The USA Division of Justice has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the College of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), alleging that its “administration turned a blind eye to – and at occasions facilitated – grossly antisemitic acts”.
Tuesday’s lawsuit marks the most recent instance of a marketing campaign below President Donald Trump to crack down on campuses that hosted giant pro-Palestinian protests.
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Critics, nevertheless, have accused the Trump administration of searching for to dampen the free speech of activists it disagrees with.
In a statement, the Division of Justice mentioned that the college had created a “hostile work setting” for Jewish and Israeli staff amid protests in opposition to Israel’s genocidal conflict on Gaza.
“Based on at this time’s criticism, after the Hamas-led bloodbath in Israel on October 7, 2023, antisemitic acts pervaded UCLA,” the division wrote.
The lawsuit accuses UCLA of violating Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based mostly on quite a few components, together with faith.
The “common ambiance of antisemitism” was “so extreme and so pervasive” at UCLA that it constituted a “hostile work setting” below the legislation, in response to the Justice Division’s criticism.
The lawsuit cites the Palestinian solidarity protests that unfolded on UCLA’s campus after the beginning of Israel’s conflict on Gaza.
“Primarily based on our investigation, UCLA directors allegedly allowed virulent anti-Semitism to flourish on campus, harming college students and workers alike,” mentioned Lawyer Common Pamela Bondi.
However critics take into account the lawsuit the most recent chapter in an ongoing stress marketing campaign to drive high universities to align with the Trump administration’s priorities.
Inside the coed protest motion
Israel’s conflict on Gaza has killed greater than 75,000 people, in response to Gaza’s Ministry of Well being and different sources. Israel launched its genocidal navy marketing campaign in opposition to Gaza in 2023, after a Hamas-led assault left practically 1,200 individuals lifeless in southern Israel.
Amid stories of widespread human rights abuses, together with torture and hunger, pupil protesters held demonstrations on college campuses throughout the US in 2023 and 2024.
Trump campaigned for re-election in 2024, in the course of the peak of the motion to erect solidarity encampments on faculty grounds. His marketing campaign platform known as for dismantling the protests as certainly one of 20 nationwide targets.
“Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our school campuses protected and patriotic once more,” one of many platform’s bullet factors reads.
Trump has lengthy accused the pro-Palestinian motion of making an unsafe studying setting.
However many protest organisers, a few of whom had been Jewish, have refuted allegations of anti-Semitism. As an alternative, they mentioned their mission was to spotlight the grave human rights abuses perpetuated by the Israeli authorities in Gaza.
Nonetheless, the coed encampments confronted crackdowns from college authorities and legislation enforcement. 1000’s of scholars had been taken into custody in 2024, although many had been finally launched with out cost.
One encampment at UCLA that 12 months was attacked by a gaggle of right-wing supporters of Israel, wielding pipes and spraying mace at pro-Palestine protesters. Activists argued that the police allowed the violence to occur, earlier than forcibly clearing the encampment the subsequent day.
UCLA agreed to pay a $6m settlement to a few Jewish college students and a professor final 12 months, after they alleged harms in the course of the protest motion.
The varsity has maintained it has taken a number of measures to handle anti-Semitism on campus.
Tensions with universities
Since taking workplace for a second time period in January 2025, Trump has sought to punish sure colleges the place protests had been distinguished, together with Columbia College in New York Metropolis.
In March, the Trump administration froze federal funding to Columbia, beginning a wave of uncertainty within the training sector, as different colleges additionally noticed their contracts and grants suspended.
Trump additionally deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest Columbia pupil chief Mahmoud Khalil, a everlasting US resident, on the premise that his protests threatened US overseas coverage.
Khalil and different foreign-born pupil protesters proceed to battle deportation within the US court docket system.
In July, the Trump administration arrived at a $220m settlement with Columbia, which noticed the distinguished college accede to a listing of calls for in trade for its federal funding being restored. Different colleges, together with Brown College and Cornell College, have likewise struck offers.
However colleges, together with Harvard, have up to now refused to simply accept calls for and dear settlements. They face ongoing investigations and penalties.
Final 12 months, as an example, the Trump administration pressured UCLA, a public college, to pay greater than $1bn in settlement charges in a letter that additionally demanded adjustments to its hiring and admissions processes.
At stake are greater than $500m in frozen federal analysis grants to the varsity. The varsity has up to now not agreed to pay the sum.
In July, the Justice Division additionally issued a notice of violation in opposition to UCLA, saying that its investigation had discovered violations of the Structure’s Equal Safety Clause in addition to the Civil Rights Act.
Advocates of the protests argue that the Trump administration’s efforts are a risk to the First Modification of the Structure, which protects free speech, the appropriate to protest and educational freedom.
