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A lawsuit by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against the University of California system claims abhorrent treatment of Jewish and Israeli students on campus, including exclusion zones and even physical assaults by anti-Israel demonstrators.
That lawsuit says that Jewish and Israeli students were victims of targeted violent crime, including being beaten with sticks and blunt objects, being pummeled into the ground causing a wound that led to hospitalization, being kicked and slapped and being pepper sprayed.
The suit, filed Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, claimed that the University of California, Los Angeles, turned a blind eye to the horrific alleged behavior in 2024.
Pro-Palestinian protesters attempt to block a counter-protester with an Israeli flag at UCLA on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Los Angeles, Calif. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“On April 25, 2024, following months of antisemitic and anti-Israeli demonstrations, masked and armed agitators, many of whom were openly hostile to Jews and Israelis, occupied the heart of the University of California, Los Angeles … campus,” the lawsuit begins.
“They built an illegal encampment, surrounded it with barriers, and formed ‘human phalanxes’ to block Jews and Israelis from entering academic buildings,” it continues. “They kicked and slapped Jews, beat Jews with sticks, and assaulted Jews with pepper spray. One Jewish student was knocked unconscious and was taken to the hospital with an open head wound.”
The suit says UCLA “inexplicably took no serious action whatsoever” until May 2025, and claims that the school’s alleged decision to ignore the “harassment of, and discrimination against, Jewish and Israeli students also violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits race and national-origin discrimination in higher education.”
A Jewish student at UCLA has his eyes washed out with milk after being pepper sprayed during 2024 anti-Israel demonstrations on campus. (Department of Justice)
On April 25, 2024, UC Divest, a group of anti-Israel student groups including the infamous Students for Justice Palestine (SJP), built an encampment in Royce Quad, described as a heavily trafficked and very important area of the UCLA campus. Some UCLA faculty members are also accused of joining in the demonstration, and “aiding and abetting” illegal activities.
The DOJ describes how antisemitic and anti-Israel demonstrators “built a barrier around it, fashioned with sheets of plywood, some of which were affixed to metal bicycle racks,” and “barricaded the doors of Royce Hall and Powell Library with garbage cans, tents, ropes, and bicycle racks.”
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They graffitied buildings and made signs vile messaging, including “F-— ISRAEL,” F-— ALL Jews” and ‘israelis Are Native 2 HELL,” according to the lawsuit.
A sign allegedly made by anti-Israel occupiers at UCLA in 2024. (Department of Justice)
The lawsuit claims that the anti-Israel demonstrators created human chains to block Jewish and Israeli students — or those perceived to be Jewish or Israeli — from freely entering the quad which contains key campus buildings, including a library. The demonstrators even passed out wristbands to those who were allowed free passage through the zone, but excluded Jewish and Israeli students.
Worse, physical violence against “Zionists” and Jewish and Israeli students became commonplace, according to the lawsuit, and demonstrators began arming themselves with weapons like pepper spray and lumber and “established militia-style checkpoints on UCLA’s campus and refused to allow Jews to traverse public property unless those Jews denounced a core tenet of their religion.”
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The lawsuit describes a Native American Jewish woman counter-demonstrating with a sign that read, “Hamas supporters are not welcome on Native land,” who was then “quickly surrounded by a mob” and “violently assaulted.”
Meanwhile, UCLA police were standing “directly behind [her] and [did] absolutely nothing,” according to the lawsuit.
Occupiers pepper sprayed a woman wearing a Star of David and holding an Israeli flag, knocked a pro-Israel woman to the ground, beating her unconscious and causing an open head wound that required hospitalization, and physically assaulted a Jewish man and told him, “Hitler missed one,” the suit says.
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On April 30, 2024 UCLA administrators “declared the encampment illegal and directed all those involved to leave or face discipline” and UCLA Chancellor Gene Bock acknowledged that, “Jewish students [were] in a state of anxiety and fear” and that “students on their way to class have been physically blocked from accessing parts of the campus.”
Vile antisemitic graffiti on UCLA’s campus in 2024 reads ‘F— ALL Jews.” (Department of Justice)
That same day, counter-protesters clashed with the occupiers in what is described in the lawsuit as a hectic scene that included violent skirmishes, including “occupiers and counter-protestors attack[ing] each other with pepper spray, blunt objects, and even fireworks.”
The following day, a van marked with a Star of David inside a swastika parked on campus in support of the anti-Israel encampment. The van had messaging “antisemitic writing referring to Jews as ‘puppet masters,’ was parked on UCLA’s campus in support of the encampment,” and was welcomed by passersby, according to the suit.
A van with antisemitic messaging parked on the UCLA campus during an occupation by anti-Israel demonstrators in 2024. (Department of Justice)
Clashes between occupiers and police and Jewish students continued through May and June 2024, the lawsuit says.
Later, 428 Jewish and Israeli students, faculty members and staff from the college were surveyed about their experiences during the unrest. About 50% of them said they “witnessed physical threats or attacks directed at Jews and Israelis.”
“I was assaulted, threatened, and harassed during the encampment. I had an Israeli flag and a man ran towards me in order to push me,” one student said in the survey. “I was blocked for being Jewish. They were calling for an intifada collectively which is to kill the Jews.”
Police push back anti-Israel protesters on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 23, 2024. (Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News)
All told, physical damage to the taxpayer-funded school totaled $12.3 million.
In a Tuesday press release announcing the lawsuit, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the DOJ will hold UCLA “to account for its toleration of the equally appalling hostile educational environment against its Jewish and Israeli students.”
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“Universities have an obligation to maintain safe and inclusive campuses for all students,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California said in the release. “Universities that violate our nation’s civil rights laws by repeatedly failing to shield Jewish students from antisemitism will be held accountable.”
University of California President James Milliken issued a statement Tuesday after the lawsuit was filed.
“The Board of Regents and administrative leadership have been unequivocal: antisemitism has no place at the University of California. We have instituted numerous systemwide reforms and programs to promote safety and combat antisemitism on our campuses,” he said. “
“UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, whose family was profoundly affected by Nazi antisemitism and the Holocaust, has made the protection of Jewish students, faculty, and staff on campus the highest priority since the day he took office. It is so disappointing that this most recent lawsuit shows no recognition of or respect for that essential work. This litigation — and other actions taken by the federal government targeting the University of California — does nothing to aid our ongoing efforts to address antisemitism and create safe and welcoming campus environments for all members of our community.”
Fox News Digital reached out to UCLA.