Judge rules for Jewish students, says UCLA can't allow them to be barred from accessing campus after protests
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Aug. 14, 2024, 1:46 PM UTCBy Marlene Lenthang
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction this week against UCLA, saying the prestigious school cannot allow Jewish students to be barred from accessing classes and campus.
The ruling Tuesday is the first of its kind against a university pertaining to anti-Israel protests that roiled American college campuses this year.
Three Jewish students had filed a complaint against the regents of UCLA in June saying that the university in Los Angeles devolved into a "hotbed of antisemitism" in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war and that the school failed to ensure the safety of Jewish students and full access to campus facilities.
Protests erupted on campus in late April to early May, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment in the center of campus and put up barricades.
The complaint alleges the protesters created a "Jew Exclusion Zone" where in order to pass "a person had to make a statement pledging their allegiance to the activists' view." Those who complied with the protesters' view were issued wristbands to allow them to pass through, the complaint says, which effectively barred Jewish students who supported Israel and denied them access to the heart of campus.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi sided with the three students and rebuked the school.
"Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom," he wrote.
The filing says that when the protests broke out on campus, the three Jewish students stopped passing through major quads and courtyards, including Powell Library, because it meant traversing the encampment and "carried a risk of violence."
Ultimately, law enforcement cleared out the protests.
"If any part of UCLA's ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas become unavailable to certain Jewish students, UCLA must stop providing those ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas to any students," Scarsi wrote.
How to handle making those programs and access available again is up to UCLA, he added.
As a result, the UCLA regents are prohibited from offering programs, activities or campus access if the defendants know they're not "fully and equally accessible to Jewish students."
The filing noted that excluding Jewish students includes excluding Jewish students based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.
UCLA said it has taken remedial actions following the encampment, including the creation of an Office of Campus Safety and the "transfer of day-to-day responsibility for campus safety to an Emergency Operations Center," the filing says. However, Scarsi said, the changes "do not minimize the risk that Plaintiffs 'will again be wronged.'"
UCLA did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment on the ruling.
UCLA spokesperson Mary Osako told The Associated Press that the ruling "would improperly hamstring our ability to respond to events on the ground and to meet the needs of the Bruin community."
"UCLA is committed to fostering a campus culture where everyone feels welcome and free from intimidation, discrimination, and harassment," Osako said.
Marlene Lenthang
Marlene Lenthang is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
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No fascist BS
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Finally, some sanity, Judge rules that the Hamas party that runs UCLA can't exclude Jewish students from large parts of the campus, I hear they are hoping their leader Harris comes to their aid to reinstitute their apartheid strategies.