President Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Marine One en route to the United Kingdom on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on Tuesday, September 16, 2025. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A coalition of faculty, staff, students and labor unions sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, accusing it of stifling free speech at the University of California system amid President Donald Trump's attempt to exert ideological control of the United States' institutions of higher learning.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Association of University Professors asks the court to bar the Trump administration from using financial threats to illegally coerce the UC into conceding to its demands -- demands the union said not only interfere with UC's curriculum and activity, but are a threat to the country.
"Rather than acknowledging education institutions like the UC as the asset to the nation that they are, the Trump administration views them as barriers to the President's agenda of ideological dominance," the coalition said in the lawsuit.
"Once in office, President Trump gained access to tools of the United States government that his administration is wielding, unlawfully, to seek to stamp out movements, opinions and ideas that challenge his worldview. The President's attempt to require that universities conform to his worldview is un-American and unconstitutional."
