--- title: Donald Trump Berkeley Funding Threat Would Impact Research description: President Trump threatened to revoke federal funding from the University of California, Berkeley after destructive campus protests canonical: https://time.com/4657932/donald-trump-berkeley-funding/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-02T18:18:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T12:22:47.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump's Threat Would Cut Over Half of Berkeley's Research Funding og:description: Among the projects: the groundbreaking CRISPR technique to edit DNA. og:url: https://time.com/4657932/donald-trump-berkeley-funding/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce9f73322c35b8cf/6988b88afb4eac1c1d890a29/donald-trump-berkeley-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5146 og:image:height: 2895 og:image:alt: Protest in Berkeley og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump's Threat Would Cut Over Half of Berkeley's Research Funding twitter:description: Among the projects: the groundbreaking CRISPR technique to edit DNA. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce9f73322c35b8cf/6988b88afb4eac1c1d890a29/donald-trump-berkeley-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump's Threat Would Cut Over Half of Berkeley's Research Funding > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Updated: Dec 13, 2023 12:22 PM UTCPublished: Feb 2, 2017 6:18 PM UTC  Crowds of protesters gather at Sproul Hall at the University of California, Berkeley on Feb. 2, 2017. Crowds of protesters gather at Sproul Hall at the University of California, Berkeley on Feb. 2, 2017.Tayfun Coskun—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Updated: Dec 13, 2023 12:22 PM UTCPublished: Feb 2, 2017 6:18 PM UTC [President Trump ](http://time.com/4658012/donald-trump-national-prayer-breakfast-transcript/)on Thursday threatened to revoke federal funding from the University of California, Berkeley—money that supports the school’s scholarships, scientific research and more. Trump’s statement followed [protests on the campus that turned destructive](http://time.com/4657688/trump-milo-yiannopoulos-breitbart/) and forced the cancellation of a Wednesday event with controversial far-right speaker Milo Yiannopoulos. “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” Trump [said in a tweet](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/827112633224544256). It’s not clear if Trump intends to act on the threat, but he made similar arguments on the campaign trail, faulting universities for “extreme censorship” and promising to [end political correctness](http://www.chronicle.com/article/Trump-Said-He-Would-End-/238124). If he did take action, such a move would impact student financial aid, research funding and healthcare. The entire University of California system receives about $8.5 billion federal funding annually. That includes $1.6 billion in student aid and $3 billion in research funds. At U.C. Berkeley, more than half of the school’s annual research funding comes from the federal government. The university was awarded $307 million in federal funding for research in the fiscal year ending June 2016—a sum largely contributed by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. That represented 55% of the total research funding awarded that year. The remaining research funding comes from state agencies and nonprofit organizations. Among the projects that benefit from such funding, the groundbreaking [CRISPR technique](http://time.com/4379503/crispr-scientists-edit-dna/?iid=toc%5F062316), which can [edit DNA](http://time.com/4377130/crispr-genome-editing/), emerged in part from National Science Foundation funding at Berkeley. [Jennifer Doudna](http://time.com/3822554/emmanuelle-charpentier-jennifer-doudna-2015-time-100/), a molecular and cell biologist at Berkeley, is [one of the scientists](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-crispr-runner-up/) who developed the technique. Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California and a Democrat running for governor in 2018, criticized Trump’s threat in a [tweet](https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/827181557026689026), saying he is “appalled at your willingness to deprive over 38,000 students access to an education because of the actions of a few.” University Chancellor Nicholas Dirks [last week](http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/01/26/chancellor-statement-on-yiannopoulos/) voiced support for the right of students to host Yiannopoulos on campus, while also condemning him for “engaging in hate speech.” He originally declined to cancel the event but directed students to guidelines for protesting safely. “We could not plan for the unprecedented,” Dirks said in a statement Thursday, adding that a large group “infiltrated a crowd of peaceful students and used violent tactics to close down the event.” “The violence last night was an attack on the fundamental values of the university, which stands for and helps to maintain and nurture open inquiry and an inclusive civil society, the bedrock of a genuinely democratic nation,” he said. His statement did not mention Trump’s threat to cut funding. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4657932/donald-trump-berkeley-funding/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4657932/donald-trump-berkeley-funding/"},"headline":"President Trump's Threat Would Cut Over Half of Berkeley's Research Funding","datePublished":"2017-02-02T18:18:35.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T12:22:47.000Z","description":"Federal support accounted for 55% of UC Berkeley's research funding in fiscal year 2016","url":"https://time.com/4657932/donald-trump-berkeley-funding/","keywords":["Education","California","College","White House","Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce9f73322c35b8cf/6988b88afb4eac1c1d890a29/donald-trump-berkeley-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce9f73322c35b8cf/6988b88afb4eac1c1d890a29/donald-trump-berkeley-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Protest in Berkeley","caption":"Protest in Berkeley","creditText":"Tayfun Coskun—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/education/","name":"Education"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4657932/donald-trump-berkeley-funding/","name":"President Trump's Threat Would Cut Over Half of Berkeley's Research Funding"}}]}] ```