UCLA will pay $6.45 million to settle a federal lawsuit brought by three Jewish students and a medical school professor who alleged the university violated their civil rights and enabled antisemitism during a pro-Palestinian encampment hit with violence in spring 2024.
The lawsuit also alleged that by not immediately ordering the encampment to be taken down, UCLA provided support to pro-Palestinian activists who “enforced” what it termed a “Jew Exclusion Zone,” prohibiting Jewish students and staff from passing through the camp’s makeshift barricades.
Each plaintiff will receive $50,000. About $2.3 million will be donated to eight groups that work with Jewish communities. Another $320,000 will be directed to a UCLA initiative to combat antisemitism, and the rest of the funds will go toward legal fees.
As part the deal, UCLA has also agreed that it is “prohibited from knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students, faculty, and/or staff from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities, and/or campus areas.” The provision extends to any actions taken on campus, including measures to de-escalate tensions during a protest, for instance, and includes “exclusion … based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.”
The settlement is believed to be the largest payout by private, individual plaintiffs to date from a flurry of lawsuits filed against universities alleging cases of antisemitism since Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas’ attack on Israel on that date and Israel’s war in Gaza spurred widespread campus protests and a spike in reports of hate incidents against Jewish, Muslim and Arab American students.
That agreement, which would be in effect for 15 years, is awaiting approval from U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi, who is overseeing the case.
The organizations to receive the money are Hillel at UCLA, Academic Engagement Network, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation Los Angeles Campus Impact Network, Chabad of UCLA, Jewish Graduate Organization, the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, and the Film Collaborative, Inc. for use toward producing the Holocaust-related film “Lost Alone.”
In a joint statement, both parties said the settlement was a sign of “real progress in the fight against antisemitism.”
Mark Rienzi, a lawyer who represented the students and professor, had sharp words for campus leaders.
“Campus administrators across the country willingly bent the knee to antisemites during the encampments,” said Rienzi, president of Becket, a nonprofit firm that takes on religious liberty cases. “They are now on notice: Treating Jews like second-class citizens is wrong, illegal, and very costly. UCLA should be commended for accepting judgment against that misbehavior and setting the precedent that allowing mistreatment of Jews violates the Constitution and civil rights laws.”
UC regents chair Janet Reilly said that the agreement “reflects a critically important goal that we share with the plaintiffs: to foster a safe, secure and inclusive environment for all members of our community and ensure that there is no room for antisemitism anywhere on campus.”
“Antisemitism, harassment, and other forms of intimidation are antithetical to our values and have no place at the University of California,” Reilly said. “We have been clear about where we have fallen short, and we are committed to doing better moving forward.”
The 2024 encampment
The lawsuit stems from the days-long pro-Palestinian encampment that protesters erected on the UCLA quad in front of Royce Hall in late April 2024. Pro-Palestinian activists were demanding the university divest from companies with ties to Israel’s war in Gaza. The encampment became a global news story after a melee instigated by pro-Israel counter-demonstrators erupted.
UCLA and law enforcement’s failure to quickly stop the violence sparked intense criticism. The people involved hurled objects, sprayed irritants and tossed fireworks — attacks that continued for hours until officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and the California Highway Patrol quelled the violence.
Before the violence, some Jewish students voiced dismay over “checkpoints,” to entry, saying they were excluded from passing through the encampment because they supported the existence of Israel. At the time, some students defended restricting access to the encampment, telling The Times it was needed to keep “agitators” from entering and endangering protesters.
Calling UCLA a “hotbed of antisemitism” with a “rampant anti-Jewish environment,” Jewish students sued the UC regents and several school officials in June 2024, alleging that the encampment blocked their access to part of campus, violating their civil rights. The professor later joined the suit.
The suit also alleged that the university’s “cowardly abdication of its duty to ensure unfettered access to UCLA’s educational opportunities” violated the students’ freedom of speech and other rights.
The plaintiffs blamed UCLA because university security workers re-enforced the encampment with bike racks and school leaders initially did order it to be cleared. UCLA said at the time it’s actions were aimed at de-escalation and safety.
Among the six individual defendants in the case are former UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block, who stepped down at the end of July 2024; and Michael V. Drake, president of the University of California.
The plaintiffs included recent UCLA law graduates Yitzchok Frankel and Eden Shemuelian and undergraduate Joshua Ghayoum.
“When antisemites were terrorizing Jews and excluding them from campus, UCLA chose to protect the thugs and help keep Jews out,” said Frankel. “That was shameful, and it is sad that my own school defended those actions for more than a year. But today’s court judgment brings justice back to our campus and ensures Jews will be safe and be treated equally once again.”
UCLA’s outlook over the suit dimmed a year ago, when the federal judge overseeing the case admonished campus leaders for how they handled the encampment. Scarsi ordered the university to ensure equal access to Jewish students.
“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 because they refused to denounce their faith,” Scarsi wrote in the order last July.
UCLA faced stronger headwinds after the presidential election, as President Trump embarked on a series of high-stakes challenges to higher education institutions by threatening to pull federal research grants over alleged antisemitism.
In March, the U.S. Department of Justice filed court documents in support of the students, arguing that UCLA had tried to “evade liability” for what transpired on campus. The department’s “statement of interest” filing said that the plaintiffs “were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” calling this “abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.”
Pro-Palestinian groups also filed briefs in the case, arguing that the encampment was not antisemitic but anti-Zionist and pointing out that a large segment of its members were Jewish. They also alleged that UCLA’s actions in response to the case ended up cutting into academic freedom by limiting campus lessons about Palestinians.
New protest rules and restrictions
After the unrest of spring 2024, UCLA and the University of California enacted several major changes related to security and how protests would be handled going forward.
Now, protesters cannot block paths or wear masks if it’s to conceal their identity while breaking campus rules, and demonstration areas are restricted, among other changes. UCLA also hired LAPD veteran Steve Lurie to lead the new Office of Campus Safety.
On Monday, Lurie announced that LAPD veteran Craig Valenzuela would be UCLA’s police chief, effective Sept. 1. Valenzuela, a UCLA alumnus who joined the city’s police force in 1996, will take over a department that has not had a permanent chief since May 2024, when then-UCLA Police Chief John Thomas was reassigned before resigning in the fall. Thomas faced blame for the police mishandling of violence at the encampment.
Although UCLA has increased protest restrictions, added security officers and quickly shut down some pro-Palestinian events since spring 2024, many on campus have said that demonstration policies are unevenly or sporadically enforced. The concern has been repeatedly voiced at UC and campus forums by pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian campus groups.
There was another major change on campus: Julio Frenk — whose German Jewish father fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s — becoming chancellor on Jan. 1. Three months later, Frenk banned Students for Justice in Palestine as a campus organization after a protest the group held in front of a UC regent’s house that was vandalized. Frenk also launched a campuswide initiative to combat antisemitism.
What comes next
Tuesday’s settlement may not be the end of the case.
Scarsi, in a court order upon learning of the settlement, said there would be a 45-day period when he could reopen the case if there is a “showing of good cause why the settlement cannot be completed.”
Pro-Palestinian individuals who were part of the encampment asked the judge in a court filing Tuesday to allow them to join as a party to the case.
Their argument: The settlement is inappropriate and will harm students and faculty.
UCLA “never challenged the wholly unsupported, false, and ridiculous allegations that the Palestine Solidarity Encampment, which, in fact, included Jewish faculty, students, and community members who held Shabbat and Seder services, was a so-called ‘Jew exclusion zone,’ ” the encampment participants wrote in a court filing. UCLA’s “core claim is false, and the relief sought from it is intended to violate student, faculty, and campus community rights, rather than to protect the rights to free expression on campus.”
Times staff writer Libor Jany contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
