Judge orders UCLA to ensure equal campus access to Jewish students after pro-Palestinian protests (2024)

A federal judge on Tuesday admonished UCLA for its handling of pro-Palestinian encampments and ordered the university to ensure equal access to Jewish students, three of whom alleged in a lawsuit that the university enabled protesters to block Jews from parts of campus because of their faith.

In issuing his preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi sided with the students, whose June suit said the university helped to enforce a “Jew Exclusion Zone” on campus during pro-Palestinian protests when UCLA erected bike rack barriers around an encampment. Also, the suit alleged that UCLA hired security guards who allowed protesters to cross into the encampment, but not 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. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” Scarsi wrote.

“UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters,” Scarsi wrote. “But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion.”

The judge’s order gives UCLA two days, until Thursday, to instruct UCLA police, security and student affairs that “they are not to aid or participate in any obstruction of access for Jewish students to ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas.” That coincides with orientation for the law school’s fall semester. Undergraduate fall-quarter classes begin in September.

Scarsi’s decision is not the final say on merits of the case. Instead, it says that the students who sued were likely to suffer irreparable harm if he did not issue a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds.

In a statement, one of the plaintiff’s, Yitzchok Frankel, celebrated.

“No student should ever have to fear being blocked from their campus because they are Jewish,” said Frankel, who will be a third-year law student this fall semester. “I am grateful that the court has ordered UCLA to put a stop to this shameful anti-Jewish conduct.”

Frankel and two other students were represented by the nonprofit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the Clement & Murphy law firm.

A UCLA official said in a statement that the order would “improperly hamstring” how the university could respond to campus happenings.

“UCLA is committed to fostering a campus culture where everyone feels welcome and free from intimidation, discrimination, and harassment,” said Mary Osako, vice chancellor of strategic communications. “The district court’s ruling would improperly hamstring our ability to respond to events on the ground and to meet the needs of the Bruin community. We’re closely reviewing the judge’s ruling and considering all our options moving forward.”

UCLA indicated in court filings prior to Tuesday that it would appeal an injunction.

The case centers on a pro-Palestinian encampment on Royce Quad that went up April 25. It was one of the largest and most controversial of those built on college campuses across the U.S. to demand that universities divest from financial ties to Israel. When a mob attacked the camp on April 30, law enforcement response was delayed by hours. Police broke apart the encampment on May 1 and arrested more than 200 people.

UCLA had opposed the lawsuit, saying its actions related to the encampment were about ensuring safety and deescalating tensions, not discriminating against Jews.

University attorneys also argued that significant changes took place since the April encampment that made concerns over future protests less relevant. The changes included shutting down multiple newer encampments on the same days they went up, creating a new campus safety office, hiring a new police chief and strictly enforcing UCLA rules, including those that prohibit overnight camping.

On the question of whether the encampment discriminated against Jews, there has also been significant debate. Pro-Palestinian students and faculty activists at UCLA, including a Faculty for Justice in Palestine group that filed an amicus brief, have drawn a distinction. They say protests were anti-Zionist but not anti-Jewish and that many protesters were Jewish.

But to many Jews, Zionism — the belief in a Jewish state in the ancestral Jewish homeland — is key to Jewish identity. In his order, Scarsi gave a nod toward that view, saying that the plaintiffs “assert that supporting the Jewish state of Israel is their sincerely held religious belief.”

Tuesday’s court order increases pressure on University of California regents and campus leaders, who have said they will no longer tolerate encampments and will enforce protest rules.

President Michael V. Drake is working with UC leadership on a systemwide plan on how campuses will respond to potential fall protests over the Israel-Hamas war and violations of free speech guidelines. State lawmakers are withholding $25 million in state funding until Drake delivers a report on those efforts by Oct. 1.