UCLA Claims It Shouldn't Be ‘Ordered’ to Guarantee Safety of Jewish Students

Reports surfaced Wednesday detailing how the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) feels it shouldn’t be “ordered” to protect Jewish students who are facing anti-Semitism on campus. As a result of the ongoing war between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, several U.S. colleges and university saw an intense outbreak of hatred geared towards the nation and people of Israel. Of these campuses, UCLA witnessed, as some have described, “some of the most egregious and violent antisemitism among the dozens of … protest[s] that swept the nation.”

In addition to the countless instances of Jewish harassment, including blocking students from their classes, “encampment” protests became quite popular. Controversy was immediate and intense throughout these protests, and UCLA faced tremendous pushback when school officials took little to no action in protecting their Jewish students. And not only has UCLA been accused of not stepping up to the plate, but also of actively “reinforcing” some of the anti-Israel protests.

That triggered a lawsuit, Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, in which three Jewish students sued “UCLA in federal court under civil rights law, demanding a preliminary injunction requiring the university to guarantee their safety when they return to campus,” Breitbart reported. Attorneys from the Becket and Clement & Murphy PLLC firm, who are representing the Jewish students, wrote:

“At UCLA, activists set up an encampment in the heart of campus where they enforced a ‘Jew Exclusion Zone,’ segregating Jewish students and faculty and preventing them from going to their classes, accessing the library, or participating in routine campus social life. Meanwhile, UCLA’s administration ordered police to stand down and step aside and even assigned security officers to keep those who would not agree to disavow Israel’s right to exist away from the area.

“UCLA reinforced these zones — both by providing metal barriers and by sending away Jewish students — while taking no effective action to ensure safe passage for Jewish students. UCLA’s policies harm Jewish students and violate numerous provisions of the U.S. and California Constitutions and multiple civil rights laws.”

UCLA’s counter-claims, which were filed in federal court Monday and directly related to the lawsuit, were that “UCLA’s actions neither suppressed nor coerced speech.” Additionally, they claim to have attempted “de-escalation strategies to remove the encampment peacefully and durably,” which were then followed by hiring security to monitor “neutral zones with a charge of deterring violent escalation.”

Ultimately, this case, which was filed in June, continues to unfold as the parties hash out their conflicting opinions. The Jewish students are firmly fighting for their rights and safety, while UCLA continues to feel “its existing policies are sufficient to comply with federal civil rights laws.” Arielle Del Turco, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Religious Liberty, shared with The Washington Stand that while UCLA seems to be muddying the water, the issue at hand is clear.

As she expressed, “The leadership of UCLA should be ashamed of themselves for allowing, and in some ways even enabling, student protestors to create an encampment on campus where Jewish students and faculty were physically obstructed from going to their classes and faced intimidation and harassment.” The fact of the matter, Del Turco added, is that “Jewish students at our nation’s most elite universities should not have to face chants of ‘Death to Jews’ while they’re simply trying to attend class.”

She also noted how sad it is that similar instances of anti-Semitism have “been a widespread issue on college campuses since the October 7, 2023 attacks against Israel.” She concluded, “What UCLA did by failing to protect Jewish students is a serious civil rights concern, and I expect that the court will hold them accountable for that.”