The UCLA Faculty Association called on UCLA to preserve academic freedom at a Monday rally following the release of the Trump administration’s settlement demands.

Around 40 people attended the noon rally at the bottom of Janss Steps, where professors and doctors gave speeches condemning the Trump administration’s proposed settlement terms publicized Friday. UCLA would have needed to agree to the terms of the settlement in exchange for the $584 million in research grants suspended by the federal administration late July.

The agencies alleged that the university allowed antisemitism, affirmative action and “men to participate in women’s sports” as reasoning for the funding freeze.

A federal judge issued two injunctions in August and September that temporarily restored the bulk of UCLA’s frozen research grants, siding with UC researchers in a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration. However, the decision will only hold while the case moves through the courts.

The UCLA Faculty Association and the Council of California Faculty Associations filed a lawsuit under the California Public Records Act on Sept. 17 to gain access to the settlement proposal. The CPRA mandates that the government publicize records upon request, unless their release would cause privacy or safety concerns.

The California Supreme Court ruled Friday that the UC had to publicize the letter, following the denial of the University’s final appeal to keep the draft settlement confidential.

CNN exclusively obtained the draft settlement the day it was sent to UCLA, revealing the Trump administration’s demands, including that the university pay $1 billion to restore frozen grants and put $172 million in a claims fund for those impacted by alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

The proposed settlement – which the Trump administration sent to the university Aug. 8 – would require UCLA to stop providing gender-affirming care to minors, hire external auditors responsible for overseeing the university and cease diversity initiatives, among other demands.

Anna Markowitz, the president of the UCLA Faculty Association, said the association is hoping to pressure the UC Regents to leverage the Blue and Gold Fund to provide money for students and researchers amid the freeze. The Blue and Gold Fund is a long-term investment vehicle for UC organizations – which Markowitz said should be leveraged in emergency situations, such as the funding freeze.

The UCLA Faculty Association previously proposed that a multi-million dollar fund pooled from the Blue and Gold Fund and the University’s endowment – called the California Futures Fund – could support UC researchers amid the funding suspension.

[Related: UC Faculty propose multi-billion dollar fund in response to federal funding freeze]

Markowitz said the association is also advocating for California Senate Bill 607 – the California Science and Health Research Bond Act – which would establish grant and loan programs for research universities and organizations, according to CalMatters. The fund could replace the research grants impacted by the funding freeze, she added.

The UCLA Faculty Association was also party in a lawsuit against the Trump administration filed Sept. 16, in which several UC faculty associations and unions alleged that the Trump administration’s suspension of research grants and $1 billion settlement demand amounted to financial coercion and violated employees’ free speech and due process rights. The first hearing for the case – brought by faculty associations and labor unions representing over 100,000 total employees – is scheduled for Nov. 6.

“This is part of a broader effort to defund and remake higher education into the ideological image that the federal government wants it to look like,” Markowitz said.

Ariela Gross, a professor of law and history, said in a speech that she believes parts of the proposal bear similarities to proposals sent to other universities – such as the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University – in its demands that UCLA send a “personalized letter” to female athletes who were “impacted” by athletic programs that allow “men to participate in women’s sports”. The settlement proposal said UCLA must end gender-affirming care for minors at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

However, the Feinberg School of Medicine is Northwestern University’s medical school – a different university the Trump administration suspended $790 million in research funding from.

“It’s just a way to give the federal government oversight over our institution, a state school for and by the people of California, and we should all reject it,” Gross said in the speech.

Diego Bollo, the president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, said USAC is communicating with Chancellor Julio Frenk and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Monroe Gorden Jr. about the privacy of students. He added that the administrators said the names of UCLA students have not been shared with the federal government as of Oct. 27.

UC Berkeley and UC San Diego both released the personal information of students, staff and faculty to the federal government for investigation, according to the Daily Californian and the UCSD Guardian.

Bollo said the council has been monitoring changes and trends in gender-affirming care at UCLA with Suzanne Seplow, the associate vice chancellor for student development and health. The settlement proposal also demands that UCLA must end gender-affirming care for minors at UCLA’s medical facilities and make a public statement that it does not recognize the identities of transgender individuals.

Vilma Ortiz, a professor of Chicana and Chicano studies and sociology, said in a speech that she believes the Trump administration’s demands to restrict diversity in admissions and hiring could result in a student body that is not representative of California’s population.

“We insist on keeping our power to determine who we teach, what we teach and who we have as colleagues,” Ortiz said in her speech.

To end the rally, Markowitz highlighted UCLA’s role as a public institution and its responsibility to serve the people of California.

She encouraged attendees to resist “coercion” from the federal government and emphasized the legal action previously taken by the Faculty Association against the Trump administration in her speech.

“The Trump administration is taking aim at the UC because California is powerful,” Markowitz said in her speech. “This is also why the UC was the wrong institution to attack.”