This post was updated Nov. 4 at 10:19 p.m.

I chose UCLA for two reasons: research and ethics.

As a PhD student studying psychology, I was drawn in by UCLA’s top-notch faculty, research opportunities and strong labor union. And I was excited by university-wide commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion and grateful for an undergraduate student body invested in protests for Palestine.

Those attributes didn’t escape the Trump administration’s notice, either.

In August, the federal government withheld over $500 million of research funding, demanding that UCLA pay a ransom of $1 billion and surrender to conservative political demands, such as rolling back recognition of transgender identities and allowing governmental monitoring.

Though a judge’s injunction has restored research funding temporarily, Trump’s actions represent an ongoing mission to suppress diversity and set a precedent for political punishment. Certainly, if the UC acquiesces to federal demands, a precedent will be established: the university’s moral purpose is worth less than its profits.

Make no mistake: I am deeply concerned by the losses caused by funding cuts. I know that critical progress was lost, with researchers reporting serious problems like struggles to feed laboratory animals and time-sensitive experiments being destroyed.

But these losses are secondary to the fear seeping into the academic atmosphere. Previously unshakable trust in higher education has decayed alongside the release of innocuous words that could result in revoked funding, sudden terminations of grants nationwide and reshaping of scientific priorities on a political basis.

This dread provokes insidious consequences. Entire departments and programs are cut or defunded. Students modify or halt their studies. And I have seen, at every career stage, researchers turning inward, discussing fears only behind closed doors – hoping that silence, or the appearance of silence, might act as a protective shell.

In fear, many of us looked towards the broader UCLA climate for support. But when the university administration responded to the attack with merely a few emails and a media campaign – but no critique of the larger political power game at play – that signaled, at best, a lack of preparation and, at worst, cowardice.

And when the UC administration took steps that suggested contemplation of actually paying the exorbitant $1 billion extortion, it sent the message: “We are scared, too.”

We’re willing to defend science. After all, what is less controversial than cancer treatments?

But we’re not willing to defend marginalized students, including transgender, international, Palestinian and Jewish students. We’re not willing to defend the people of California, nor their taxpayer dollars. We’re not willing to defend free speech or intellectual freedom.

When an institution can be manipulated by political pressure in pursuit of profit, why should anyone trust it?

If the University of California falls – the first public institution to be extorted – it does so as an American domino. More public universities will follow. And that dread, which now hovers over UCLA as a spinning top on its axis, will sweep across the country.

This is a pivotal moment—not just for UCLA, but for the United States as a whole.

Now is not the time for timidity. If Chancellor Frenk truly wishes to “keep our values and principles front and center in any decision we make,” then UCLA has only one option: refuse to be intimidated by short-term losses and refuse the federal administration’s demands.

After all, there is much more to be lost.

Heather Jensen is a doctoral student studying psychology.