UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk
LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the University of California, alleging that UCLA was “deliberately indifferent” to hostile acts against Jewish and Israeli students staged in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel.
The department’s Civil Rights Division filed the federal lawsuit on May 26 in the Central District of California, arguing that the Westwood campus tolerated antisemitic harassment of the students in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The complaint focuses on the months after the Oct. 7 attacks and into 2024. In April of that year, masked and armed agitators created an illegal encampment outside the campus’s Royce Hall and prevented Jews and Israelis from entering academic buildings.
“Although UCLA knew that its Jewish and Israeli students risked physical assault when attempting to go to class or the library, UCLA inexplicably took no serious action whatsoever until May 2, 2024, when it finally allowed police to clear the encampment,” the lawsuit says.
UCLA’s Office of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion received more than 100 complaints of antisemitism or anti-Israeli harassment but mostly ignored them, the Justice Department alleges.
“UCLA’s leadership apparently preferred a do-nothing ‘de-escalation strategy’ to protecting their Jewish and Israeli students from an angry mob organized by peers armed with tasers, lumber and a sword,” the complaint states.
Both the UCLA chancellor, Julio Frenk, and UC’s president, James B. Milliken, pushed back against the charges of indifference to antisemitism.
Milliken pointed out in a statement provided to the Southern California Record that Frenk’s family members were victims of Nazi antisemitism and the Holocaust and said the UC system has put in place multiple reforms to promote student safety and combat antisemitism on its campuses.
“It is so disappointing that this most recent lawsuit shows no recognition of or respect for that essential work,” he said. “This litigation – and other actions taken by the federal government targeting the University of California – does nothing to aid our ongoing efforts to address antisemitism and create safe and welcoming campus environments for all members of our community.”
Frenk said the allegation that UCLA has been passive in the face of antisemitic acts is wrong.
“In the past year alone, we’ve taken numerous concrete actions to combat antisemitism,” he said in a statement. “We recruited an associate vice chancellor for campus and community safety. We reorganized our Civil Rights Office. We appointed a Title VI officer. And we strengthened our policies to protect both free expression and the safety of every member of our community.”
The lawsuit seeks to impose meaningful discipline on students or faculty engaged in discriminatory acts against Jews or Israelis and to require new policies to resolve such bias complaints. It also seeks restitution of federal grant payments made to the university during UCLA’s alleged noncompliance with Title VI and an outside auditor to ensure compliance.
“Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division said in a prepared statement. “Now, the Department of Justice calls UCLA to account for its toleration of the equally appalling hostile educational environment against its Jewish and Israeli students.”
