Justice Department files antisemitism lawsuit against UCLA

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has sued the University of California, Los Angeles, alleging the school failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from discrimination in the latest clash between the Trump administration and the university.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, comes 10 months after the division found UCLA violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race and national origin.

The university became a center of anti-Israel activism following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on an Israeli music festival that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and resulted in 251 hostages being taken, about a third of which died.

Activists “kicked and slapped Jews, beat Jews with sticks and assaulted Jews with pepper spray,” the lawsuit alleges. “One Jewish student was knocked unconscious and was taken to the hospital with an open head wound.”

The filing says UCLA “took no serious action” to stop the conduct, including not pressing charges against those conducting the violence, and also created a hostile environment for staff by failing to investigate antisemitism complaints.

“Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a release. “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.”

Following last year’s finding that UCLA violated Title VI, the Trump administration froze $584 million in federal grants and demanded repayment of another $1.2 million, although a federal judge later blocked the repayment request, K-12 Dive reported.

The administration has aggressively targeted antisemitism on college campuses, particularly at elite institutions such as Columbia and Harvard, securing settlements and public apologies from several schools.

But UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk rejected the allegations.

“Let me be direct: the suggestion that UCLA has been passive in the face of antisemitism is simply wrong,” wrote Frenk, who is Jewish, in a statement Tuesday. “Combating antisemitism is a moral imperative – one rooted, for me, in personal history that makes indifference unthinkable.”

The lawsuit names the University of California Board of Regents, which oversees the university system.

Last month, Regent Jay Sures wrote a scathing letter chastising UCLA’s student government for condemning a speech on campus by an Israeli hostage who was held captive by Hamas for 500 days.

“While your letter expresses concern over ‘a troubling disregard for Palestinian life,’ it says nothing about the Israeli lives lost on Oct. 7,” wrote Sures, a Jew whose home previously was vandalized because of his outspoken support for Israel. “Nor does your letter mention the countless rapes and massacres carried out by Hamas on that day. It is as if none of that happened.”

But Sures defended UCLA’s response to antisemitism and blamed what he described as “a small number of people who have a very loud voice that love to spew antisemitic hatred” for the violence.

The Justice Department is asking the court to require systemic reforms at UCLA, including an admission of wrongdoing, “timely and meaningful” disciplinary action for antisemitic conduct and the appointment of a government-approved third-party monitor, the lawsuit states.

In January, the Justice Department joined a lawsuit against UCLA’s medical school for allegedly considering race in its admissions process, a civil rights violation.