Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California – one of the nation’s largest higher education institutions – is heading for a showdown with Congress over her scofflaw stance toward immigration law:

[The University] will vigorously protect the privacy and civil rights of the undocumented members of the UC community and will direct its police departments not to undertake joint efforts with any government agencies to enforce federal immigration law.

Representative Dana Rohrbacher (R-Calif.) sent a letter to Napolitano warning her that there will be consequences for actively contravening federal law while depending on federal funding:

It may be prudent for you to consider that approximately 50% of the University of California’s research funding is supported by federal taxpayers’ dollars before pledging non-compliance with federal law.

This chart, from the University of California itself, reveals the degree of dependence on federal funding for research:

There are also Pell Grants and federal loans for students, which could be imperiled if the university persists in holding itself above federal law.

It is hard to see what would stop the escalation of this dispute into a crisis, perhaps resulting in drastic consequences for the university.  Given the fact that the left has bullied all kinds of private institutions into compliance with its policies through the lever of federal funding, the cries of outrage over such a confrontation from the left will be easily countered.

The year 2017 is going to see a lot of outrage from the left.