This post was updated Aug. 31 at 8:03 p.m.
John Wooden once said that adversity reveals character.
Our university is facing more adversity than it has at perhaps any other point in its storied 106-year history. The Trump administration has cut funding for research programs, and if Chancellor Julio Frenk does not yield to the administration’s excessive demands, the full force of the federal government will be brought down on UCLA.
The university must consider itself fortunate: it should have the backing of a system of world-class research universities and funding from a state that ranks as the fourth-largest economy in the world.
The UC system – and the state of California – has an undeniable responsibility to aid UCLA. After all, both should be well-placed to ride to the rescue.
This will reveal their character too.
“UC and campus leadership have been anticipating and preparing for the kind of federal action we saw this week, and that preparation helps support our decisions now,” UC President James Millikin said in a press release on his first day in office last Friday.
The UC system has a budget of $53.6 billion, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. The $584 million in funding withheld from UCLA is just a drop in that bucket. Transferring even just a small portion of funding from the rest of the UC can help shoulder the burden and make up for the shortfall.
When the UC Board of Regents established UCLA on an equal footing with UC Berkeley in 1958, they said that “budget allocations for the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses shall be based on the principle that the two campuses should be comparable in size and have equal opportunities.”
It is impossible for those opportunities to remain equal without intercampus support.
Roger Wakimoto, UCLA’s vice chancellor of research and creative activities, said in a Friday email that researchers on campus will have to stop spending their grant funding, leaving important projects on hold and at risk. A Division of Physical Sciences coordinator added that in light of the cuts, students could lose opportunities and services.
Mutual support has always been a strength of the UC system. After all, Bruins had to swallow an agreement to pay $10 million to UC Berkeley as “Calimony” to ensure the campus’ athletics program could stay afloat in the name of intercampus solidarity. UC Merced also received disproportionate funding relative to its revenues while it established itself.
The UC system already has an Interlocation Transfer of Funds system in place so research units can support each other in the face of challenges.
Across the country, the Trump administration has targeted universities one at a time.
First it came for Columbia. Then it came for the University of Pennsylvania. Then Brown, Princeton, Northwestern, Cornell, Harvard and Duke. Now it’s targeting UCLA.
The president’s targeting, like a wolf against sheep, comes one by one to make unified resistance difficult. Universities, when facing the music alone, are forced to yield.
Even though UCLA is the first UC campus to receive funding cuts, it is hard to imagine it will be the only one. UC Berkeley Chancellor Richard Lyons has already testified in front of Republican-controlled congressional committees, and the president’s complaints about admissions speak to the system as a whole.
We cannot allow our universities – the gems of our state – to be picked off.
The UC System is not the only place UCLA can look to for support; the state should also act bravely to defend one of its most valuable assets. California spends over $321 billion a year. Helping UCLA continue its vital, life-saving research would only cost the state less than 0.2% of that – a small price to pay for the independence to serve, free of demands that would fly in the face of its values.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has long positioned himself as a viable candidate to resist the Make America Great Again movement. He has criticized presidential economic policies, condemned immigration raids and led the response to Republican-led Texas redistricting attempts.
“Freezing critical research funding for UCLA – dollars that were going to study invasive diseases, cure cancer, and build new defense technologies – makes our country less safe,” Newsom said in his latest criticism of the administration.
It was strong rhetoric from the governor, who himself sits on the UC Board of Regents. Newsom also has the ability to make changes to the budget, having lent UC campuses $185 million for climate change research in 2022.
It’s time California put its money where its mouth is. After all, our country’s safety – and our university’s soul – is on the line.
The University of California and the state should double down on their values, aiding UCLA to fund its existing research.
If they do not, as John Wooden suggested, the current adversity will reveal a clearer picture of their true character.
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