UCLA can't let anti-Israel activists ban Jewish students from campus: judge
The University of California, Los Angeles, can no longer allow anti-Israel protesters to exclude Jewish students who refuse to denounce their faith from certain areas on campus, a federal judge has ruled.
Judge Mark C. Scarsi, a Trump appointee, issued the preliminary injunction Tuesday following a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the Becket law firm and co-counsel Clement & Murphy PLLC on behalf of three Jewish students.
The plaintiffs contend that they have a religious obligation to support Israel, and their complaint outlined various antisemitic incidents that occurred amid a wave of protests on college campuses concerning Israel's military operations in Gaza.
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The injunction in the UCLA case is the first against a university for allowing students to set up an encampment on school property. The school is expected to appeal the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the statement.
A group of anti-Israel protesters occupied a section of UCLA's campus in April known as the Royce Quad and established an encampment with plywood and metal barricades. The demonstrators set up checkpoints and reportedly required passers-by to wear a specific wristband to cross and barred anyone who supported Israel's existence from the encampment.
While UCLA dismantled the encampment in May, Scarsi highlighted how protesters set up an "unauthorized and unlawful encampment with tents, canopies, wooden shields, and water-filled barriers" on June 10. Demonstrators are said to have disrupted final exams and even caused some students to miss their tests.
"Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith," Judge 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."
The judge wrote that UCLA cannot permit such encampments to stand if they prevent the campus from being "fully and equally accessible to Jewish students." Scarsi also contended that it does not matter if third-party protesters are responsible for excluding Jewish students from campus.
"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 stated.
UCLA did not immediately respond to The Christian Post's request for comment.
"Shame on UCLA for letting antisemitic thugs terrorize Jews on campus," Becket President Mark Rienzi said in a Tuesday statement. "Today's ruling says that UCLA's policy of helping antisemitic activists target Jews is not just morally wrong but a gross constitutional violation. UCLA should stop fighting the Constitution and start protecting Jews on campus."
According to the students' complaint, people inside the encampment chanted things like "death to the Jews," and many also held signs with the Star of David crossed out. Protesters would require anyone passing through a checkpoint to condemn Israel, and they would deny entry to anyone accused of being a Zionist.
Faculty members encouraged the protests, according to the suit, with some even holding classes inside the encampment. A group called UCLA Faculty for Justice in Palestine also urged staff to show support through [their] physical presence at the protest."
As noted in the students' complaint against UCLA, defendants have knowingly allowed private individuals to bar Jewish persons from parts of the UCLA campus because of their Jewish ethnicity and religion, while non-Jewish persons are permitted access to all areas of campus."
The suit further argues that UCLA's decision to hire private security guards only escalated the situation, as these guards discouraged "unapproved students" from crossing through the areas on campus blocked by demonstrators.
"As a result of Defendants' actions, Plaintiffs have been injured by losing access to educational opportunities, losing access to library and classroom facilities, losing in-person learning opportunities, losing the ability to prepare for exams, being denied equal participation in the life of the university, suffering emotional and physical stress that has diverted time, attention, and focus from study, and by other harms," the complaint stated.
Anti-Israel activists set up a series of encampments on college campuses throughout the country this spring in response to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza following Hamas' Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel. In addition to UCLA, Jewish students at schools like Harvard and Columbia University reported that the encampments made them feel unsafe.
University leaders at various schools were forced to call law enforcement to dismantle the encampments. According to July 22 data from The New York Times, the anti-Israel encampments resulted in more than 3,100 arrests nationwide.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
