‘Unimaginable and so abhorrent,’ says federal judge about exclusion of Jewish students on UCLA campus

UCLA cannot allow protesters to block Jewish students from accessing the campus facilities, classes and activities, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The ruling comes after three Jewish students filed a complaint in federal court, saying the university let activists set up barricades in the center of campus as well as an encampment that blocked access to campus. Religious liberty firm Becket filed the suit on behalf of the students.

“In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” wrote U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi. “This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. ”

“UCLA does not dispute this,” wrote Scarsi, adding the school claimed the exclusion was created by protesters and because of that, “it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students.”

Lawyers for UCLA attempted to challenge the suit on the basis of standing, arguing the three Jewish students did not have standing to file the suit in the first place. Scarsi rejected this argument.

Scarsi issued a preliminary injunction, saying if any part of UCLA’s programs or campus become unavailable to certain Jewish students, then UCLA needs to stop providing those services again.

“How best to make any unavailable programs, activities, and campus areas available again is left to UCLA’s discretion,” said the suit.

The order also said on or before Thursday, the defendants need to tell student affairs mitigators and all campus security teams they cannot help or participate in efforts that lead to Jewish students being obstructed from programs and campus areas.

“For purposes of this order, all references to the exclusion of Jewish students shall include exclusion of Jewish students based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel,” wrote Scarsi.

“No student should ever have to fear being blocked from their campus because they are Jewish,” said Yitzchok Frankel, one of the Jewish students who sued. “I am grateful that the court has ordered UCLA to put a stop to this shameful anti-Jewish conduct.”

“Today’s ruling says that UCLA’s policy of helping antisemitic activists target Jews is not just morally wrong, but a gross constitutional violation,” said Becket president Mark Rienzi. “UCLA should stop fighting the Constitution and start protecting Jews on campus.”

What the original suit said

“With the knowledge and acquiescence of UCLA officials, the activists enforced what was effectively a ‘Jew Exclusion Zone,’ segregating Jewish students and preventing them from accessing the heart of campus, including classroom buildings and the main undergraduate library,” said the suit.

The suit said to pass through this area, a person would have to make a statement agreeing with the activists’ views and a person inside the encampment would have to verify that they did.

“While this may have prevented a pro-Israel Christian from entering the Zone and permitted access for a Jewish person willing to comply with the enforcers’ demands, given the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish faith, the practical effect was to deny the overwhelming majority of Jews access to the heart of the campus,” said the suit.

This zone remained on campus for a full week, said the filing. Joshua Ghayoum, one of the student plaintiffs, was repeatedly blocked from passing through the encampment to get to class. Another plaintiff, Eden Shemuelian, alleged a security officer shooed her away and “called her ‘the problem’ for attempting to peacefully observe the encampment.”

“And Yitzchok Frankel, a second year-law student, was harassed and blocked from approaching the encampment by antisemitic activists, all with the assistance of UCLA security,” the suit alleged.

The suit said UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause, the Free Exercise Clause and freedom of speech by its actions.

Before the encampment was set up, the suit said Jewish students and faculty raised concern about their safety on campus due to a number of antisemitic incidents that occurred.

“On November 8, 2023, hundreds of agitators swarmed the UCLA School of Law, holding signs and chanting ‘from the River to the Sea,’ ‘there’s only one solution,’ ‘ intifada, ’ ‘death to Israel,’ and ‘death to Jews,’” said the suit.

The suit said antisemitic graffiti was found on campus and an antisemitic statue depicting “a several-foot-tall pig holding a bag of money and a birdcage with a keffiyeh, alongside a bucket painted with a star of David” was found outside the UCLA Luskin Conference Center.

After months of protests, checkpoints were set up as well as an encampment, said the suit.

Passing through the checkpoints required a person to “condemn Israel as a committer of ‘apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people,’ to call for ‘an end to occupation and genocide in Palestine,’ and to agree that UCLA should ‘(s)ever all UC-wide connections to Israeli universities, including study abroad programs, fellowships, seminars, and research collaborations, and UCLA’s Nazarian Center,’” said the suit.

The suit said students were denied passage for wearing Star of David necklaces or for saying they were Zionists.

“Defendants directed the UCLA PD not to intervene in the disturbances on campus, including with respect to the encampment and the Jew Exclusion Zone,” said the suit, later adding, “students who disagreed with the encampment faced physical violence.”