Jewish Students Seek Injunctive Relief Following UCLA’s “Jew-Free Zone”

Following the Oct. 7th atrocities committed against Israeli citizens, retaliatory attacks against Hamas with many innocents caught in the crossfire led to protests on campuses nationwide that shut down students’ freedom of movement and learning. Whatever one’s view of that conflict, it is undeniable that many anti-Israel protests turned into antisemitic persecution of students and faculty. Nowhere were these attacks as dark or troubling as those that occurred at the University of California, Los Angeles.  
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From April 25, 2024, to May 2, 2024, UCLA permitted a group of protestors to set up barricades in the heart of campus, creating what was widely termed a “Jew Exclusion Zone.” Activists locked arms, racially profiled students and faculty presumed to be Jewish, and refused to allow them access to campus or educational buildings unless someone vouched for their belief in the anti-Israel cause.

The university, for its part, facilitated this occupation by failing to break up the blockade for a full week. Administrators even went so far as to hire private security to direct Jewish students away from the encampment, where calls for “death to Israel” and “death to Jews” were commonplace. 

As Chancellor Gene Block testified before Congress, events at UCLA reflected “the disturbing rise of antisemitism across our country since October 7th,” which placed Jewish students in “a state of anxiety and fear.”

Now, the Becket Fund, representing three Jewish students from UCLA, is bringing suit against the university. As the plaintiff’s memorandum correctly alleges, the university’s acquiescence to the creation of a disruptive, discriminatory, and dangerous environment right in the heart of campus – in turn, preventing Jewish students from accessing public facilities – constitutes a violation of the Free Exercise Clause, the Free Speech Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause. It also implicates Title VI, which provides that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

The requested preliminary injunction would require that a plaintiff “establish[es] that he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm” without issuance of an injunction, “that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest.”

The plaintiffs plainly meet those criteria. Without judicial intervention, there can be no guarantee that Jewish students will be able to safely access the public educational benefits to which they are entitled when they return to campus next month. As Becket Fund president Mark Rienzi said last month in congressional testimony, these episodes sound more like 1930s Germany than 2020s America. But there is a way forward. Rienzi said:

“Together, we can defeat the scourge of antisemitism in our institutions of higher learning and society by ‘giving to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.’ Together, we can live up to George Washington’s promise that in this country, none shall be made afraid on account of his faith or ancestry. And together, we can ensure that the promises of our Constitution and our civil rights laws are kept and safeguarded.” 

Kudos to the Becket Fund for taking a stand against ignorance and intolerance. We’ll be following this case closely.