investigation likely have on the universities under review, do you think? This is...

You know, one of many investigations, reviews, in some cases, threats to funding that these universities and really all other major universities in the state are facing. So, you know, if you talk to administrators, to chancellors, to presidents, to professors, researchers, anybody, I mean, it's a really scary moment for a lot of them because they feel like they are...

being under a microscope from every single direction. And sometimes they feel it's unjustified. Yeah. Let me ask listeners to weigh in. What questions do you have about the impacts on our university system, on our students and faculty of the Trump administration's broad actions against universities from DEI to threatening funding?

We're talking about it with Javed Kaleem, an education reporter at the LA Times. And you can join us by emailing forum at kqed.org, finding us on our social channels at KQED Forum, or by calling 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786. How would you like to see universities or the state respond?

So, Javed, you've reported that, you know, while they are pushing back on some of the allegations in this very brief press release announcing the Department of Justice investigations, they have, to some degree, tried to comply with some of the Trump administration's sort of broader attacks on DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Can you give us an overview of some of the things universities have done? Yeah, you know, on February 14th,

The education department wrote a letter and released it to all schools, K-12, universities, although it was primarily targeted at universities. And it described diversity initiatives as illegal and said that universities could face

a loss of federal funding if they use illegal diversity initiatives. And it described them very broadly. It said everything from using racist admissions, which is widely agreed to be illegal, to having optional graduation ceremonies for Black students.

or living learning communities and dorms for cultural groups like Latino, Black, Asian American, Native American students. It described all of those as shameful in its words and illegal. So this was not, you know,

sharing a new law that had been passed. It was sharing how the Trump administration views the existing law that's been around for decades and how it views diversity initiatives within that as illegal. So universities really rushed to, in many cases, over-comply in the view of many. You know, we've seen, and that was February 14th, now it's been six weeks, we've seen

dozens and dozens of universities, big and small, just closed down their diversity offices. University of Michigan did this last week. University of Southern California here in LA closed down its

university-wide diversity and inclusion office and even removed the word diversity as a value from its core mission, its core values as a university. A lot of places are instead using the word community or belonging and saying they still believe in diversity, but they just can't really say it so loudly. Even at the University of California, which has largely

not changed its policies around diversity or its programs in response to this administration. They have made some moves. For example, diversity statements have become very popular at UC campuses as part of the application process for faculty jobs, where you share a two-to-three-page paper where you describe how the role of diversity in your field or your

your scholarship and what you've done to improve diversity, race, racial and otherwise all kinds of diversity. So they have actually not banned the use of those statements, but will consider diversity in other ways in academic hiring and promotion. So there's a lot of things going on. Yeah.

Well, listeners are weighing in, and let me go to a couple of those thoughts. Beth in Angels Camp. Hi, Beth, you're on. Hi. This is really making me mad, and it's making me mad because I'm wondering, how much is this going to cost the universities to defend themselves? Hmm.

Yeah, the immediate impacts, whether or not the Department of Justice finds something, you know, I'm assuming, Javed, will be money as well as just time and attention they could put to other things. Sure, yeah. I mean, all of these universities already have, you know, in-house legal counsel, but of course they're hiring outsiders too.

The presidents of the University of California, Michael Drake, USC, Carol Foltz, other presidents have been going back and forth to Washington, D.C. to meet with their teams there, to meet with lobbyists in some case that universities are hiring to work with Republicans and try to save what they can of their skin. So they are spending a lot of money or time

even outside of court, to fight against this and gain some influence. But they believe it's worth it because a lot of money and a lot of research, a lot of the basic existence, as we know, of universities in the state is on the line. Yes, it sounds like they have responded well.

to threats to slash federal science and medical research funding. Can you remind us of the status of Trump's efforts to cut billions from NIH funding that California universities really rely on? Yes. There has been funding cuts in various kinds of ways. The two primary ones are, one, President Trump signed an executive order shortly after coming into office where he said he wanted to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion funds

initiatives from all federal programs. That includes grants and funding that, you know, the National Institutes of Health or the Education Department or other departments give to universities and schools to do research around science, around education, around the arts,

the list goes on. So that's one area where those have been pulled or changed. But really, the big trigger was after that, when the National Institutes of Health, which gives a tremendous amount of money around the country, including more than a billion dollars in California to universities, said that it would

dramatically cut down the overhead funding it would give to universities. Now, when we hear the word overhead, it sounds like things for filing papers or payroll or

clerk kind of work. But that's not how it works at universities. Overhead, you know, pays for graduate teaching assistants, for researchers. It pays for people to upkeep the labs. You know, if you're using mice or rats or other living beings for research into medicines.

and cancer in areas like that, it pays for just keeping the lights on in the research lab as well. So they cut this dramatically and universities, they sued. So right now that's on pause.

Right now, that's on pause. But it sounds like it's already, as we're saying, having some impacts in some other ways. And we'll hear more about those after the break. Listeners, we're talking with Javed Kaleem, an education reporter at the LA Times about how California universities are responding to the Trump administration's threats and investigations.

And you, our listeners, are also weighing in with your thoughts and questions at 866-733-6786 on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, and threads at KQED Forum and at our email address, forum at kqed.org. Stay with us. We'll have more after the break with faculty and students. Stay with us. This is Blue Sky.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking this hour about the Trump administration's actions, specifically targeting California universities this hour and how they are responding. We're talking about it with Javed Kaleem, and I'm joined now by Dr. Steve Hetz, chief of neuroendovascular surgery at UCSF and chair of the UCSF division of the UC academic community.

Steve, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you so much. Great to be here with you and your listeners. So I understand, Steve, that in the last week or so, UCSF specifically has received significantly more grant award termination letters from federal agencies than it's seen, and in particular from the NIH. How much has this amounted to, and how has this affected the work at UCSF? So far, terminations have amounted to about $30 million, and

And when you look at federal funding and its impact, you know, for each federal dollar we receive, you know, an additional three to four dollars of community impact is rolled in. And so if there's already been a 30 million dollar cut, probably the impact on the community is already in excess of 100 million dollars and several hundred jobs.

But I think beyond that, the cuts that have happened, it's the uncertainties and the delays that we're experiencing that are inhibiting the research enterprise and ultimately are starting to impact the medical enterprise. So how is it inhibiting the research enterprise? And has it inhibited your work or affected your work in any way, Steve? Yeah, so I like to think of...

this issue in terms of the impact on people. And maybe I'll start with a story about the impact on patients and then move on a little bit to the impact on research projects. But my specialty, I'm essentially a brain plumber. And so I repair blood vessels in the brain for people who are having strokes or aneurysms or things like that.

And an example I'd like to cite of how important it is to have integrated teams that include not only very specialized physicians like myself, but also basic science researchers as integrated teams came a few years ago. And so there was a girl five years old who developed a terrible headache in her hometown near Bakersfield.

And she was brought up to UCSF, and we diagnosed her with a ruptured brain aneurysm. And this aneurysm, this swelling of an artery in the back of her brain, is in an artery that normally if you block it off to treat the aneurysm, there's a very high likelihood that she would never wake up or she would be quadriplegic from that treatment to block off the artery to prevent it from bleeding again.

Now, because we actually have MRI researchers at UCSF who've developed brand new techniques to look at the wall of aneurysms with MRI based on NIH grants that they receive, we actually were able to image this child's aneurysm

and figure out what part of the aneurysm had actually ruptured. And with normal imaging, you actually can't figure that out. You have to block off the whole artery. But for her, we were able to tailor our treatment based on that advanced MRI and seal off just the part of the artery that had bled, incidentally using a device that was invented at UCLA. And

She woke up from our procedure. Now, she couldn't talk for about 17 days. Those were a long 17 days for her parents and for me and for her. But she made a full recovery, and she was a normal kid after that. And what I worry about is that if we didn't have this integrated team of both top-level clinicians as well as innovative researchers working together,

we really couldn't deliver that kind of really impactful patient care that's available for all Californians. You're talking about people, and I'm reminded that the UC has instituted a hiring freeze. What concerns is that raising for you? So the hiring freeze takes a couple of effects. One, on the research enterprise, and two, eventually probably on the clinical enterprise.

On the clinical enterprise, there's attrition. And so, for example, I have a nurse practitioner who decided to change jobs, and it may be difficult to arrange for her replacement. It's still uncertain exactly how the hiring freeze is going to affect the clinical positions. In terms of research, though, the hiring freeze sort of relates also to delays in the evaluation of research grants at NIH.

So, for example, I had a grant that went in last year and was evaluated highly by peer review. And we should have been able to start that project in December or January, but because of uncertainties and changes in policies, we haven't yet.

And that's a potentially really impactful project. It's actually for our lab to develop medical devices that can reduce the toxicity from chemotherapy for patients. And, you know, on a personal level, it was particularly a gut punch because during this time that we've been waiting to hear about getting the grant money so we can start that project, my own father was diagnosed with a cancer.

very serious liver tumor, the kind of which, you know, those sorts of devices could ultimately help patients with. And so it's this uncertainty that's delaying the start of a lot of research as well that ultimately is impacting the scientific community, the patient community, and then ultimately our trainees as well. We're really facing, you know, concerns about having a lost generation of researchers.

You're part of the Academic Senate. What conversations are UC faculty having and with whom about how to counter or mitigate these effects?

Yeah, at UC, we're lucky to have a very robust academic senate that participates in shared governance with the administration. And so we're able to talk to not only administrators and leaders on our campuses individually, but then also to talk with the top administrators in the university, up to and including Michael Drake, our president, and our board of regents.

And so we've expressed our concerns to them. And I know that they're advocating on our behalf as well. But yeah, there have been a lot of difficult conversations because of all the uncertainties. Is there anyone within the Trump administration you think might be receptive to the harms that are already being perpetrated? And of course, an unknown number, you know, with regard to this lawsuit where billions more in NIH funding is potentially on the line as it moves through the courts.

Well, you know, I have some cautious optimism that now with a permanent director appointed for NIH, Dr. Bhattacharya, there may be people in place who our story can resonate more with in an evidence-based way. I think it's just tremendously concerning that, you know, the government

academic university partnership that really evolved in the days of World War II from, frankly, the Manhattan Project, which in large part was led at the University of California, now is under such threat of rapid change because it's been built up in a very deliberate fashion over many decades to really support the preeminence of the United States in science and medicine worldwide. And

It's not designed to respond to such rapid changes. And I really am concerned that these rapid changes will set us back. And in private conversations with faculty, some may choose to leave and they may choose to leave for overseas universities. And so I think the threat to the entire research and medical infrastructure is quite serious.

Steve Hetz, Chief of Neuroendovascular Surgery at UCSF and Chair of the UCSF Division of the UC Academic Senate. Thanks so much for talking with us. Thank you.

We also have listeners weighing in. Stuart writes, Health and Human Services announced that they had initiated an investigation of a major medical school in California. Do we know which medical school is being investigated and why this one in particular? Javed, who is it? It's UCLA. That was also announced on last Thursday. And the

The administration didn't say which school, just kept it to California, but they later confirmed to me on background that it's the UCLA Medical School they're looking at. Yeah. Let me go next to caller Edward in San Francisco. And this one, the one that is by the Health and Human Services Department, is somewhat related to concerns about illegal DEI as well, right? Not necessarily related to medical research, for example.

funding related to the NIH grant issue? Yes. UCLA is facing the same issues as UCSF around NIH and other grants. But this investigation by Health and Human Services is specifically around admissions to the medical school. And the medical school has had a lot of

been under a lot of controversy of various kinds around race, ethnicity, especially around coursework and Israel and Palestine over the last year. Let me go to caller Edward in San Francisco. Hi, Edward, you're on.

Good morning. I love UC Berkeley. I spent 14 years there in the physics and nuclear engineering department. I was a grad student and a professor. This is Assault on Academia, Assault on Free Speech. I was there during the 1970s free speech movement. I met Maria Savio.

We're a country, whatever right now is dark, dark, dark age. Freedom of academia is the essence of progress, of civilization. They're shutting the country down. Ignorance taking over, darkness taking over light. We all have to resist with all of our means. UC Berkeley is one of the most beautiful campuses in the world.

And we should do everything we can to keep it going, research keep going. We need civilization, not darkness, not ignorance. Yeah, thank you for sharing the way you're feeling about it. I'm wondering, Javed, if the state government is in a position to step up and offset any of the impacts that universities are currently feeling. You know, it's not looking good on that end. And that's because for

For public universities, UC and Cal State University, the state has reduced the budget that it offers to them for the coming years. So the money is already shorter before even the new presidency came into office. Not a good sign in terms of the state. The interesting thing is that President Trump's rationale has been that he wants to give power back to the states, right?

But don't states already have pretty wide latitude to determine, A, their curriculum and sort of accountability measures? And B, how is it giving more power to the states if he's trying to force them to reverse policies he disagrees with?

just thinking about Edward's comments, what are your thoughts in terms of, or what have you heard in terms of a rationale? That's a fair point, Mina. Yes, and it especially applies when it looks at K-12 education, where it is very locally controlled. Of course, there are some state standards, in California especially,

in every state, but going to school near Sacramento versus LA versus San Francisco in a public school can be very different and more attuned to your local community and parents and teachers there. So yeah, the national versus local control discussion is sort of a misnomer in that regard.

And there are a lot of questions to be seen around universities. I think the main argument is that universities, many of the biggest ones are very wealthy with big endowments and the administration believes that they serve the elite and should help themselves more than the government. That's their argument. On the hiring freezes, Javed, weren't there already thousands of unfilled positions before the hiring freeze or are campuses mostly staffed up to weather this?

Yeah, it's, you know, this is not, universities were not doing great to begin with, financially especially, before President Trump came into office for his second term. They were, you know, here in LA, one of our biggest universities, University of Southern California, and they were cutting all kinds of departmental hiring, reducing library hours,

reducing funding for the school newspaper team. And this was all before or right as Trump came into office. So it was not about his administration's policies. So it's a double whammy in many ways. And we're talking with Javed Kaleem of the LA Times and also with you, our listeners, about your questions and comments about

Trump actions against California universities. How have you been affected by these actions? 866-733-6786. We're at KQED Forum on our social channels and at the email address forum at kqed.org. Joining me now is Aditi Hariharan, president of the UC Student Association and a senior at UC Davis studying nutrition science and political science.

Aditi, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for having me. So tell me, how are students reacting to all this? How would you characterize the overall mood? I would say there's a sense of despair in the air. Students are unable to feel empowered just due to the different levers of power that are really...

debilitating or seeming to debilitate their educational experience, especially with the federal government's reign of terror against public education specifically. The UC Student Association represents all undergraduate UC students, and I know that the Department of Ed closures as well as fears of student loans and not knowing how stable those are in the future, as well as just like the threats on DEI, the threats on even

Even the curriculum of ethnic studies, all of these different factors, I think, just lead students to feel sort of hopeless in the current environment and also hopeless in the UC's response to these threats. If the UC is actually going to stand up to the federal government and have a strong response.

So it sounds like the disbursement of grants and loans, DEI, and so on are top of mind for students. How do you feel the UC system is doing in terms of communicating with students, responding to the needs of students, given all the challenges the system is facing? I think the UC is definitely...

Lacking in some of these responses, for example, their removal of diversity statements for hiring, I think, is showing students that they're actually complying with the federal government when students want to see a strong response against the federal government's reign on diversity.

diversity. There's also been cases of students trying to host events that are identity specific, such as a black student advocacy day or such. And they're told by their campus administrators that they can't use targeted language for a specific identity group, which is completely not what the students want because it's,

a priority for especially students in leadership to increase access for historically underserved communities and historically communities who have historically been barred from accessing these advocacy pathways. So I think

students really are seeing the UC complying with the national narrative rather than standing up strongly against it. And what would standing up strongly against it look like for you, effective standing up strongly against it? So there's been lawsuits filed by the UC against the Department of Homeland Security in the past, specifically regarding DACA. I think lawsuits are a strong way for the

the UC to actually like stand up against the federal government. Another strong way would be supporting key policy initiatives that really do counteract the federal government's reign, maybe in the state government or even in the federal landscape, because the UC does have a state government relations team and a federal government relations team. And I think also just

strong communication with students, specifically with specific identities who are being targeted by this administration, and really assuring them that the UC is there to protect their needs and their rights, even if the federal government won't. Aditi Hariharan, thank you so much for talking with us. Aditi is... Thank you again.

President of UC, the UC Student Association, the official representative of all UC undergrad students at his undergrad campuses, and a senior at UC Davis studying nutrition science and political science. And we'll talk more about the impacts on faculty and students of Trump's recent attacks on California's universities. Stay with us. At Sierra, discover great deals on top-brand workout gear, like high-quality walking shoes, which might lead to another discovery. 40,000 steps, baby!

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

We're talking about it with Javed Kaleem, education reporter at the LA Times and with you, our listeners who are joining at 866-733-6786 on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram or threads or by emailing forum at kqed.org. How have you been affected by Trump's recent actions targeting higher education in our state?

What questions do you have about the impacts on our university system and others? How would you like to see universities or the state respond? Let me go to Stephanie next. Hi, Stephanie. In San Francisco, you're on. Hi. I'm a public school teacher in San Francisco. I also have two kids at universities, UCs here in California. Hi.

couple of things. I do not agree with anything that's happening. One of my first grade books was actually a banned book, Freckle Face Strawberry. Get that. But I also am curious, you know, California has been really not supporting education for a number of years. And yet, if we were our own economy, we would be like the fifth richest economy in the world. And I'm just curious if anybody has anything to say

about how we can tap into some of the existing resources and look at our own disinvestment in public education over the years. Stephanie, thanks. I grew up in California in excellent, excellent public schools until 1978.

So just curious about that. Javed, Stephanie would like to see more of a response from the state and, you know, is concerned about the disinvestment that has affected the kind of education that we provide here in California, one that she experienced as being really strong when she was involved.

What are your thoughts on anything you're seeing that the state is doing beyond the fact that we just talked about its budget is actually cutting nearly $400 million from UCs, for example, in the next proposal? Well, I mean, that's a good question and point. And it's interesting because that's something almost like a point of unity among conservatives and liberals. And of course, in California, we have many of both. But

Even when you look at the presidential administration, they point at the country as a whole and its achievement among students, reading levels, test scores, depending upon which states and places use them, and other areas being below standards as a reason why the federal government should not be involved to the same level or at the same structure in education.

So I know state officials have certainly

heard such complaints and another complaint in California has a lot of red tape around all kinds of matters, including education. But I'm not so sure if they've offered up specific financial solutions or ideas in terms of the cuts going on right now. Just before the break, we were talking to the head of the UC Student Association, Aditi Hariharan, and I know you've also been reporting on

international students and what they're experiencing, what did they tell you about what they're going through, especially with regards to seeing

international students, especially those who participated in protests being targeted by the Trump administration? Yeah, you know, it's, that's been a big, big concern among international students. California has the largest population of international students in the country, which makes sense as part of the biggest statewide population.

And, you know, where I live in L.A., University of Southern California has the most out of all schools in the state of intermaster students, 17,000. That's a lot. And they're mostly across the street from China and India. Across the U.S., there's been about, I believe, eight students now who have been detained at several different schools worldwide.

under allegations that they support Hamas or support terrorism. And sometimes the administration won't say exactly why they were detained. Sometimes it will. And it's been a big concern here because across the state, we had so many really large movements

around encampments and divestments happening from Cal Poly Humboldt to Berkeley to UCLA to Stanford to USC. And students are just, some have gone to hiding, some are just not going out. They've moved, staying with friends, and some are just kind of waiting because they expect to be arrested soon.

And in addition, it sounds like the Department of Education is also taking action against DACA students who are in certain college programs, right, Javed? Yes, DACA has always been this tenuous position. And there's fewer and fewer DACA students as well, because, of course, you can't apply

As a new DACA recipient, you can only renew if you're already in the program at this point due to the different court cases. So there's relatively fewer of them on campuses right now, maybe more even undocumented students actually, but they also have a lot of concerns.

Patrick writes, what Trump is doing is terrible, but he does take cover under the blatant anti-Semitism at UCLA and other universities. The inability to confront anti-Semitism on campuses has been a real blow to the credibility of the university. Joan writes, not just in the medical community, but in academia and research in general, it worries me that the U.S. is and will continue to experience a brain drain. And another country, perhaps Canada or the U.K., because they are English-speaking countries, will be able to

will be looked to as the world leaders for medical and other research. I want to bring into the conversation Michael Che, political science professor at UCLA and a member of the UCLA Faculty Association. Michael, thanks so much for being with us. Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's good to talk to you. Yeah, good to talk with you as well. You know, I was struck by something you said, which is that you don't think the UC administration is, quote, stepping up to meet the moment.

What do you mean by that? How would you like to see them step up? Well, I'd just like to echo what Aditi said, which is that, you know, like Steve was mentioning how, you know, we have to talk to our leaders, our university leaders, President Drake and the chancellors of our individual UC institutions. And, you know, they're obviously lobbying and trying to talk to people. And Steve has some faith in that we'll be able to talk to people in NIH and stuff. But I have much less faith in that. I feel like...

You know, kind of like what Aditi said, if you're a student, you don't get to see those kinds of lobbying efforts. What you need is a very strong public defense of the values of our university. And that's the main job of an administrator. The main job of administrators is to preserve the values and protect them against attacks on their values. And in a sense, I agree completely with Edward earlier, which that's what universities are about. We're about free expression, about learning. We're not about persecuting people. We're about protecting our students.

We're about protecting our research and teaching mission. And that has to be said very, very clearly. And so far, University of California leaders have not done that. And you said stepping up to meet this moment. How would you characterize the significance of this moment for California higher education, Michael? What is happening? Well, I mean, this moment is...

Many people, I'm a political scientist, many political scientists, 800 political scientists wrote this letter, maybe a thousand, saying that this is a unique moment in the history of democracy in this country. You know, you now have the Trump administration deliberately ignoring court orders. There's a huge overreach in the executive in general. So many things they're doing are illegal. They're held up in the courts and they'll be found to be illegal.

This is one of the worst, if not the worst, attack on the American democracy since its inception. And so this is a moment we're in. And if you look historically in other countries, universities, the student movement, student protests, large student mobilizations have been one of the main

avenues by which democracies can defend themselves. So this moment is one where we have to preserve the power of students, power of faculty, but power of all institutions of civil society, including course journalism, law firms, labor unions. We have to preserve this power. So I see all these attacks as trying to, as a Trump administration, basically trying to get rid of any competing institution which could stand up to its power.

Well, Sue writes, of the eight plus billion people in the world, not a single one of us is the same as any other. We are diverse. To try to legislate diversity out of existence, it's ludicrous. Jorge writes, what was the educational purpose of DEI? What negative impact on education will ending DEI practices have? It seems like people will still be educated. Your thoughts for Jorge, Michael? Well, what I'll say is,

Right now in the United States, I think people still don't realize this, if you look at people under 18 in the United States, 50% are people of color. In California, of the people under 18, 75% are people of color. So if we don't make our universities accessible to people of color, to trans folks, LGBTQ folks, to everyone, then we won't have educated people.

I'd hate to tell you this, but if you want to have doctors in 23 years from now, we need to have people who want to go to medical school. Those people have to go to college. If we want to have lawyers, if we want to have anybody who's an educated person, we have to make our institutions open to

to people wanting to come to. So it's like, you can't exist as an institution and ignore half of your market. And so, this is not about giving bones to people or anything like that. This is about ensuring the future of our institutions, given the demographic transition we're in.

So I would say too that 24 law faculty, including four UCLA, wrote a letter back in February saying that the executive order which the Trump administration made about DEI basically, first of all, might have elements which are illegal, but also doesn't actually say that existing laws

DEI practices are illegal. So common DEI initiatives, for example, having targeted events like Aditi said, like targeting a certain ethnic group, that's completely okay by previous and very recent Supreme Court rulings. So it's just kind of a scare tactic, and it's just a way of kind of...

getting into our minds and just creating, you know, making people scared. So go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Hold that thought. Let me read you a couple of things. Marjorie writes, the notion of what is a DEI initiative seems impossibly vague to me, which is probably the point. This is about harassing and thereby undermining the universities. At some point, the University of California announced

should be challenging the notion of illegal DEI as unconstitutionally vague. When our daughter began her MD program at UCSF, we were all told at the white coat ceremony that the UCSF mission was to train the leaders in eradicating health disparities. Does that deem that mission illegal? And Art writes, to what extent is the federal government suppression of DEI on college campuses a suppression of free speech, which is granted under the Constitution? Let me remind listeners, you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

Michael, I'm curious, has your teaching been impacted or your sense of what you can teach been impacted by these recent actions of the Trump administration? Well, I mean, I was going to say, like, you asked Steve about how these attacks are kind of affecting the research and clinical mission, but it's also affecting our teaching mission. I mean, when I came to UCLA in 2001, we had like large classes and

The graduate student led TA sections had 12 people in them and now they have 20 people in them. So every year, it's a slight dilution of the amount of student contact.

contact people have with their professors. And so it's getting a little worse each year. And kind of like we were saying before, we've, you know, like Joved said, the funding situation has not been good. I mean, it's gotten a little worse all the time. We're basically asked to live a little less each year. And it's also made us more and more beholden to, you know,

private donors, and hence the private donors have a lot more influence on us than is probably healthy. And so I think that, you know, like you were mentioning the cuts in the year coming up, I think Gavin Newsom's budget proposes an 8% cut in our budget. And so it has affected our teaching. I mean, in my department, UCLA Political Science, we used to have over 50 professors. Now we have 30, and we're supposed to have a goal of 40. And

If you can't hire when you can't reach, you know, 40, which is already kind of small. And so it does affect, you know, our ability to write recommendation letters for students, our ability to give, you know, small classes and offer good counseling and good guidance to our students. So it's really diluting this experience for everybody, including professors and students.

Michael Che, a professor of political science at UCLA. Thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you so much. Michael Che is a member of the UCLA Faculty Association as well. This listener, Maggie writes, I'm very frustrated by the misguided opinion that being pro-Palestine is anti-Semitic. I can be against genocide without being anti-Semitic. I can be against the Israeli incursion into Palestine territory without being anti-Semitic. And I can be anti-Netanyahu and his cruel policies without being anti-Semitic.

anti-Semitic. Another listener, Paul, writes regarding the closing of clubs, housing. Perhaps student governments can sue to block some of these executive actions because it violates the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of association. Let me go to Stephen in Larkspur. Hi, Stephen. Thanks for waiting. You're on. Thank you. A few comments. First, professors are leaving the country. A Yale history professor

is leaving Yale to go to the University of Toronto solely because of what's happening. I would also comment on the student government leader you had from Davis. Hope, despair, and hopelessness are not an option. And what is missing right now are student and faculty on the street, visible protest. We need them to join the growing number of people who are out in

in the public protesting. My main point is people should look at what's happening as akin to a kidnapping, where the administration is holding the universities hostage, and they've made their ransom demand right now about ridding the universities of DEI. But people should not be fooled that this is the last demand from the Trump administration. There

They're on a slippery slope. The next demand may be banning textbooks. It may be firing certain faculty of ethnic or racial origins that they don't approve of. So the only...

One of the only ways that we have to stop this movement towards fascism is for people to be in the streets. The pro-Palestinian movement that sprang up literally out of nowhere across the United States and campuses, we need that same movement.

energy and responsiveness from student and faculty. Well, Stephen, you are certainly not alone in wanting them. We have other listeners weighing in saying that they are also craving more protests, more teachings, and so on. Javed, you know, this is the time when high school students are getting their acceptances to California colleges and universities.

What can they expect on campus for new students given all of this, right? Maybe, I don't know if you can offer reassurance or if there are concerns or if you've been hearing from

campus leaders or UC administrators talking about, you know, the future campus experience and what that will be like? Yeah, the college administrators are, you know, saying that they will still offer what they're offering and that students should still come. Of course, there might be concerns. You know, I would also say in the last year and a half, there was a group, some Jewish students who were concerned about enrolling at some campuses too, because they did feel

that they were discriminatory toward them um i you know i think it's interesting if you look at columbia i know it's not here but if you look on social media for columbia university which has been kind of at the center of this storm um you'll see tons of students who are saying they are not accepting their admission to columbia and going elsewhere so you see that i've also heard from many phd candidates or post-doctoral researchers who are um

haven't had their positions in California universities rescinded and they're going elsewhere too. So lots of uncertainty, lots of potential impacts that I'm sure you are covering, but that you are waiting to see essentially, despite some of the reassurances from UC administrators and others. Yeah, I mean, we're just, right now is when the letters have just gone out and we'll see who accepts them and who goes where.

Javed Kaleem, education reporter for the LA Times, thank you. My thanks as well to Steve Hetz of UCSF for joining us earlier, Michael Chaif of UCLA, and Aditi Hariharan, president of the UC Student Association at UC Davis. My thanks as well to listeners for sharing your questions and concerns, and to Mark Nieto for producing this segment. You've been listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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