The final step is a proposed settlement that would include a large payout (more than $1.2 billion in UCLA’s case) and a set of conditions that would transform university administration and instruction. These situations often have little or no connection with anti-Semitism.
While all of this was clearly meant to combat anti-Semitism, the plaintiffs in this case presented a vast series of quotes from administration officials, including the head of the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, saying that the goal was to suppress certain views on campus. “The unredacted record in this case shows that defendants have used the threat of investigation and economic sanctions…to compel UC to prohibit faculty, staff, and students from engaging in ‘woke,’ ‘leftist,’ ‘anti-American,’ ‘anti-Western,’ and ‘Marxist’ speech,” Lin said.
And even before any kind of agreement was reached, there was widespread testimony that people on campus changed their teaching and research to avoid administration attention. “Plaintiff members have expressed fear that researching, teaching, and speaking on unfavorable topics will lead to further retaliatory funding cancellations against UC,” Lynn wrote, “and that they will be blamed for retaliation.” They also describe fear that the UC will retaliate against them to avoid further funding cuts or to comply with the proposed settlement agreement.
This is a problem, given that teaching and research topics are forms of speech, and therefore protected by the First Amendment. Lynn concluded, “These are classic, predictable First Amendment harms, and exactly what the defendants publicly said they intended.”
beyond speech
But the First Amendment isn’t the only issue here. The Civil Rights Act, specifically Title VI, lays out a process for cutting federal funding, including warning and a hearing before any funds are cut off. That level of coercion is also limited to cases where there are indications that voluntary compliance will not work. Any funding cuts would need to target the specific programs involved and the money allocated to them. There is nothing in Title VI that enables the kind of financial payments that the government is demanding (and, in some cases, receiving) from schools.