A group of Jewish students have filed suit against UCLA, accusing the university of violating their constitutional and civil rights by allowing antisemitic pro-Hamas protests to multiply out of control on campus since April, resulting in threats and attacks on Jewish students and the creation of what the lawsuit dscribes as "effectively a 'Jew Exclusion Zone."
"UCLA's administration knew about the activists' extreme actions, including the exclusion of Jews," the lawsuit said. "But in a remarkable display of cowardice, appeasement, and illegality, the administration did nothing to stop it...
"... Jews should not fear for their safety when they walk around any public space, let alone the campus of a prominent American research university."
The lawsuit was filed June 5 in Los Angeles federal court by attorneys with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, of Washington, D.C., and the prominent constitutional law firm of Clement & Murphy, of Alexandria, Virginia.
The suit was filed on behalf of named plaintiffs Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum and Eden Shemulian, all identified as Los Angeles residents who are students at the University of California at Los Angeles.
According to the lawsuit, those three students accuse university leadership of capitulating to large antisemitic protests which have proliferated at UCLA since late April, leaving Jewish students and others of Jewish descent unprotected and unsafe on campus. They assert university leadership has failed to protect the constitutional and civil rights and freedoms that should be afforded to all students.
The lawsuit notes that UCLA "boasts" of commitments by leadership to uphold policies forbidding "acts of discrimination" or "harassment" on the basis of protected traits, such as race, ethnicity, national heritage or religious beliefs.
"But UCLA has failed to provide Jewish students, faculty, and staff with the protection promised by such policies," the lawsuit said.
"... The administration's cowardly abdication of its duty to ensure unfettered access to UCLA's educational opportunities and to protect the Jewish community is not only immoral -- it is illegal," the lawsuit said.
In the lawsuit, plaintiffs point to continued acts of antisemitic aggression against Jewish students, faculty and staff at UCLA in recent weeks and months, including the distribution of a document titled "Loudmouth Jew," the proliferation of swastikas and other Nazi imagery, and demonstrations loudly repeating chants historically associated with Palestinian terrorist organizations, including Hamas, such as "from the River to the Sea," "there's only one solution," "intifada," "death to Israel," and "death to Jews."
Further, they said a pro-Hamas protest "encampment" on UCLA's Royce Quad resulted in the establishment of a virtual "Jew Exclusion Zone." Students attempting to walk through this area were allegedly challenged by protesters to declare if they were "Zionists" or if they agreed with protesters antisemitic demands.
Students and visitors were then issued wristbands to indicate they were essentially friendly to the protesters. If they refused the demands at the "checkpoints" they were denied entry to the campus property engulfed by the encampment.
According to the complaint, these checkpoints were allegedly established with the knowledge and agreement of UCLA leadership and campus police refused to intervene to protect Jewish students or others who refused to align with the protesters.
Campus security then allegedly further instructed Jewish students and others who disagreed with the antisemitic protesters to avoid the encampment.
While the encampmen was eventually taken down, the lawsuit asserts the university has not done enough to ensure other and worse actions may follow, and Jewish students do not believe the university has done enough to act against antisemitic harassment.
The lawsuit accuses the university of violating the students' religious freedom, free speech and equal protection rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as rights under the California state constitution and federal and state civil rights laws. The lawsuit further invokes the federal Ku Klux Klan Act, asserting the university failed to prevent antisemitic protesters from carrying out a conspiracy against Jewish students, faculty and staff.
The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring the university to act to defend Jews on campus. They are also seeking unspecified money damages, including compensatory and punitive damages against UCLA.
Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Eric C. Rassbach, Mark L. Rienzi, Laura Wolk Slavis, Jordan T. Varberg, Amanda G. Dixon and Richard C. Osborne, of the Becket Fund; and attorneys Paul D. Clement, Erin E. Murphy and Matthew D. Rowen, of Clement & Murphy.
"This is America in 2024 - not Germany in 1939," said attorney Rienzi, in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "It is disgusting that an elite American university would let itself devolve into a hotbed of antisemitism. UCLA's administration should have to answer for allowing the Jew Exclusion Zone and promise that Jews will never again be segregated on campus."
UCLA has not yet responded to the complaint in court.