US Justice Department Finds UCLA in Violation of Federal Civil Rights Law

UCLA yesterday agreed to pay $6.13 million to settle the discrimination lawsuit filed against the school by Jewish students and a professor blocked from access to parts of campus by pro-Hamas mobs last year.

It looks like most every other news story on the settlement missed the salient fact that UCLA had been fighting the lawsuit quite vociferously when Joe Biden was president. Despite being rebuked by a federal judge, the school filed a motion to dismiss the case last November.

Then Donald Trump took office. His administration intervened in the case and also started investigating the entire University of California system.

And now, despite the settlement, his administration is still ratcheting up the pressure on UCLA, threatening to sue the school for its mistreatments of Jewish students and staff.

Just hours after the settlement was announced, the Justice Department declared that UCLA had violated civil rights laws with its “deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement, “Our investigation into the University of California system has found concerning evidence of systemic anti-Semitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability from the institution.  This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand: DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.

Citing the pro-Hamas encampments that had blocked the Jewish students moving freely on campus, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told University of California president Michael Drake that, “Jewish and Israeli students at UCLA were subjected to severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment that created a hostile environment by members of the encampment. Jewish and Israeli students were assaulted, verbally harassed, and physically prevented from accessing parts of the UCLA campus on the basis of their actual or perceived race, religion, and/or national origin.”

In her letter to Drake, Dhillon threatened to sue UCLA by September 2 unless the school entered “into a voluntary resolution agreement [to] ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated and reasonable steps are taken to prevent its recurrence. “

The Jewish students’ lawsuit against UCLA was filed on June 5, 2024 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.  The defendants were University of California system president Michael Drake, then-UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, Provost Darnell Hunt, Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs  Monroe Gorden, Jr. and Assistant Vice Chancellor Rick Braziel.

The complaint describes how UCLA officials gave the pro-Hamas mobs full reign of campus as they set up “Jew Exclusion Zones” that UCLA staffers facilitated.

“UCLA’s administration knew about the activists’ extreme actions, including the exclusion of Jews. But, in a remarkable display of cowardice, appeasement, and illegality, the administration did nothing to stop it.”

“Defendants not only failed to marshal resources to intervene—they adopted a policy facilitating the Jew Exclusion Zone, ordering among other things, UCLA campus police to stand down and step aside. “

“And not only that, but UCLA also hired security staff and stationed them on the outskirts of the encampment and other restricted areas.  But rather than instruct this additional staff to assist Jewish students in accessing campus resources, UCLA instead instructed them to discourage unapproved students from attempting to cross through the areas blocked by the activists. “

In fact, the security officers “acting as agents” of UCLA officials “informed Jewish persons that, if they wished to access the encampment or other restricted areas, they would first need to obtain the permission of the encampment members.”

These disconcerting facts even unsettled the judge hearing the case.

Last August, United States District Court for the Central District of California Judge Mark Scarsi blasted UCLA for allowing the Jew Exclusion Zones and ordered the school to ensure that Jewish students get equal access to campus.

“Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” he wrote. “This fact is so unimaginable and abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating.”

Scarsi also savaged UCLA officials for claiming they were not liable for the mob’s actions.

“UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third parties,” he 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.”

Despite that stunning rebuke, and even as it was offering up lofty statements condemning anti-Semitism, UCLA made no serious effort to settle the case.

The school even filed a motion to dismiss on November 26, 2024.

The motion audaciously argued that the plaintiffs had not established that UCLA administrators bore any ill will toward Jews when they allowed the pro-Hamas mobs to run wild.

“Plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim against the Individual Defendants independently fails because Plaintiffs do not plausibly allege that any Individual Defendant took intentionally discriminatory action—action motivated by animus toward students’ or faculty’s Jewish ethnicity or religion.”

“Here, aside from a conclusory allegation, Plaintiffs nowhere plausibly allege that any Individual Defendant acted—or failed to act—“because of” Plaintiffs’ Jewish status.”

These arguments did not impress the new Trump Justice Department. This March, the Department filed a “statement of interest” in the case blasting UCLA for trying to dodge responsibility for the campus mobs.

“Even though UCLA may not dispute that the antisemitic campus environment at UCLA last year was ‘unimaginable’ and ‘abhorrent,’ the Individual Defendants moved to dismiss this action to evade liability for what happened on the campus that they are supposed to lead and protect, “the brief argued. “The United States has a significant interest in the proper application of federal laws that ensure equal access to educational opportunities and facilities.”

“The United States, therefore, has a strong interest in ensuring the proper application of Title VI, particularly when the Court has already found that in 2024 on UCLA’s campus ‘Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,’” the brief continues. “Additionally, as described in the White House’s Executive Order on Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, it is the policy of the United States to combat antisemitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute.”

After that filing, UCLA started to make a serious effort to settle the case.

Becket Fund for Religious Liberty lawyer Daniel Chen, who represented the Jewish students, told the California Globe that, “Settlement [talks] picked up steam this year. UCLA saw this case was a loser to litigate.”

And the Justice Department, he said, “made very clear” the position they were taking. “There is always the DOJ and the Trump Administration looming in the background. I can’t speak to UCLA’s motives but I think the statement of interest only helped our clients.”

Under the terms of the settlement, UCLA is paying each of the four Jewish plaintiffs $50,000. It is also donating  $2.3 million to eight Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Federation Los Angeles’ Campus Impact Network and the Anti-Defamation League. Additionally, $320,000 is being allocated to UCLA’s Initiative to Combat Anti-Semitism.

The rest of the money is for the plaintiff’s legal fees and costs.

UCLA has also agreed to submit to a court order prohibiting the school from excluding Jewish, faculty of staff from any of its programs,  activities and campus areas. The order explicitly prohibits the exclusion of Jews based on their “religious beliefs concerning the state of Israel.”

This seems intended to preempt attempts by campus mobs to pretend discrimination against Jews is only opposition to “Zionists,” as they often do.

The order needs to be approved by Judge Scarsi.

Becket lawyer Daniel Chen said in a telephone interview that, “From our perspective,  this is a historic judgment protecting Jews at UCLA from anti-Semitism because UCLA agreed to a court order and it makes permanent the protections Scarci granted. We think it sends a signal to other campuses that anti-Semitism discrimination won’t be tolerated anymore. The financial terms send a clear message that enabling anti-semitism comes at a steep cost. “

In a joint statement about the settlement, both sides said that “We are pleased with the terms of today’s settlement. The injunction and other terms UCLA has agreed to demonstrate real progress in the fight against antisemitism,”

Additionally, University of California Regent Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly said that, “Antisemitism, harassment, and other forms of intimidation are antithetical to our values and have no place at the University of California. We have been clear about where we have fallen short, and we are committed to doing better moving forward. Today’s settlement reflects a critically important goal that we share with the plaintiffs: to foster a safe, secure and inclusive environment for all members of our community and ensure that there is no room for antisemitism anywhere on campus,” said University of California Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly. “As we build upon our systemwide efforts to further this goal, we remain steadfastly committed to cultivating an environment where all are afforded the opportunity to live, learn and teach safely and peacefully, no matter who they are, where they come from, or how they pray.”