UC Berkeley researchers team up for first-of-its-kind lawsuit over Trump funding cuts

University of California staff hope to use a class action lawsuit against Donald Trump and federal agencies to restore their research funding.

BERKELEY, Calif. — University of California faculty members and researchers filed suit against President Donald Trump and several federal agencies late Wednesday in what they hope will become a first-of-its-kind class action challenging the administration’s sweeping cuts to research funding. 

The flurry of grant terminations has resulted in layoffs, the lawsuit states, and halted a variety of projects, ranging from studies on the effects of wildfire smoke to an effort to make all of Mark Twain’s work available to the public.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, is the brainchild of Claudia Polsky, founding director of the environmental law clinic at the University of California, Berkeley. Though she didn't face funding cuts herself, she said she felt inspired to organize colleagues — without any institutional backing — to file a suit that could have significant implications for other academics nationwide. 

“I really think the faculty are ultimately going to have to stand up for themselves,” said Polsky, who is also one of the attorneys on the case, along with UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

UC Berkeley law professor Claudia Polsky was on sabbatical when she decided to devote the semester to organizing a lawsuit to recover research funding. Jason Henry for NBC NewsThe University of California system is squarely in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. Apart from cutting research grants it deemed unnecessary, the administration has accused UC of failing to adequately address antisemitism on its campuses. Late last month, Leo Terrell, a senior counsel at the Justice Department who leads the federal antisemitism task force investigating the UC system, told Fox News there would be “massive lawsuits” against the UC system and other colleges.