BREAKING: Federal court orders UCLA to stop helping antisemitic activists target Jews UCLA can no longer aid and abet activists who ban Jews from heart of campus

WASHINGTON – A Los Angeles federal district court today ordered the University of California, Los Angeles, to stop allowing and assisting antisemitic agitators to ban Jews from large parts of UCLA’s campus.  

In Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, Becket and co-counsel Clement & Murphy PLLC filed a lawsuit against UCLA after it helped a group of activists as they set up encampments where they harassed Jewish students and stopped them from accessing classes, the library, and other critical parts of campus. UCLA reinforced these zones—both by providing metal barriers and by sending away Jewish students—while taking no effective action to ensure safe passage for Jewish students. In response, UCLA disavowed any obligation to protect its Jewish students, and claimed that Jewish students have nothing to fear when classes begin again in the fall. 

Today, the court agreed with the students, saying, “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. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters. 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.” 

“No student should ever have to fear being blocked from their campus because they are Jewish,” said Yitzchok Frankel, a rising third-year law student at UCLA. “I am grateful that the court has ordered UCLA to put a stop to this shameful anti-Jewish conduct.” 

Yitzchok Frankel is a law student and father of four who faced antisemitic harassment last semester simply for wearing a kippah and who was forced to abandon his regular routes through campus because of the Jew Exclusion Zone. Frankel detailed how UCLA’s continued failures have forced him to cancel plans on campus with his family and to forgo opportunities to mentor incoming Jewish students on campus during orientation week. Eden Shemuelian, another law student, has also had to avoid using campus facilities and participating in law school orientation events because of UCLA’s continuing failures to ensure the safety and equal access of Jewish students. Today’s ruling says that students and others should be allowed to return to campus without facing such antisemitic bigotry.  

“Shame on UCLA for letting antisemitic thugs terrorize Jews on campus,” said Mark Rienzi, president of Becket and an attorney for the students. “Today’s ruling says that UCLA’s policy of helping antisemitic activists target Jews is not just morally wrong but a gross constitutional violation. UCLA should stop fighting the Constitution and start protecting Jews on campus.” 

Today’s injunction is the first in the nation against a university for allowing an antisemitic encampment.  

The ruling goes into force on August 15. UCLA is expected to appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

For more information or to arrange an interview with a Becket attorney, contact Ryan Colby at  media@becketlaw.org  or 202-349-7219.