Court Issues Injunction Barring UCLA From Helping Anti-Semitic Agitators Target Jews

On Tuesday, a federal district court issued an injunction against UCLA to stop the university from permitting and aiding anti-Semitic agitators blocking Jews from the campus. The injunction is the first in the nation against a university for permitting an anti-Semitic encampment.

Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum, and Eden Shemuelian sued the regents of the University of California after the university helped anti-Israel activists erect encampments where they blocked Jewish students from going to class, the library, or other areas on campus.

“With the knowledge and acquiescence of UCLA officials, the activists enforced what was effectively a ‘Jew Exclusion Zone,’ segregating Jewish students and preventing them from accessing the heart of campus, including classroom buildings and the main undergraduate library,” UCLA Professor Eugene Volokh wrote in Reason. “In many cases, the activists set up barriers and locked arms together, preventing those who refused to disavow Israel from passing through. To enter the Jew Exclusion Zone, a person had to make a statement pledging their allegiance to the activists’ views and have someone within the encampment ‘vouch’ for the individual’s fidelity to the activists’ cause.”

“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,” Becket Law, which represented the Jewish students, noted.

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U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi wrote, “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.”

“The injuries result when Plaintiffs are excluded from certain of UCLA’s ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas and UCLA still provides those programs, activities, and campus areas to other students knowing that Plaintiffs and students like them are excluded based on their religious exercise,” Scarsi added.

The ruling will be implemented on August 15. UCLA is expected to appeal the ruling.