UCLA has agreed to pay $6.45 million to settle a lawsuit brought by three Jewish students and a medical school professor who alleged the university violated their civil rights and enabled antisemitic actions during a pro-Palestinian campus encampment hit with violence in spring 2024.
Each plaintiff will receive $50,000. About $2.3 million will be donated to eight groups that work with Jewish communities or issues. Another $320,000 will be directed to a UCLA initiative to combat antisemitism, and the rest of the funds will go toward the legal fees.
As part the deal, UCLA has also agreed that it is “prohibited from knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students, faculty, and/or staff from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities, and/or campus areas.” This provision extends to any actions taken on campus, including measures to de-escalate tensions during a protest, for instance, and it includes “exclusion … based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.”
That agreement, which would be in effect for 15 years, is awaiting approval from U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi, who is overseeing the case.
The organizations to receive the money are Hillel at UCLA, Academic Engagement Network, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation Los Angeles Campus Impact Network, Chabad of UCLA, Jewish Graduate Organization, the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, and the Film Collaborative, Inc. for use toward producing a film related to the Holocaust called “Lost Alone.”
The lawsuit stems from the days-long pro-Palestinian encampment that protesters erected on the UCLA quad in front of Royce Hall in late April 2024. Pro-Palestinian activists were demanding the university divest from companies with ties to Israel’s war in Gaza. The encampment became a global news story after a melee instigated by pro-Israel counter-demonstrators erupted.
UCLA and law enforcement’s failure to quickly stop the violence sparked intense criticism. The people involved hurled objects, sprayed irritants and tossed fireworks — attacks that continued for hours until officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and the California Highway Patrol quelled the violence.
Calling UCLA a “hotbed of antisemitism” with a “rampant anti-Jewish environment,” the students sued the UC regents and several school officials in June 2024, alleging that the encampment blocked their access to part of campus, violating their civil rights. The professor later joined the suit.
Among the six individual defendants in the case are former UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block, who stepped down at the end of July 2024; and Michael V. Drake, president of the University of California.
The lawsuit alleged that UCLA provided support to pro-Palestinian activists who “enforced” what it termed a “Jew Exclusion Zone,” which segregated Jewish students and prevented them from accessing the “heart of campus,” including lecture halls. It also alleged that the university’s “cowardly abdication of its duty to ensure unfettered access to UCLA’s educational opportunities” violated the students’ freedom of speech and other rights.
UCLA’s outlook over the suit dimmed beginning about a year ago, when the federal judge overseeing the case admonished campus leaders for how they handled the encampment. Scarsi ordered the university to ensure equal access to 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,” Scarsi wrote in the order last July.
UCLA faced stronger headwinds after the presidential election, as President Trump embarked on a series of high-stakes challenges to higher education institutions by threatening to pull federal research grants over alleged antisemitism.
In March, the U.S. Department of Justice filed court documents in support of the students, arguing that UCLA had tried to “evade liability” for what transpired on campus. The department’s “statement of interest” filing said that the plaintiffs “were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” calling this “abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.”
In court filings, UCLA lawyers said campus leaders were not responsible for the actions of protesters and that UCLA officials were focused on de-escalation and safety during the encampment.
Pro-Palestinian groups also filed briefs in the case, arguing that the encampment was not antisemitic but anti-Zionist and pointing out that a large segment of its members were Jewish. They also alleged that UCLA’s actions in response to the case ended up cutting into academic freedom by limiting campus lessons about Palestinians.
The path forward
After the unrest of spring 2024, UCLA and the University of California enacted several major changes related to security and how protests would be handled going forward.
Now, protesters cannot block paths or wear masks if it’s to conceal their identity while breaking campus rules, and demonstration areas are restricted, among other changes. UCLA also hired LAPD veteran Steve Lurie to lead the new Office of Campus Safety.
On Monday, Lurie announced that LAPD veteran Craig Valenzuela would be UCLA’s police chief, effective Sept. 1. Valenzuela, a UCLA alumnus who joined the city’s police force in 1996, will take over a department that has not had a permanent chief since May 2024, when then-UCLA Police Chief John Thomas was reassigned before resigning in the fall. Thomas faced blame for the police mishandling of violence at the encampment.
Although UCLA has increased protest restrictions, added security officers and quickly shut down some pro-Palestinian events since spring 2024, many on campus have said that demonstration policies are unevenly or sporadically enforced. The concern has been repeatedly voiced at UC and campus forums by pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian campus groups.
There was another major change on campus: Julio Frenk — whose German Jewish father fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s — becoming chancellor on Jan. 1. Three months later, Frenk banned Students for Justice in Palestine as a campus organization after a protest the group held in front of a UC regent’s house that was vandalized. Frenk also launched a campuswide initiative to combat antisemitism.
Times staff writer Libor Jany contributed to this report.
