Nearly two months after the Trump administration suspended federal grants at UCLA and sent a letter extorting the University of California for over $1.2 billion, UCOP and the UC Regents remain silent on their negotiations with the federal government. In the meantime, threats to our first amendment rights and against our students and colleagues have had a chilling effect on our campuses. UC-AFT teaching faculty and librarians have seen layoffs and cuts to our work, as the University cites budgetary uncertainty, while our demands to meet with UC administrators to understand what is happening have gone unanswered. Transparency and shared governance are nowhere to be found.

Governor Gavin Newsom has been clear from the start that UC should not capitulate to Trump’s demands of UC, and has stated there will be no state funding for sell-out universities. While his intentions and rhetoric have been strong, we need the governor to take decisive action now. Because as time drags on, we are left wondering what is happening behind closed doors.

So starting now, we’re asking Governor Newsom to redouble his efforts to pressure UC to stand strong and refuse concessions that will hurt us all. He has the power to pressure the UC to protect its workers and students and reject Trump's extortion demands.

Take one minute and send an email to the governor now!

Background:

In September, UC-AFT joined a broad coalition of faculty, staff, students, and labor unions filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking to stop the Trump administration’s attempt to unlawfully stifle free speech and roll back civil rights of faculty, students, and staff within the University of California (UC) system, the second largest employer in California. Together, our union coalition represents over 100,000 workers on all 10 UC campuses.

UCOP and the UC Regents have been locked away negotiating with Trump’s lawyers, possibly agreeing to federal demands for outrageous financial “penalties” that could devastate the UC’s finances and result in hundreds of layoffs, along with direct encroachments on our rights, as well as those of our students. Updates from President Milliken have been woefully vague–acknowleding negotiations but offering no details about the substance of these conversations. In the meantime, our colleagues from the Faculty Association sued to reveal the terms that the Trump administration is demanding, and despite the UC’s attempts to block the demand letter, it has now been released. Federal demands include:

• Requirements to eliminate access to gender-affirming care at UC hospitals

• Requirements to eliminate "diversity-based" student programs and scholarships

• Prohibitions on "diversity" considerations from hiring, retention, and promotion processes

• Mandated punishments for immigrant faculty, staff, and students for expressing "anti-Western, anti-American, or antisemitic" beliefs

• Requirements for restrictions on campus protests and academic freedom beyond the new TPM (“Time, Place, Manner”) policies many campuses have already introduced.

In spite of pressure and support from UC workers and students, Governor Newsom, and California state legislators to stay strong, UCOP and the Regents have so far been unresponsive to us all–refusing requests for information, cease and desists, and demands to bargain from UC-AFT and other unions. Now is the time for us to increase the pressure, and we are asking the governor–as an ex-officio UC Regent himself–to push for resistance from within the board. Ex-officio members may not be able to vote, but they hold power that can and must be leveraged in this moment–and as governor and the highest ranking California critic of Trump and the attacks we’re facing, we need Newsom to do more.

Click through and send an email to Governor Newsom now!