Today, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against the University of California for its deliberate indifference to race and national origin discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students at its University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “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.”
“Universities have an obligation to maintain safe and inclusive campuses for all students,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. “Universities that violate our nation’s civil rights laws by repeatedly failing to shield Jewish students from antisemitism will be held accountable.”
After the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, antisemitic hatred against UCLA’s Jewish and Israeli students reached a point where students were physically assaulted, injured, excluded from campus, and deprived of educational opportunities because of their perceived Jewish or Israeli heritage. As alleged in the United States’ complaint, UCLA violated Title VI through its deliberate indifference to this pervasive on-campus antisemitism. UCLA also breached its funding contracts and grants with the United States by certifying the school’s compliance with its Title VI duties to protect all students from unlawful discrimination while allowing discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students to infect its campus.
UCLA’s tolerance of antisemitism reached a flash point in April 2024 when masked demonstrators erected an encampment outside of Royce Hall and slapped, kicked, beat with sticks, doused with pepper spray, and knocked unconscious Jewish and Israeli students. During this time, occupiers formed “human phalanxes” to block Jewish and Israeli students from entering academic buildings.
This lawsuit — filed in the Central District of California — stems from the Department’s investigation into reports of antisemitic incidents against students on UCLA’s campus and written findings concluding, in part, that UCLA failed to fulfill its legal obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in responding to those incidents.
