UCLA Settles Lawsuit Alleging It Allowed Activists to Create ‘Jew Exclusion Zone’

Updated 4:30 p.m. Tuesday

UCLA on Tuesday agreed to put more than $2 million toward fighting antisemitism at the school to settle a lawsuit alleging it failed to prevent, and in some cases aided, antisemitic behavior during an on-campus protest encampment that sprang up last year in response to the Israel-Hamas war.

The complaint, filed by three Jewish UCLA students and a professor at UCLA Health, alleged that the school allowed activists who set up an encampment in the center of the UCLA campus between April 25, 2024, and May 2, 2024, to effectively block access to campus buildings and services for some students.

It goes on to say that activists enforced “what was effectively a ‘Jew Exclusion Zone’” by forcing people who wanted to pass through the encampment to “make a statement pledging their allegiance to the activists’ views” and “preventing those who refused to disavow Israel from passing through.” The complaint also said the University “facilitated the ‘Jew Exclusion Zone’” by ordering the UCLA police to “stand down and step aside, among other things.”

The complaint acknowledges this may have prevented a “pro-Israel Christian from entering the zone,” but said “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 campus.”

“We are pleased with the terms of today’s settlement. The injunction and other terms UCLA has agreed to demonstrate real progress in the fight against antisemitism,” the plaintiffs said in a statement.

As a result of the $6.4 million settlement, the University of California system and UCLA itself will contribute $2.33 million to eight organizations that combat antisemitism and support the UCLA Jewish community. An additional $320,000 will be distributed to UCLA’s ongoing Initiative to Combat Antisemitism, which the school announced in March. UCLA and the UC system are also on the hook for $3.6 million to be paid to the plaintiffs and their attorneys.

“We have been clear about where we have fallen short, and we are committed to doing better moving forward,” UC Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly said in a press release. “Today’s settlement reflects a critically important goal that we share with the plaintiffs: to foster a safe, secure and inclusive environment for all members of our community and ensure that there is no room for antisemitism anywhere on campus.”

Jordan Varberg, an attorney at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the plaintiffs, called the agreement historic.

“We believe this is the largest private settlement in a campus antisemitism case since the uprise in antisemitism in 2023,” Varberg said.

As part of the settlement, the plaintiffs are asking the court for a permanent injunction, prohibiting UCLA from knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students, faculty, and/or staff from UCLA campus areas or programs. That order would also cover excluding people based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.

The settlement is pending court approval. But a filing on Tuesday by an attorney representing five professors and faculty members from UCLA could upend the settlement agreement.

Thomas Harvey, a civil rights attorney, filed a motion to intervene in the case on Tuesday.

According to Harvey, in order for Judge Mark Scarsi to grant the permanent injunction requested in the settlement agreement, he would need to reopen the case, which was dismissed in July when the parties entered into a settlement agreement.

Harvey’s clients dispute the plaintiffs’ claims that the encampment created a “Jew Exclusion Zone.”

“ There were Shabbat ceremonies. There was a seder ceremony that occurred in the encampment,” Harvey said. “Jewish faculty members and students were instrumental in creating the encampment. So the idea that this was a quote, ‘Jewish-exclusion zone’ was absurd on its face.”

Harvey said UCLA “refused to meet its duty to defend the case adequately.”

“UCLA never challenged a single solitary claim made by the plaintiff. They didn’t do one deposition. They didn’t put on a witness, they did no discovery,” Harvey said. “It was never established under any evidentiary hearing that any of these things happened.”

The settlement agreement comes as institutions of higher education across the nation, including UC Berkeley, are under a deluge of civil rights investigations by the Trump administration into their responses to allegations of antisemitism on campus, after a 2023–24 school year marked by student protests and encampments against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Civil suits like the one against UCLA have also been filed against universities in the Bay Area. Stanford is currently the defendant in a lawsuit brought by a former postdoctoral researcher there who alleged their work was sabotaged by colleagues who discriminated against him because he is Israeli and Jewish.

Earlier this month, UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons testified about his school’s response to antisemitism on campus as part of a Trump administration task force announced earlier this year. In his testimony, Lyons acknowledged the fine line universities have to walk to allow free speech but prevent hate speech.

“In universities, there is a freedom to express one’s views — even if there’s some learning that needs to happen through that process,” Lyons said. “If somebody is expressing pro-Palestine views, that’s not necessarily antisemitism.”

Over the past school year, the UC system enacted a number of policy changes in response to the previous year’s protests and encampments, including prohibitions on encampments and restrictions on free movement, and reiterating a ban on student governments and other school entities boycotting any country, including Israel.