UCLA sued for withholding records on its extremist ‘activist-in-residence’

The University of California, Los Angeles is being sued for refusing to turn over records related to a radical activist it hosted on campus.

The Goldwater Institute sued UCLA Tuesday for not releasing records concerning Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, a self-proclaimed “formerly unhoused, incarcerated poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist [and] lecturer” who is one of the “Activists-in-Residence” the school hosted in 2024.

The program’s stated goal is to “turn the university inside out” by promoting “racial, economic and social justice.”

Gray-Garcia generated controversy when she told first-year medical students at a required lecture on “structural racism” to bow to “mama earth”; called private property a “crapatalist lie”; and led chants of “Free Palestine.”

The U.S. Justice Department cited the Palestine chant in its antisemitism lawsuit filed against the university in July 2025, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

In October, Goldwater requested Gray-Garcia’s contract, compensation, course syllabi and materials, as well as university emails discussing topics such as Israel and Gaza, and all materials provided to activists-in-residence during the program’s 2024 orientation, which reportedly carries a $10,000 stipend.

The university acknowledged the request and then kept moving the dates for fulfilling it, Stacy Skankey, litigation director for Goldwater’s American Freedom Network, told The Lion. The school cited general administrative burden as reasons for the delay but gave no specific hardship, such as cost or difficulty in obtaining the records.

“There’s no sense that we have from their communications of how many documents we are talking about, how burdensome this request is, anything like that,” she said. “They’ve just been very vague and said that they’re working on it.

“So that’s key, because they haven’t said, ‘Oh, this is cumbersome or is going to take a long time.’ They haven’t said this will increase your cost exponentially. They have not given any real reasons specific to this request. They’re saying general administrative burden, but that’s not an exception to the law.”

Refusing to turn over records without a legitimate reason violates both the California Public Records Act and the California Constitution.

“Under California law, taxpayer-funded institutions like UCLA cannot withhold public records like the ones Goldwater has requested, even if those records include embarrassing or controversial information that the institutions would prefer to keep hidden,” Bradley Benbrook, a member of Goldwater’s pro bono American Freedom Network, said in a release.

“UCLA proudly advertises on its website that it pays ‘Activists-in-Residence’ like Ms. Gray-Garcia to engage in the type of ‘poverty scholarship’ and ‘revolutionary journalism’ she pursues, yet it has refused to produce the basic documents Goldwater has requested about her work for UCLA and the financial support UCLA provides. We brought this case to ask the court to order UCLA to follow the law and turn over the records.”

Skankey said a judge could force the university to release the documents, cover Goldwater’s legal fees and pay a fine if serious wrongdoing or a pattern is found.

She said the university may be trying to avoid more attention on its alleged antisemitic activities and the radical activist program.

Skankey said it is “by no means unforeseen or rare” for institutions to drag their feet in fulfilling records requests, but having to resort to litigation to spur their release is fairly uncommon.

Goldwater is fighting not only at UCLA, but for transparency at all government and public institutions, she said, so that “they’re not able to operate behind closed doors. They are accountable to taxpayers, and they should be transparent in their dealings.”