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Background: UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "by acting with deliberate indif

Background: UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students." Outcome: These grants are likely in a temporary holding pattern until ucla settles the issue.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Den_VR 1y ago
The root bsky post says “NSF is suspending roughly 300 grants with UCLA, following a DOJ finding on Tuesday that the university violated Title VI by "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students."” Which is entirely par for the course with the administration and doesn’t seem particularly targeted at Tao. I’m shocked even more NSF grants haven’t been hit, this was a prime DOGE target. They want these headlines.
- throwaway290 1y ago
  > "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students" Of course suspending grants is probably the wrong way to go about it anyway, but since you brought this up... do you imply that it's false? I'm not in the US but I heard pretty interesting things about what was happening in universities following Oct 7.
  - dcre 1y ago
    It’s complete bullshit. Half the students protesting for Gaza were Jewish themselves.
    - throwaway290 1y ago
      This is the closest to the answer for now, thanks. I remember reading how it was pretty antisemitic with racial shaming and bordering on physical violence but can't remember what sources it was. If half of the protesters were jewish as you say then that's unlikely
      - guelo 1y ago
        Propaganda directed straight from netanyahu. He ordered America to censor the students in public sperches and within days America inexplicably did it.
  - hackyhacky 1y ago
    Yes, it's false. Students have a first amendment right to express opinions, even anti-Zionist ones. The administration is using baseless charges of antisemitism as a cudgel to extract fealty and concessions from universities, which they see as opponents of their party.
    - cvoss 1y ago
      The accusation from DOJ isn't about student speech, though. It's about the university's actions or inactions, which are not protected and are governed by obligations to Title VI discrimination law.
      - hackyhacky 1y ago
        You're right, but the university is not allowed to censor student speech based on content. The "actions" that the administration claims the university should have taken would have violated the constitution.
        ethbr1 1y ago
        Furthermore, the redresses the administration has proposed in similar cases (like the university reporting students who protest to federal authorities) suggest this is more about federal power / censorship than furthering universal free speech.
        fuzzfactor 1y ago
        Free speech just got a price put on its head, capisce? For a one-time payment it may be able to slide this time, didn't Columbia University have an offer they couldn't refuse? Pray the Don doesn't alter the deal . . .
        throwaway290 1y ago
        > the university is not allowed to censor student speech based on content Hold on, didn't tenured professors get fired literally based on content of their speech a few years back under the other administration? I am confused And this does not have to be about censoring speech. There are rules of a place. As I said, you start obstructing a lecture, you get thrown out in a good university
  - plemer 1y ago
    Allowing people to speak out against overt genocide committed by a foreign government = anti-semitism. Isn’t that self-evident? /s Tbh, this standard argument is itself anti-Jewish as it implies this behavior is inherent to being Jewish, which of course is grotesque and inaccurate. * Jewish /= Zionist * Zionist /= Imperialist * Imperialist /= Genocidal What we have really imo is an extreme colonist policy that is only superficially Jewish. That doesn’t absolve Jews in Israel supporting it, it rather absolves all those who don’t and makes genocidal colonists take responsibility for their own actions. Also, genocide is bad.
    - throwaway290 1y ago
      Nice strawman. So how about the actual question which is hostile environment for students? I was downvoted for asking a question and this did not answer it. Edit to reply: what I remember reading was not about saying "end genocide", it was about saying "you are a jew so go die" kind of stuff. It seemed pretty crazy but I didn't save any sources
      - Tadpole9181 1y ago
        If I make a sign that says "Nazis are Evil", and a guy gets upset and says "you can't say that about me" - what do you call that guy? A Nazi. If I make a sign that says "End the Zionist Genocide", and a Jewish person says "you can't say that about me", they don't feel uncomfortable because they're Jewish.
        throwaway290 1y ago
        "Zionist genocide" means a genocide of zionist people. Last time I heard it happened was WWII. This thread and replies I got is wild!
        plemer 1y ago
        Do you really imagine anyone here is convinced by your petty deceptions? We know what words mean.
- yongjik 1y ago
  > "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students." So... did the dean make a public Nazi salute or something? The double standard (if we can even call it a "standard") is getting rather tiring.
bananapub 1y ago
uh, no, the president has just claimed that the uni was not horrible enough to pro-palestine protestors and so he'll be randomly withholding federal money until they bend to his pathetic will and permanently destroy the independence of the university by letting his cronies rule it.
lupusreal 1y ago
> Background: UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students." Translation: ULCA declined to violate the First Ammendment and allowed their students and faculty to criticize Israel.
- mensetmanusman 1y ago
  It’s more akin to the civil rights movement/counter movement when some universities ignored various assaults on black students (saying it wasn’t their job to police behavior). The protesters were fine to criticize Israel, but then turning the rage to the actual American Jews on campus crossed the line.
  - DSingularity 1y ago
    Provide evidence from reputable sources. Israeli Jews kill tens of thousands of Palestinian children and we are supposed to care that Zionists feel targeted by the protests on campus? Zionists are literally starving people right now. Do you not get that?
    - nrclark 1y ago
      There's a distinction to make between Jewish people and Israel. Jewish people are fine. The Israeli genocide of Gaza is not.
      - peterfirefly 1y ago
        > There's a distinction to make between Jewish people and Israel. Lots of Jews don't seem to know that.
      - DSingularity 1y ago
        I said Israeli Jews. I didn’t say Jews.
  - 1y ago
SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
Did Terence Tao or the other researchers whose grants have been suspended violate Title VI? This just seems like dishonest excusemaking for extortion. UCLA would dispute that they violated Title VI, so the Trump regime is pulling out a bat and breaking their researchers' kneecaps until they agree to give in.
mgaunard 1y ago
why does US law have articles to specifically protect one ethnic group instead of being generic and protecting them all?
- elcritch 1y ago
  They do to my knowledge, the quote is the specific violation of the civil rights act.
- jdross 1y ago
  They do. The law is literally that you must equally protect all groups
  - hackyhacky 1y ago
    Correct. However, the current administration is interested in enforcing the law about discrimination only against one group.
    - fuzzfactor 1y ago
      That's a misguided political party for you. Looks to me like they've got their sights on a lot more than one group, some are just more obvious than others.
    - UncleMeat 1y ago
      And they aren't even doing that. The administration doesn't give a shit about jewish people. It cares about hurting lefties and has decided that "pro-palestine efforts are anti-semitic" is a cudgel they can use to do that.
    - verzali 1y ago
      I wonder how many jewish researchers lost their funding here and in the other cases. Seems like a misguided approach if this is what they really care about.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
roenxi 1y ago
Additional Background: US government provides funding, US government tries to use that leverage to decide how the show will be run. Over the years I've come to accept the blind spot most people have where, despite all evidence, they assume that the government goals match their own. But it still isn't the case. The prudent approach is to set up institutions that are largely independent of government. Government funding is not an answer to long term problems. Governments are too fickle and the political bandwidth isn't high enough to handle complex arguments like whether researching structure in sequences of 0s and 1s is a good idea. I know the fashion is to present Trump as some weird aberration but he's been a factor for about 10 years now and won his 3rd election pretty convincing margins. Nobody can say they are surprised that the US government is behaving erratically if it is an environment where Trump is a top contender for high office.
- vharuck 1y ago
  But government funding was set up in a way meant to counteract fickleness. Government actions are supposed to be proposed publicly, accept and consider public comments, and then allow legal arguments about the process and motivations. And funding is assigned by Congress, two legislative bodies with hundreds of members that follow extensive rules and procedures to do anything. The current "fickleness" is from a single individual. The other branches of government are refusing to check out even criticize his actions. This is what would happen with any funding from individuals. The lesson we should be taking from this situation is either (1) controls on the government need to have more teeth and not rely solely on politicians, or (2) the US accepts authoritarianism right now and no Constitution would stop that.
  - roenxi 1y ago
    > The current "fickleness" is from a single individual. The other branches of government are refusing to check out even criticize his actions. Leading to the observation that it isn't a single individual. It is a large number of people agreeing on what the political priorities are. > Government actions are supposed to be proposed publicly, accept and consider public comments, and then allow legal arguments about the process and motivations. The Trump people have done all that on the way to where we are right now. It's been quite hard to escape the debate over the last decade or so. It was heated, public and quite interesting to follow. There were at least 3 elections involved (realistically a lot more, the internal mechanisms of the Republican party have been active), and his opponents have been comprehensive in their analysis of his flaws and the issues with his policies.
DSingularity 1y ago
[flagged]
- sennalen 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - hackyhacky 1y ago
    How do you explain the large number of Jewish students participating in the protests against Israeli policy?
    - dcre 1y ago
      The answer here usually requires either denial of their presence or arguing that they are in some sense not real Jews because of their political views.
      - sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
        Ben Shapiro is a particularly good example of that 2nd behavior. Loves to call Jews who don't think the same way he does "bad Jews".
        arp242 1y ago
        "Self-hating Jew" is an old trope. I don't really follow the daily ramblings of Ben Shapiro, but I assume it's basically the same thing?
        sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
        I think in this case it's more about "Netanyahu-hating Jews" than "Self-hating Jews"
  - nrclark 1y ago
    citation needed
ysofunny 1y ago
[flagged]
guelo 1y ago
You state politicians' accusations without due process as fact.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
> settles the issue pays an extortion fee; lets call it what it is once Columbia capitulated, it was clear Trump would come after everyone else
bhouston 1y ago
> UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students." Weird in that the main victims here actually pro-Palestinian students and the main attacker got a plea deal just a few days ago: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-30/ucla-moves-to-shut-down-pro-palestinian-encampment-as-unlawful https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-30/ucla-mov... https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-28/ucla-protest-plea-agreement https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-28/ucla-pro...
kashunstva 1y ago
> UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act Yes, I was just reading that in a DOJ press release authored by known prevaricator AG Pam Bondi.
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
The Trump administration alleges they violated the Equal protection clause, they haven't proven their case (and will try with all their might to avoid going to court over this). This is just more goon tactics by Trump, it should not get any more legitimacy than that.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Den_VR 1y ago

The root bsky post says “NSF is suspending roughly 300 grants with UCLA, following a DOJ finding on Tuesday that the university violated Title VI by "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students."” Which is entirely par for the course with the administration and doesn’t seem particularly targeted at Tao. I’m shocked even more NSF grants haven’t been hit, this was a prime DOGE target. They want these headlines.

throwaway290 1y ago
> "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students" Of course suspending grants is probably the wrong way to go about it anyway, but since you brought this up... do you imply that it's false? I'm not in the US but I heard pretty interesting things about what was happening in universities following Oct 7.
- dcre 1y ago
  It’s complete bullshit. Half the students protesting for Gaza were Jewish themselves.
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    This is the closest to the answer for now, thanks. I remember reading how it was pretty antisemitic with racial shaming and bordering on physical violence but can't remember what sources it was. If half of the protesters were jewish as you say then that's unlikely
    - guelo 1y ago
      Propaganda directed straight from netanyahu. He ordered America to censor the students in public sperches and within days America inexplicably did it.
- hackyhacky 1y ago
  Yes, it's false. Students have a first amendment right to express opinions, even anti-Zionist ones. The administration is using baseless charges of antisemitism as a cudgel to extract fealty and concessions from universities, which they see as opponents of their party.
  - cvoss 1y ago
    The accusation from DOJ isn't about student speech, though. It's about the university's actions or inactions, which are not protected and are governed by obligations to Title VI discrimination law.
    - hackyhacky 1y ago
      You're right, but the university is not allowed to censor student speech based on content. The "actions" that the administration claims the university should have taken would have violated the constitution.
      - ethbr1 1y ago
        Furthermore, the redresses the administration has proposed in similar cases (like the university reporting students who protest to federal authorities) suggest this is more about federal power / censorship than furthering universal free speech.
        fuzzfactor 1y ago
        Free speech just got a price put on its head, capisce? For a one-time payment it may be able to slide this time, didn't Columbia University have an offer they couldn't refuse? Pray the Don doesn't alter the deal . . .
      - throwaway290 1y ago
        > the university is not allowed to censor student speech based on content Hold on, didn't tenured professors get fired literally based on content of their speech a few years back under the other administration? I am confused And this does not have to be about censoring speech. There are rules of a place. As I said, you start obstructing a lecture, you get thrown out in a good university
- plemer 1y ago
  Allowing people to speak out against overt genocide committed by a foreign government = anti-semitism. Isn’t that self-evident? /s Tbh, this standard argument is itself anti-Jewish as it implies this behavior is inherent to being Jewish, which of course is grotesque and inaccurate. * Jewish /= Zionist * Zionist /= Imperialist * Imperialist /= Genocidal What we have really imo is an extreme colonist policy that is only superficially Jewish. That doesn’t absolve Jews in Israel supporting it, it rather absolves all those who don’t and makes genocidal colonists take responsibility for their own actions. Also, genocide is bad.
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    Nice strawman. So how about the actual question which is hostile environment for students? I was downvoted for asking a question and this did not answer it. Edit to reply: what I remember reading was not about saying "end genocide", it was about saying "you are a jew so go die" kind of stuff. It seemed pretty crazy but I didn't save any sources
    - Tadpole9181 1y ago
      If I make a sign that says "Nazis are Evil", and a guy gets upset and says "you can't say that about me" - what do you call that guy? A Nazi. If I make a sign that says "End the Zionist Genocide", and a Jewish person says "you can't say that about me", they don't feel uncomfortable because they're Jewish.
      - throwaway290 1y ago
        "Zionist genocide" means a genocide of zionist people. Last time I heard it happened was WWII. This thread and replies I got is wild!
        plemer 1y ago
        Do you really imagine anyone here is convinced by your petty deceptions? We know what words mean.
yongjik 1y ago
> "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students." So... did the dean make a public Nazi salute or something? The double standard (if we can even call it a "standard") is getting rather tiring.

bananapub 1y ago

uh, no, the president has just claimed that the uni was not horrible enough to pro-palestine protestors and so he'll be randomly withholding federal money until they bend to his pathetic will and permanently destroy the independence of the university by letting his cronies rule it.

lupusreal 1y ago

> Background: UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students." Translation: ULCA declined to violate the First Ammendment and allowed their students and faculty to criticize Israel.

mensetmanusman 1y ago
It’s more akin to the civil rights movement/counter movement when some universities ignored various assaults on black students (saying it wasn’t their job to police behavior). The protesters were fine to criticize Israel, but then turning the rage to the actual American Jews on campus crossed the line.
- DSingularity 1y ago
  Provide evidence from reputable sources. Israeli Jews kill tens of thousands of Palestinian children and we are supposed to care that Zionists feel targeted by the protests on campus? Zionists are literally starving people right now. Do you not get that?
  - nrclark 1y ago
    There's a distinction to make between Jewish people and Israel. Jewish people are fine. The Israeli genocide of Gaza is not.
    - peterfirefly 1y ago
      > There's a distinction to make between Jewish people and Israel. Lots of Jews don't seem to know that.
    - DSingularity 1y ago
      I said Israeli Jews. I didn’t say Jews.
- 1y ago

SpicyLemonZest 1y ago

Did Terence Tao or the other researchers whose grants have been suspended violate Title VI? This just seems like dishonest excusemaking for extortion. UCLA would dispute that they violated Title VI, so the Trump regime is pulling out a bat and breaking their researchers' kneecaps until they agree to give in.

mgaunard 1y ago

why does US law have articles to specifically protect one ethnic group instead of being generic and protecting them all?

elcritch 1y ago
They do to my knowledge, the quote is the specific violation of the civil rights act.
jdross 1y ago
They do. The law is literally that you must equally protect all groups
- hackyhacky 1y ago
  Correct. However, the current administration is interested in enforcing the law about discrimination only against one group.
  - fuzzfactor 1y ago
    That's a misguided political party for you. Looks to me like they've got their sights on a lot more than one group, some are just more obvious than others.
  - UncleMeat 1y ago
    And they aren't even doing that. The administration doesn't give a shit about jewish people. It cares about hurting lefties and has decided that "pro-palestine efforts are anti-semitic" is a cudgel they can use to do that.
  - verzali 1y ago
    I wonder how many jewish researchers lost their funding here and in the other cases. Seems like a misguided approach if this is what they really care about.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

roenxi 1y ago

Additional Background: US government provides funding, US government tries to use that leverage to decide how the show will be run. Over the years I've come to accept the blind spot most people have where, despite all evidence, they assume that the government goals match their own. But it still isn't the case. The prudent approach is to set up institutions that are largely independent of government. Government funding is not an answer to long term problems. Governments are too fickle and the political bandwidth isn't high enough to handle complex arguments like whether researching structure in sequences of 0s and 1s is a good idea. I know the fashion is to present Trump as some weird aberration but he's been a factor for about 10 years now and won his 3rd election pretty convincing margins. Nobody can say they are surprised that the US government is behaving erratically if it is an environment where Trump is a top contender for high office.

vharuck 1y ago
But government funding was set up in a way meant to counteract fickleness. Government actions are supposed to be proposed publicly, accept and consider public comments, and then allow legal arguments about the process and motivations. And funding is assigned by Congress, two legislative bodies with hundreds of members that follow extensive rules and procedures to do anything. The current "fickleness" is from a single individual. The other branches of government are refusing to check out even criticize his actions. This is what would happen with any funding from individuals. The lesson we should be taking from this situation is either (1) controls on the government need to have more teeth and not rely solely on politicians, or (2) the US accepts authoritarianism right now and no Constitution would stop that.
- roenxi 1y ago
  > The current "fickleness" is from a single individual. The other branches of government are refusing to check out even criticize his actions. Leading to the observation that it isn't a single individual. It is a large number of people agreeing on what the political priorities are. > Government actions are supposed to be proposed publicly, accept and consider public comments, and then allow legal arguments about the process and motivations. The Trump people have done all that on the way to where we are right now. It's been quite hard to escape the debate over the last decade or so. It was heated, public and quite interesting to follow. There were at least 3 elections involved (realistically a lot more, the internal mechanisms of the Republican party have been active), and his opponents have been comprehensive in their analysis of his flaws and the issues with his policies.

DSingularity 1y ago

[flagged]

sennalen 1y ago
[flagged]
- hackyhacky 1y ago
  How do you explain the large number of Jewish students participating in the protests against Israeli policy?
  - dcre 1y ago
    The answer here usually requires either denial of their presence or arguing that they are in some sense not real Jews because of their political views.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
      Ben Shapiro is a particularly good example of that 2nd behavior. Loves to call Jews who don't think the same way he does "bad Jews".
      - arp242 1y ago
        "Self-hating Jew" is an old trope. I don't really follow the daily ramblings of Ben Shapiro, but I assume it's basically the same thing?
        sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
        I think in this case it's more about "Netanyahu-hating Jews" than "Self-hating Jews"
- nrclark 1y ago
  citation needed

ysofunny 1y ago

[flagged]

guelo 1y ago

You state politicians' accusations without due process as fact.

insane_dreamer 1y ago

> settles the issue pays an extortion fee; lets call it what it is once Columbia capitulated, it was clear Trump would come after everyone else

bhouston 1y ago

> UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students." Weird in that the main victims here actually pro-Palestinian students and the main attacker got a plea deal just a few days ago: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-30/ucla-moves-to-shut-down-pro-palestinian-encampment-as-unlawful https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-30/ucla-mov... https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-28/ucla-protest-plea-agreement https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-28/ucla-pro...

kashunstva 1y ago

> UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act Yes, I was just reading that in a DOJ press release authored by known prevaricator AG Pam Bondi.

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

The Trump administration alleges they violated the Equal protection clause, they haven't proven their case (and will try with all their might to avoid going to court over this). This is just more goon tactics by Trump, it should not get any more legitimacy than that.