The University of California system will pay out $6.45 million to settle an antisemitism case after Jewish individuals at UCLA were barred from campus by pro-Palestinian protesters.
UCLA was hit with the lawsuit after the university aided antisemitic protesters in defending their “solidarity encampment,” which excluded Jewish students from parts of campus and campus buildings. As part of the settlement, the three Jewish students and one professor who filed the suit will receive $200,000, other organizations dedicated to fighting antisemitism will receive $2.33 million, and UCLA’s Initiative to Combat Antisemitism will receive $320,000.
“When antisemites were terrorizing Jews and excluding them from campus, UCLA chose to protect the thugs and help keep Jews out,” recent UCLA Law graduate Yitzchok Frankel said. “That was shameful, and it is sad that my own school defended those actions for more than a year. But today’s court judgment brings justice back to our campus and ensures Jews will be safe and be treated equally once again.”
The remaining settlement money will go toward legal fees.
UCLA supported campus protesters and defended its case in court for over a year before settling. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the plaintiffs, said that the case demonstrates “progress” in the fight against antisemitism.
“Campus administrators across the country willingly bent the knee to antisemites during the encampments,” Becket President and attorney Mark Rienzi said. “They are now on notice: treating Jews like second-class citizens is wrong, illegal, and very costly. UCLA should be commended for accepting judgment against that misbehavior and setting the precedent that allowing mistreatment of Jews violates the Constitution and civil rights laws. Students across the country are safer for it.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters erected an encampment in April 2024 to convince the school to boycott and divest from Israeli companies. UCLA closed two campus buildings near the encampment, creating what amounted to Jew-free zones on campus.
One plaintiff at the time said that he could not access UCLA’s library “because he understood that traversing the encampment, which blocked entrance to the library, carried a risk of violence.” Another Jewish student said that she “decided not to traverse Royce Quad because of her knowledge that she would have to disavow her religious beliefs to do so.”
Although UCLA promised that it was “committed to fostering a campus culture where everyone feels welcome and free from intimidation, discrimination, and harassment,” Los Angeles Federal District Court Judge Mark C. Scarsi issued plaintiffs a preliminary injunction in August 2024 in which he called the school’s behavior “unimaginable and so abhorrent.”
“Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. UCLA does not dispute this,” Scarsi wrote. “Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters. But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion.”
The settlement is the largest known private settlement in campus antisemitism cases, according to Becket.