A federal judge in Los Angeles on Tuesday criticized UCLA’s laissez-faire policies during pro-Palestinian demonstrations this spring as “unimaginable” and “abhorrent.” Jewish students were reportedly denied access to lecture halls, the library and other places on campus.
A preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi requires UCLA to stop alleged anti-Semitic zones, such as the encampments in April that allegedly blocked Jewish students from accessing parts of the campus. Lawyers said it was the first such ruling in the country against a university.
The court order is the result of a lawsuit filed in June against UCLA in which two law students and an undergraduate student allege that the university allowed a group of students and outsiders to set up a pro-Palestinian camp that violently barred Jewish students and faculty from key parts of the campus.
UCLA allegedly reinforced the zones – both by installing metal barriers and by turning away Jewish students – but failed to take effective measures to ensure students’ safe passage, the lawsuit says. In its response to the complaint, UCLA denied any obligation to protect its Jewish students, the judge wrote.
Supporters of the protesters accused the authorities of ignoring a violent attack by counter-protesters on the camp on April 30 while hastily arresting those who sympathized with the Palestinians.
“In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus for refusing to renounce their faith,” Scarsi wrote in his order issued Tuesday in federal court in Los Angeles.
“This fact is so unimaginable and so contrary to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating: Jewish students were excluded from parts of the UCLA campus because they refused to renounce their faith. UCLA does not deny this. Instead, UCLA claims it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was ordered by third-party protesters.”
The judge continued, “But as a matter of constitutional principle, UCLA may deny some students access to religious services if UCLA knows that other students are excluded for religious reasons, regardless of who initiated that exclusion.”
Scarsi denied a request by UCLA to stay the injunction, which takes effect Thursday. UCLA is expected to appeal the ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mary Osako, UCLA’s vice chancellor for strategic communications, previously said the university was working to resolve the issues raised in the lawsuit.
“UCLA is committed to creating a safe and inclusive campus, holding perpetrators of violence accountable and combating anti-Semitism in all forms,” she said. “We have learned lessons from this spring’s protests and continue to work to foster a campus culture where everyone feels welcome and free from intimidation, discrimination and harassment.”
Scarsi had previously ordered the university to develop a plan to prevent discriminatory acts on campus.
The plaintiffs claim that the so-called pro-Palestinian zones violated civil rights laws and discriminated against the university’s Jewish students.
The plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction against the camps addresses what they describe as UCLA’s “ongoing and blatant failure to provide equal access and treatment to Jewish students on its campus.” The Jewish students argue that their education is suffering because of the alleged discrimination and asked the court to provide relief “so that they can safely return to campus for the 2024-2025 class period.”
According to UCLA’s Hillel, there are about 2,500 Jewish undergraduate students at UCLA, making up 9.5 percent of the total student body, and 500 Jewish graduate students, making up 3.3 percent of the enrolled graduate students.
“No student should ever have to fear being expelled from campus because they are Jewish,” Yitzchok Frankel, a third-year law student at UCLA and one of the three plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said Tuesday. “I am grateful that the court has ordered UCLA to put an end to this shameful anti-Jewish behavior.”
Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and the fighting that followed, pro-Palestinian demonstrations erupted on college campuses across the country. Attorneys for the plaintiffs alleged in court filings that by allowing the camp on the Westwood campus, UCLA ensured that Jewish students and faculty were denied access to parts of the campus “unless they agreed to deny Israel’s right to exist.”
“Shame on UCLA for allowing anti-Semitic thugs to terrorize Jews on campus,” said Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket law firm and an attorney for the students. “Today’s ruling says that UCLA’s policy of helping anti-Semitic activists attack Jews is not only morally wrong, it is a gross violation of the Constitution. UCLA should stop fighting the Constitution and start protecting Jews on campus.”
According to the plaintiffs, the activists – many of them masked – used checkpoints, handed out wristbands, set up barriers and often held Jewish students with their arms to prevent them from passing through.
For a week, the lawsuit says, UCLA administration knew about these practices and simply allowed them to continue. Instead of clearing the camp, UCLA instructed security personnel to prevent unauthorized students from crossing the areas cordoned off by the activists, the lawsuit says.
“If masked agitators had excluded any other marginalized group at UCLA, Governor Gavin Newsom would have rightly sent in the National Guard immediately,” Rienzi said previously. “But UCLA instead caved to anti-Semitic activists and allowed its Jewish students to be excluded from the heart of its own campus. This is a grave and illegal failure of leadership.”
Rienzi, whose firm filed the 34-page motion for a temporary restraining order, claimed that activists within the pro-Palestinian camp had specifically targeted Jewish students.
Frankel claims he was subjected to anti-Semitic harassment and was forced to abandon his usual routes across campus because of the so-called Jewish “exclusion zone,” the lawsuit says.
Joshua Ghayoum, a sophomore and history major, says he was repeatedly denied access to the library and other public spaces. Ghayoum claims he heard slogans in the camp, including “Death to Jews,” the lawsuit states.
The third plaintiff, law student Eden Shemuelian, claims her final exam studies were significantly disrupted when she was forced to walk around the camp and listen to anti-Semitic chants and signs on her way to the law school library.
“It is appalling that an elite American university is actively supporting and encouraging masked mobs of anti-Semites,” Rienzi said. “The UCLA Jewish community needs to know that they are safe on campus before the start of the fall semester.”
Police eventually cleared the UCLA camp in a nighttime operation in which over 200 people were arrested.
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