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      Trans air force members sue Trump administration over denied pension

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      A group of 17 transgender US air force members has sued the Trump administration for denying them early retirement pensions and benefits.The complaint, submitted in federal court, describes the government’s move against them as “unlawful and invalid”.The legal action follows the air force’s confirmation it would deny early retirement benefits to all transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of military experience, a decision that effectively pushes them out of the military with no retirement support at all.“The Air Force’s own retirement instruction provides that retirement orders may only be rescinded under very limited circumstances, none of which were present here,” the lawsuit says.Among the named plaintiffs are Logan Ireland, Ashley Davis, Kira Brimhall and Lindell Walley.Glad Law, one of the advocacy groups behind the lawsuit who is representing the affected service members, said the revocation of early retirement support had ripped away financial support and benefits these families were counting on after long years of excellent service to their country.“These service members will lose $1-2m in lifetime benefits, jeopardizing their families’ economic security,” Glad Law said in a statement. “The action also strips the airmen and their families of access to TRICARE, the military health insurance program, which would have provided access to civilian health care providers beyond VA [Veterans Administration] facilities.”The lawsuit came amid the latest escalation by the Trump administration to prohibit transgender people from joining the military and to remove those already serving. The Pentagon has argued that transgender people are medically unfit, something civil rights activists have pushed back on and say constitutes illegal discrimination.In March, a federal judge blocked Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service. US district judge Ana Reyes in Washington DC ruled that the order likely violated their constitutional rights. Pentagon officials have said in the past that 4,200 service members were diagnosed with “gender dysphoria”, which they use as an identifier of being transgender.The air force, however, has stood apart in its enforcement of policies that go beyond just separating troops from military service. As well as rescinding early retirement benefits, the service rolled out a new policy in August to deny transgender members the right to argue before a board of their peers for the right to continue serving.The most recent lawsuit, the latest in a string, is challenging that.According to the court documents, the “plaintiffs’ retirement orders remain valid and effective”. Their legal team are calling for these “orders to be reinstated” and pushing for “their military records be corrected accordingly”. The lawsuit also says “interest, costs and attorney’s fees” must be accounted for and “further relief as the court deems just and proper.”Ireland, a master sergeant in the air force with 15 years of service, told the Associated Press: “The military taught me to lead and fight, not retreat.“Stripping away my retirement sends the message that those values only apply on the battlefield, not when a service member needs them most.” More

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      The US has drafted a coin featuring Trump. Here’s a better way to immortalize him | Robert Reich

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      The US treasury has drafted a design for a $1 coin featuring Donald Trump on both sides, for the purpose of “honoring America’s 250th Birthday and @POTUS”, according to treasury officials.Meanwhile, Trump reportedly wants the Washington Commanders to name their planned $3.7bn stadium after him. A senior White House source told ESPN: “It’s what the president wants, and it will probably happen.”The giant $300m ballroom that Trump is adding to the White House is called “the President Donald J Trump Ballroom” on the list of donors to the project, and senior administration officials told ABC the name was likely to stick – though Trump has since said he is not planning to name it after himself.Still, Trump is moving to immortalize himself with his name etched far and wide.This is what fascist dictators have done when in power. Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini built monuments to glorify themselves so they’d be exalted in history.Democracies prefer to memorialize their heroes after they’ve died, and only if the public wants them commemorated.Trump deserves to be remembered – but not as a hero. To the contrary: it is our solemn duty to ensure he is remembered for all he has done and may still do to destroy American democracy.He must be remembered as the president who claimed without evidence that an election was “stolen” from him. Who then instigated a coup attempt that included false electors and was followed by an assault on the US Capitol that resulted in five deaths and injuries to 174 police officers.He should be remembered as the president who, after being re-elected, tried to erase the nation’s memory of what he had done by pardoning 1,600 people connected with the Capitol attack and 77 who were accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election. He called the rioters “patriots”.He must be remembered as the president who then usurped the powers of Congress. Who denied people due process of law. Who prosecuted his political opponents. Who violated international law by killing people he labeled enemy combatants. Who sent the military into American cities over the objections of their mayors and governors.We must not allow Trump to erase this history with false tributes to himself, etched into silver, marble or granite.Instead, after he is gone, a monument should be erected to remind future generations of Trump’s treachery and the treachery of officials who supported him.It would be a simple building constructed of iron and cement, containing the records of his attacks on democracy and the names of everyone who aided him.Over its doorway would be the words “Trump’s Treason”.It would be situated on the White House lawn where the Trump ballroom (since demolished) once stood. It would face outward toward Pennsylvania Avenue so that families visiting the nation’s capital – including those commemorating the 500th anniversary of the US – have easy access, and will long remember this catastrophe.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene says Trump’s remarks hurtful but hopes they can make up

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      Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on Sunday called Donald Trump’s remarks labeling her a traitor and a lunatic “hurtful” but said she hopes she and the US president can “make up”, despite stark differences over policy and the release of documents about Jeffrey Epstein.Greene, a longtime ally and fierce defender of Trump and the “Make America great again” (Maga) base, pushed back against his name-calling in her first interview since Trump withdrew his support for her on Friday.She told CNN’s State of the Union show: “His remarks, of course, have been hurtful … the most hurtful thing he said, which is absolutely untrue, is he called me a traitor and that is so extremely wrong.”Greene said on Saturday she had been contacted by private security firms “with warnings for my safety” since Trump said he was withdrawing his endorsement of her as a Republican member of Congress, following several days of remarks and posts criticizing her.Greene had said in an X post that “a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”, without referring to Trump by name, adding it was “the man I supported and helped get elected”.She did not go into further detail on Sunday morning about the nature and sources of such threats.But she added in her TV interview about Trump’s attacks, especially the label traitor: “Those are the types of words used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger.”“It has all come down to the ‘Epstein files’ and that is shocking and, you know, I stand with these women, I stand with rape victims … and survivors of trafficking … I believe the country deserves transparency in these files,” she said.Greene plans to join a vote in the House of Representatives later this week to demand the release of all files held by the US government on Epstein, the late financier and sex offender who killed himself in prison while awaiting trial on sex offenses in New York in 2019.Even though the Senate is expected to kill any such bill, the upcoming vote and last week’s release of thousands of documents with revelations about Epstein’s ties to Trump, Steve Bannon and other powerful figures, is putting huge pressure on the administration, including from victims of Epstein.Greene’s falling out with Trump was months in the making but matters escalated dramatically in recent weeks.Greene also called on Sunday for an end to “toxic infighting” in politics. CNN anchor Dana Bash challenged Greene on her track record of past violent rhetoric towards Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and posts such as an image of herself posing with a gun alongside pictures of the “Squad” group of congressional leftwingers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.“I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics … put down the knives, be kind to one another … I never wanted to cause any harm,” Greene said.Greene has also diverged from Trump’s focus on foreign policy issues, arguing he should be concentrating on bringing down inflation in the US and take an even harder line on immigration.“I would like to see Air Force One parked and staying at home,” she said.But she ended the interview with CNN, when asked if there could be reconciliation with Trump, by saying: “Well, I certainly hope that we can make up. I can only speak for myself. I’m a Christian and one of the most important parts of our faith is forgiveness, and that’s something I’m committed to.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Marjorie Taylor Greene raises fears for her safety as row with Donald Trump escalates

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Republican ally who previously fiercely defended Donald Trump and his Maga movement, said on Saturday she had been contacted by private security firms “with warnings for my safety” after Trump announced on Friday he was withdrawing his support for and endorsement of the Georgia representative.In a post on X, Greene said that “a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”, without referring to Trump by name, adding it was “the man I supported and helped get elected”.In a later post on X, Greene posted a chart of rising average grocery bills, calling it “the ultimate warning to all of my Republican colleagues” and equating cost-of-living pressures to a vote in Congress over the release of further Epstein files next week.Marjorie Taylor Greene says she’s had ‘warnings’ after posts by TrumpThe dispute between Greene and Trump, simmering for months, has broken out into the open as the once solid Maga supporter has found herself opposing Trump on a series of issues, including US military aid to Israel, the government shutdown and the so-called “Epstein files”.“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green is a disgrace to our GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY!” Trump fumed on social media, a day after ending his support for Greene, calling her “Wacky Marjorie” and saying he would endorse a challenger against her in the next midterm election “if the right person runs”.The war of words between the congresswoman and Trump has become increasingly bitter primarily over the release of government-held documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein, which Greene supports. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, is expected to hold a vote next week on releasing the entirety of unclassified communications and documents.Read the full storySteve Bannon advised Epstein for years, texts showHundreds of texts over almost a year show Maga influencer Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein workshopping legal and media strategies to protect Epstein from the legal and publicity quagmire that enveloped him in the last year of his life.The texts, released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday, show that as early as June 2018 the pair were devising responses to the gathering storm of public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his favorable treatment by the justice system, and his friendships with powerful figures in business, politics and academia.Bannon conspiratorially described the renewed scrutiny of Epstein as a “sophisticated op”, and over time he counseled Epstein in his adversarial responses to media outlets, the justice system and his victims.Read the full storyICE begins sweep in Charlotte, North CarolinaFederal immigration officers on Saturday began a sweep through Charlotte, the largest city in North Carolina, officials confirmed.Local media reports said that one location targeted by masked federal agents was a church in east Charlotte, where an arrest was made while about 15 to 20 church members were doing yard work on the property.“Right now, everybody is scared. Everybody,” the pastor at the church told the Charlotte Observer.The mayor, Vi Lyles, said these actions “are causing unnecessary fear and uncertainty”.Read the full story‘Trump is inconsistent with Christian principles’Justin Douglas, a minister who studied at a Christian university founded by the conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, is running for the US Congress – as a Democrat.He is among about 30 Christian white clergy – pastors, seminary students and other faith leaders – known to be potential Democratic candidates in next year’s midterm elections, including a dozen who are already in the race.Douglas, 41, based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is among a new generation of the Christian left aiming to change that narrative by ensuring that the Democratic brand is not associated with only college-educated urbanites, but can also connect with white working-class churchgoers.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The justice department replaced pardons posted online that bore strikingly similar copies of Trump’s signature with others that varied. It comes after the Trump administration tried to undermine pardons issued under Joe Biden that were in many cases signed by autopen – a longstanding White House practice.

      Donald Trump reverted to his familiar “threat of tariffs” as he leaned on Thailand to recommit to a ceasefire with Cambodia. Thailand last week suspended its participation in the ceasefire, accusing Cambodia of laying fresh landmines along the border.

      Experts say New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s selection of Lina Khan, the former Federal Trade Commission chair, for his transition team acts as a warning to private equity firms in the state that have raised rents and monopolized local healthcare industries.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on Friday 14 November 2025. More

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      Questions arise over strikingly similar signatures by Trump on recent pardons

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      The Trump administration’s clemency drive is coming under scrutiny after the justice department this week replaced pardons posted online that bore strikingly similar copies of Trump’s signature with others that are distinctively variable.The corrections came after online commenters seized on the similarities in the president’s signature granting “full and unconditional” pardons to seven men, including to former New York Mets player Darryl Strawberry, former Tennessee House speaker Glen Casada and former New York police sergeant Michael McMahon, on 7 November.Administration officials have blamed “technical” errors and staffing issues for the apparent oversight and insisted to the Associated Press that Trump had originally signed all the pardons himself.Chad Gilmartin, a justice department spokesperson, said the “website was updated after a technical error where one of the signatures President Trump personally signed was mistakenly uploaded multiple times due to staffing issues caused by the Democrat shutdown”.“There is no story here other than the fact that President Trump signed seven pardons by hand and [the Department of Justice] posted those same seven pardons with seven unique signatures to our website,” Gilmartin said in a statement to the Associated Press, referring to the latest wave of clemency Trump has granted in recent weeks.White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson wrote in an email that Trump “signed each one of these pardons by hand as he does with all pardons”.“The media should spend their time investigating Joe Biden’s countless autopenned pardons, not covering a non-story,” she wrote.The errors come after a sustained administration campaign to undermine the validity of pardons issued by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden that were in many cases signed by autopen. Trump has claimed that Biden was not aware of the signatures on orders and pardons bearing his name.Trump, who typically makes an elaborate show of signing executive orders with a Sharpie at afternoon press calls, has gone so far as to replace Biden’s portrait in a new “Presidential Walk of Fame” he created along the West Wing colonnade with a picture of an autopen.Asked last week whether he had considered replacing that image with a portrait, Trump responded: “No, I don’t think so.”Questions about Trump’s signature come amid a new flurry of clemency orders. Last month, Trump issued a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, later telling CBS News that he had “no idea who he is” but had been told the crypto-currency businessman was a victim of a “witch-hunt” by the Biden administration.Zhao, who is also known as “CZ”, pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering in 2023. He served four months in prison and agreed to step down as the chief executive of Binance, the crypto exchange he co-founded.“A basic axiom of handwriting identification science is that no two signatures are going to bear the exact same design features in every aspect,” Thomas Vastrick, a Florida-based handwriting expert and president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, told the AP.“It’s very straightforward,” Vastrick added.Legal experts say the use of an autopen has no bearing on the validity of the pardons.“The key to pardon validity is whether the president intended to grant the pardon,” said Frank Bowman, a legal historian and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law who is writing a book on pardons. “Any re-signing is an obvious, and rather silly, effort to avoid comparison to Biden.”The pardons issued by Trump earlier this month include Casada, a disgraced former Republican speaker of the Tennessee house who was sentenced in September to three years in prison after being convicted of working with a former legislative aide to win taxpayer-funded mail business from state lawmakers who previously drove Casada from office amid a sexting scandal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStrawberry was convicted in the 1990s of tax evasion and drug charges. McMahon was sentenced to 18 months in prison earlier this year for his role in what a federal judge called “a campaign of transnational repression”.On Friday, Trump issued a pardon to Dan Wilson, a militia member who joined the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, on a conviction for felony gun possession, Politico reported. Wilson, who has identified himself as a member of the Oath Keepers and Gray Ghost Partisan Rangers militia, had already been given clemency for his involvement in the riot.The justice department’s replacement of Trump’s signature on the pardon documents is unlikely to stall Republicans’ autopen trolling of Biden.Last month, Republicans in Congress released a sharp critique of Biden’s alleged “diminished faculties” and mental state during his term that ranked the Democrat’s use of the autopen among “the greatest scandals in US history”.The Republicans said their findings cast doubt on all of Biden’s actions in office and sent a letter to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, urging a full investigation.“Senior White House officials did not know who operated the autopen and its use was not sufficiently controlled or documented to prevent abuse,” the House oversight committee found. “The committee deems void all executive actions signed by the autopen without proper, corresponding, contemporaneous, written approval traceable to the president’s own consent.”On Friday, Republicans who control the committee released a statement that characterized Trump’s potential use of an electronic signature as legitimate, which it distinguished from Biden’s.Dave Min, a California Democrat on the House oversight committee, seized on the apparent similarities in the initial version of the pardons and called for an investigation of the matter, deploying the Republican arguments against Biden in a statement to AP that “we need to better understand who is actually in charge of the White House, because Trump seems to be slipping”.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Judge bars Trump administration from cutting funding to University of California

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      The Trump administration cannot fine the University of California or summarily cut the school system’s federal funding over claims it allows antisemitism or other forms of discrimination, a federal judge ruled late on Friday in a sharply worded decision.US district judge Rita Lin in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction barring the administration from cancelling funding to the university based on alleged discrimination without giving notice to affected faculty and conducting a hearing, among other requirements.The administration over the summer demanded the University of California, Los Angeles, pay $1.2bn to restore frozen research funding and ensure eligibility for future funding after accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus. UCLA was the first public university to be targeted by the administration over allegations of civil rights violations.It has also frozen or paused federal funding over similar claims against private colleges, including Columbia University.In her ruling, Lin said labor unions and other groups representing UC faculty, students and employees had provided “overwhelming evidence” that the Trump administration was “engaged in a concerted campaign to purge ‘woke’, ‘left’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities”.“Agency officials, as well as the president and vice-president, have repeatedly and publicly announced a playbook of initiating civil rights investigations of pre-eminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding, with the goal of bringing universities to their knees and forcing them to change their ideological tune,” Lin wrote.She added: “It is undisputed that this precise playbook is now being executed at the University of California.”At UC, which is facing a series of civil rights investigations, she found the administration had engaged in “coercive and retaliatory conduct in violation of the first amendment and 10th amendment”.Messages sent to the White House and the US Department of Justice after hours on Friday were not immediately returned. Lin’s order will remain in effect indefinitely.The president of the University of California, James B Milliken, has said the size of the UCLA fine would devastate the UC system, whose campuses are viewed as some of the top public colleges in the nation.UC is in settlement talks with the administration and is not a party to the lawsuit before Lin, who was nominated to the bench by Joe Biden, a Democrat. In a statement, the university system said it “remains committed to protecting the mission, governance and academic freedom of the university”.The administration has demanded UCLA comply with its views on gender identity and establish a process to make sure foreign students are not admitted if they are likely to engage in anti-American, anti-western or antisemitic “disruptions or harassment”, among other requirements outlined in a settlement proposal made public in October.The administration has previously struck deals with Brown University for $50m and Columbia University for $221m.Lin cited declarations by UC faculty and staff that the administration’s moves were prompting them to stop teaching or researching topics they were “afraid were too ‘left’ or ‘woke’”.Her injunction also blocks the administration from “conditioning the grant or continuance of federal funding on the UC’s agreement to any measures that would violate the rights of plaintiffs’ members under the first amendment”.She cited efforts to force the UC schools to screen international students based on “’anti-western” or “‘anti-American’” views, restrict research and teaching, or adopt specific definitions of “male” and “female” as examples of such measures.Donald Trump has decried elite colleges as overrun by liberalism and antisemitism.His administration has launched investigations of dozens of universities, claiming they have failed to end the use of racial preferences in violation of civil rights law. The Republican administration says diversity, equity and inclusion efforts discriminate against white and Asian American students. More

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      Turmoil and tensions at FDA after dramatic exit of top drug regulator

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      After the dramatic ousting of the top drug regulator at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) two weeks ago, officials have scrambled to find a replacement in a process that has revealed the agency’s internal cracks and tensions.It’s troubling news for a regulatory agency that has previously enjoyed a reputation for stability and consistency.On Tuesday, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the top spot at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) would be filled by a surprising candidate.Richard Pazdur is a respected oncology expert and longtime FDA employee – that’s not the surprising part. But he reportedly turned down the position when he was approached last week, according to Pink Sheet. That’s when top leaders began searching for other candidates.“It boggles the mind,” said Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and a former associate commissioner at the FDA. “Reversals upon reversals.”The news comes after several upheavals at the FDA.George Tidmarsh, who was only appointed as CDER director in late July, resigned in early November following accusations of retaliation against a former pharmaceutical business partner and reports of strife within the agency. Tidmarsh was accused, in an explosive lawsuit, of using his position to harm his former business partner.View image in fullscreenIn the days before his ouster, Tidmarsh had opposed a new form of rapid approval, he told Stat News. The new program, called “Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher”, promised the rapid reviews of drugs – but Tidmarsh said he questioned the legality of the plan.Tidmarsh also reportedly sparred with Vinay Prasad, simultaneously the agency’s chief medical and scientific officer and the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), after Prasad repeatedly bypassed Tidmarsh to ask CDER employees to do work for him.The HHS did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about power struggles between Tidmarsh and Prasad, but the agency did confirm that Tidmarsh was no longer employed there.“Secretary Kennedy expects the highest ethical standards from all individuals serving under his leadership and remains committed to full transparency,” said Emily Hilliard, press secretary.Prasad himself was subject to reversals. He was forced to resign in July, but he returned unexpectedly less than a week later. FDA chief Marty Makary reportedly worked to bring him back.“Prasad has obviously been very aggressive, and he’s not been softened by the experience of getting fired – if anything he seems to feel that he has the wind at his back because he was restored,” Lurie said. “But none of it speaks well to the kind of relations between the center directors that are necessary to make the place work.”The degree of discord among top FDA officials is “very unusual”, Lurie said.Before the job was filled by Pazdur, one CDER employee told the Guardian that “I would never take it” because the position would be a “career killer” in the turnover and tumult at the agency.“Plus, I’d have Vinay Prasad bitching at me or about me non-stop,” said the employee, who asked for anonymity to protect their job.After Tidmarsh’s departure, several longtime employees said they were not interested in the position, and Sara Brenner, principal deputy commissioner at the FDA, sent an email on Friday to some CDER employees asking whether any of them wanted to apply.“The whole process of appointments at FDA in the current administration has been an enormous departure from accepted practices,” Lurie said. “The degree of upheaval at the agency is really difficult to overestimate and leaves people in the agency disconcerted.”Opening up the position to large numbers of employees “reeks of desperation” and gives the impression that FDA leaders struggled to fill the job, he said. But Pazdur has “the right qualifications”, and choosing an FDA insider might shore up confidence and morale, Lurie added.“There’s a sense among people who have worked at the agency for a while that they’re under siege by people who have come from the outside with only limited understanding of the way that FDA works and that they would be better served with somebody who actually understands the institution,” he said.Lurie notes that the pharmaceutical industry values stability at the FDA more than anything. There is a core belief in the industry – and among the public – that FDA review is valuable in order to maintain trust and safety. “Predictability from day to day is really what they want, and otherwise, everything is in upheaval,” Lurie said.The FDA has developed careful and relatively uncontroversial processes over the decades for evaluating drugs, biologics and medical devices.“But now, everything is up for grabs,” Lurie said. “Suddenly, we have people who can get their drug reviewed in a one-day meeting.”In addition to disrupting its regulatory work, the chaos at the FDA may also undermine the credibility of its experts in general, particularly as top officials within the administration continue to attack scientific expertise, Lurie said.“If the assault on government continues at the pace that it has,” he said, the idea that the government is not to be trusted “could actually become true”. More

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      US judge bars Trump from cutting off University of California funds

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      A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding and threatening hefty fines against the University of California amid the administration’s attempts to coerce elite US universities into adopting and promoting conservative ideals.US district judge Rita Lin of San Francisco issued the preliminary injunction late Friday, saying the government was not allowed to demand payments from the California school system over the administration’s claims that it violates civil rights by allowing antisemitism and practising affirmative action.In her ruling, Lin said that the plaintiffs – who include UC faculty, researchers and students – have submitted “overwhelming evidence” illustrating the Trump administration’s “concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities”.Lin ruled that the government had a “playbook of initiating civil rights investigations” at universities in order to cut federal funding, “bringing universities to their knees and forcing them to change their ideological tune”.In July, the Trump administration froze $584m in federal funding for the University of California, Los Angeles, while accusing the university of discrimination and violating civil rights over its handling of the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The administration claimed UCLA was “acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students”.In October, the administration proposed a deal to nine prominent universities in the US that promised funding in exchange for schools imposing policies and changes that included banning race or sex as considerations in admissions and hiring and removing departments that “purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas”.While the University of California school system was not offered the deal, the University of Southern California – a private institution – was.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, responded to the offer with a warning that any California universities that signed Trump’s proposed settlement would lose their state funding.Democracy Forward, a progressive legal advocacy group, called the Trump administration’s efforts to influence policy at universities “strong-arm tactics”.“This is not just a harmful attempt to stifle speech, it is a betrayal of the constitution and a dangerous step toward autocracy,” the group said in a statement. More