Last week, six-time NBA Champion, six-time NBA MVP, and UCLA alumnus Kareem Abdul-Jabbar expressed support for UCLA and the UC system in response to the federal government seeking a $1.172 billion payment from UCLA after freezing $584 million in groundbreaking federal research funding on UC campuses.
“UCLA didn’t just launch my basketball career. It gave me the tools and confidence to pursue life off the court as a writer and advocate for social justice,” Abdul-Jabbar said in a video posted to his Substack. “Right here on campus, clinician researchers are breaking new ground in treating cancer and other diseases — work that’s literally saved my life. From my health battles with leukemia, prostate cancer, atrial fibrillation and COPD, America needs UCLA and the entire UC system. And now UCLA needs us. Let’s stand up for the university that’s given us so much. Join me in protecting UCLA’s future. Go Bruins!”
The University is dedicated to protecting its critical research mission. As a public university, the UC system and its campuses are stewards of taxpayer resources, and a payment of this scale would completely devastate the country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on UC students and all Californians.
“These unprecedented attacks on UCLA won’t just affect the education of the nearly 50,000 students who attend the school each year, but they will also result in the serious stoppage of critical research on new immunotherapies that could treat cancerous tumors, new technologies to diagnose Parkinson's earlier, and new methods to produce the building blocks of semiconductor chips that power our phones, computers, and cars. What happens at UCLA has a major effect on all our daily lives,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote on his Substack.
Members of the University of California community can join Abdul-Jabbar and pledge to stand up for UC: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/get-involved/stand-up-for-uc.