Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday sued the University of California system, alleging that its Los Angeles campus violated civil rights law by being “deliberately indifferent” to harassment against Jewish and Israeli students since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.
- DOJ asked a judge to order UCLA to pay back all federal grants it received while allegedly “noncompliant” with Title VI, which bars federally funded institutions from discriminating based on race, color or national origin. The agency also wants permission to stop paying UCLA the remaining money owed on its existing federal grants.
- Tuesday’s lawsuit escalates the Trump administration’s legal battle against UCLA and the UC system. It stems from DOJ’s investigation that nearly a year ago concluded UCLA had violated civil rights law by not doing enough to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.
Dive Insight:
The lawsuit’s allegations focus largely on pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations that erupted in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, including erection of an encampment that remained on UCLA’s campus for roughly one week before administrators called in police to clear it out.
The lawsuit puts a significant amount of money on the line for UCLA. The university's former CFO said in early 2025 that it receives over $1 billion from the federal government each year for a “range of contracts and grants,” plus overhead, according to EdSource. Along with paying back federal funding, the lawsuit asks a judge to force UCLA to make broad policy changes.
DOJ wants UCLA to impose “timely and meaningful” disciplinary action on students or employees who discriminate against Jewish and Israeli students, according to court documents. It also wants policies requiring UCLA to work with police to arrest protesters illegally blocking campus walkways or occupying university buildings and outdoor spaces following orders to disperse.
Additionally, DOJ is seeking to impose policies that require the university “to promptly and meaningfully investigate and resolve complaints of antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias.”
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk pushed back against DOJ’s allegations in an emailed statement Tuesday. “Let me be direct: the suggestion that UCLA has been passive in the face of antisemitism is simply wrong,” said Frenk, whose Jewish grandparents fled Nazi Germany. “Combating antisemitism is a moral imperative — one rooted, for me, in personal history that makes indifference unthinkable.”
Frenk pointed to several steps the university has taken to fight antisemitism, including reorganizing its civil rights office, appointing a Title VI officer and recruiting a top official focused on campus safety. UCLA also released a report earlier this month on the university’s progress so far with implementing initiatives for fighting antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias.
To oversee the requested policy changes, DOJ wants the court to appoint a monitor “subject to approval and in collaboration” with the U.S. government, to oversee compliance. The monitor would be able to audit UCLA, report on it to the court and the federal government, and recommend corrective actions.
The lawsuit focused on many of the same claims that DOJ made last July when it initially accused UCLA of violating Title VI. Soon thereafter, the Trump administration suspended $584 million of grant funding to UCLA, and the UC system said in early August it would enter negotiations with federal officials to have the money restored.
Around that time, the Trump administration demanded that UCLA pay $1.2 billion to the government. In November, however, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from seeking fines from the system or withholding UCLA’s federal funding based on civil rights investigations.
Tuesday’s lawsuit isn’t the first time that DOJ has sued over antisemitism-related allegations at UCLA. In February, the agency sued the UC system, claiming UCLA didn’t properly investigate dozens of civil rights complaints made by Jewish and Israeli employees since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack
“Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Now, the Department of Justice calls UCLA to account for its toleration of the equally appalling hostile educational environment against its Jewish and Israeli students.”
When the February lawsuit was filed, UCLA Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications Mary Osako defended the university's work to "combat antisemitism in a systemic and sustained manner” under Frenk, who took the helm at the beginning of 2025.
“We stand firmly by the decisive actions we have taken to combat antisemitism in all its forms," Osako said in a February statement. Both lawsuits named the UC system’s regents as the defendant. UCLA was not named as a defendant in either complaint.
