The Justice Department sued the University of California, Los Angeles on Tuesday, accusing UCLA of fostering a “hostile educational environment” for Jewish and Israeli students during and after the wave of pro-Palestinian campus protests that erupted following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.The 53-page lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Central District of California, alleges UCLA violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by acting with “deliberate indifference” toward antisemitic harassment, assaults, and exclusionary conduct directed at Jewish and Israeli students. According to the complaint, masked protesters and demonstrators at UCLA physically blocked Jewish students from entering parts of campus, assaulted students carrying Israeli flags, and established what the lawsuit described as “human phalanxes” around an anti-Israel encampment erected outside Royce Hall in April 2024.
“Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “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.”
