Dear President Drake and UC Regents:

The Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) expresses its outrage and indignation over recent assaults on the constitutional, academic, and civil rights of UC faculty, students, staff, and workers. In the past several weeks, faculty and students across the country have experienced unprecedented attacks on their constitutional and civil rights as a result of the Trump Administration’s assault on US higher education. This assault has included the abduction and threats of ideological deportations of international students living in the US on permanent resident visas, the unilateral takeover and shuttering of departments and programs that the government disfavors, efforts to shift faculty shared governance to university trustees, and an expanded presence of armed police on university campuses.

At the University of California, the Office of the President (UCOP) disclosed last week the personal and demographic information of over 850 UC faculty members after being subpoenaed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as part of its investigation of antisemitism at UC campuses. The faculty who received these notices from UCOP were signatories of two letters addressed to university leadership. The first was an open letter to the UC Berkeley community expressing concern about “recent events in Israel and Gaza.” The second was a separate, multi-campus petition to the Regents accusing UC administrators of fomenting antisemitic hostilities toward Jewish faculty and students by not cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests.

The EEOC subpoena shows brazen disregard of academic freedom and shared governance and reflects a broader effort by the federal government to stifle dissent and pit faculty members against one another. For example, the letter UCOP sent to the 850+ faculty signatories said the EEOC may reach out to them for further details of their experiences, a seeming invitation to name names of those that they have opposed. CUCFA urges all our colleagues, both those targeted in the recent subpoena and ones that may follow, to resist the federal government’s McCarthyist divide-and-conquer-tactics, and refuse to participate in such investigations if contacted by the EEOC.

As seen by recent investigations at Columbia and Harvard, federal investigations into allegations of antisemitism on university campuses have been used as a pretext to initiate massive cuts to federal funding and put universities’ teaching and research under federal control, rather than to address the alarming rise of antisemitic rhetoric and threats by far-right movements in the United States. Of equal concern is the potential risk such investigations pose for campus community members who use their academic and constitutional rights of free speech to condemn the current government’s support for Israel’s ongoing assaults on Gaza and the West Bank.

Chillingly, UC Legal Affairs states that it has and may continue to provide employee personal information to the EEOC as required by any further investigations. Yet, an April 2, 2025 brief by AAUP Legal Counsel shows that personal employee information is not required for Title VI investigations, and providing such information may violate the Constitutional rights of faculty and students. We therefore call for immediate measures to ensure that the academic, constitutional, and civil rights of all UC faculty, students, staff, and workers are protected, especially in light of the federal crackdown on universities.

We urge UC President Michael Drake and the Regents to:

• Commit to legally challenging–and refusing to comply with–all requests for student and faculty information that has not been compelled by a federal warrant or subpoena.
• Provide legal counsel and resources for all faculty who are subjected to federal investigations.
• Defend the values and institutions of shared governance and academic freedom from external interference.
• Stand with other universities around the country to oppose any federal takeover of academic institutions.

The University of California is a community of scholars that must be in solidarity with one another to protect our institution and stand in solidarity with universities nationwide facing similar attacks. These assaults not only threaten academic freedom and the freedom of speech, but also represent an attack on the very premises of a free and democratic society.

Fiat Lux,

Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA)