New Delhi, Sept. 17 -- Student organisations, faculty, staff and every labour union of the University of California on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday, saying that the government is misusing civil rights laws to wage a campaign against the institute with a goal to curtail academic freedom and undermine free speech.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, comes weeks after the US administration led by President Donald Trump imposed a $1.2 billion fine on University of California, Los Angeles, and froze funding for research, accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus and violating other civil rights.

"The blunt cudgel the Trump administration has repeatedly employed in this att...