The lawsuit claims that the university failed to ensure the safety of pro-Palestine activists when dozens of counter-protesters—some wearing white masks, others draped in Israeli flags and armed with fireworks, hammers, and baseball bats—attacked the encampment at night.
Pro-Palestine students, staff, and activists have filed a lawsuit against the University of California at Los Angeles, claiming that the school broke the law by letting a group of violent counter-protesters dismantle an encampment.
According to The Associated Press, the lawsuit was filed Thursday in Los Angeles.
Several days earlier, the Trump administration announced that it would join a separate lawsuit against UCLA, filed by Jewish students and a Jewish professors, all of whom claim that the university tolerated blatant—and, at times, violent—acts of antisemitism.
The Associated Press notes that the University of California at Los Angeles, like many other large schools across the country, was rocked by intense protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
At UCLA, tensions came to a head on the night of April 20, 2024, when a group of counter-protesters began “violently dismantling” a pro-Palestine encampment.
The lawsuit claims that the university failed to ensure the safety of pro-Palestine activists when dozens of counter-protesters—some wearing white masks, others draped in Israeli flags and armed with fireworks, hammers, and baseball bats—attacked the encampment at night.
During the brief siege, the counter-protesters purportedly played the “sound of crying babies” on a jumbotron.
Several protesters were injured in the incident, which happened after university-contracted security had left but before local police arrived.
“Encampment members witnessed the mob’s extreme violence, threats of violence, and UCLA’s failure to intervene,” the lawsuit alleges. “They saw people get their heads split open, suffer from wounds and concussions, scream in pain and fear, with fireworks and mayhem all around them.”
A group of Jewish students and faculty are also continuing to press claims against the university. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs say that Jewish students were subjected to discrimination when administrators let pro-Palestine protestors prevent Jewish students from accessing classes and traveling to other parts of the UCLA campus.
Earlier this week, on Monday, the Trump administration filed a brief in support of the Jewish students’ lawsuit.
Mark Rienzi, the president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and an attorney representing the Jewish plaintiffs, told The Associated Press that the Department of Justice’s support should send a clear signal to other schools.
“DOJ has thrown down the gauntlet: if university administrators aid and abet mistreatment of Jews, they will pay the price,” Rienzi said. “This is a wake-up call for every university that allows antisemitic hatred to fester unchecked. No Jewish student or professor should ever again face this kind of terror on their own campus.”
Sources
Pro-Palestinian group sues UCLA over its handling of demonstrations
Students and faculty sue administrators over last spring’s UCLA pro-Palestinian protests
