Students Push For Race-Focused College Graduations In California

Here are the morning’s top stories on Monday, April 28, 2025…

• College staff in Southern California are busy organizing upcoming graduation ceremonies based on racial and ethnic identity. But two months ago the Trump administration said these graduation ceremonies are illegal. And staff are not taking that declaration lightly.
• Labor advocates in Los Angeles are pushing back against proposed cuts to a small city agency tasked with helping workers who weren’t paid the wages they were owed.
• The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office is not filing charges against the vast majority of people who were arrested during last year’s protests over the war in Gaza at UCLA and USC.

Trump Calls Race-Focused College Graduations Illegal. These Students Are Doing Them Anyway

In February, the U.S. Department of Education said race-focused graduation ceremonies are a form of segregation and are illegal. It said a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on college admissions justified the position.

Around Southern California, these ceremonies are going forward anyway. But they will likely take on a different tenor.

The federal memo led some Black students at Santa Monica College to wonder if their graduation ceremony and Black Collegians Club and other programs would continue. “Yes, we still are. There are no ifs, ands or buts. We are,” Tyler Jackson-Zeno told the students. He’s president of the Black Collegians Club and will be taking part in the Black graduation ceremony in June.  ”Trump, at a federal level, yeah he could say what he wants, but at the same time at a state level or even at a local, city level, he [doesn’t] really have full jurisdiction,” Jackson-Zeno said.

While some legal scholars say the administration’s reasoning is off the mark, other lawyers urged colleges and universities to consider the department’s position and threats of enforcement carefully. While educators in California have supported the growth of affinity graduation ceremonies in recent years, the targeting of these celebrations by the Trump administration is leading their supporters to take a stand to defend their importance and causing others to take steps to protect their graduating students from federal officials.

LA Proposes Cuts To City Agency Aimed At Helping Workers

Los Angeles’ Office of Wage Standards enforces the city’s minimum wage, paid sick leave and other labor protections. It’s been struggling with job vacancies, but now the budget proposal by Mayor Karen Bass would eliminate half of its positions, including investigators and a top manager. This at a time when the city is preparing to host big events, like the FIFA World Cup and Summer Olympics.

Armando Gudino heads the Los Angeles Worker Center Network. “We firmly believe that wage theft and worker exploitation will increase if these cuts go into effect,” he said.

Los Angeles County is already known as the nation’s “wage theft capital” — with employers shaving off an estimated $30 million per week from workers’ paychecks, Gudino said. Mayor Bass mayor has called for more than 1600 layoffs citywide — a decision she called of last resort to close a nearly $1 billion budget gap.

City Attorney Won’t File Charges Against Most Protesters Arrested At UCLA And USC

The L.A. City Attorney’s office said Friday that of the hundreds of arrests made at last year’s Gaza war protests on the campuses of UCLA and USC, two people are facing misdemeanor criminal charges. Three others are being referred to “City Attorney Hearings”, an alternative procedure that avoids criminal prosecution.

Through April and May last year, protesters supporting Palestine setup encampments on USC and UCLA to oppose the Gaza conflict. The University of California Police Department and LAPD made arrests at both campuses, over 300 of those were referred to the City Attorney’s Office. On Friday, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto released a statement saying that due to “insufficient evidence,” her office won’t file charges against most arrestees.