Dive Brief: 

• The U.S. Department of Justice alleged Tuesday that the University of California, Los Angeles violated civil rights law by failing to do enough to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment. 
• The findings stem from UCLA’s approach to a pro-Palestinian encampment that students erected on the university’s campus in the spring 2024 term. UCLA officials declined to disband the encampment for nearly a week, citing the need to balance free speech protections with student and employee safety. 
• In a letter to Michael Drake, president of the University of California system, Justice Department officials said they would seek to enter a voluntary resolution with UCLA to “ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated.”

Dive Insight: 

The Justice Department is also investigating the entire University of California system over similar allegations. That systemwide probe found “concerning evidence of systemic anti-Semitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a Tuesday statement. 

“DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system,” Bondi said. 

Justice Department officials gave UCLA leaders until Aug. 5 to reach out about entering a voluntary resolution. They threatened the university with a lawsuit by Sept. 2 if they don’t believe they can strike an agreement with the institution. 

The Justice Department investigation focused on the pro-Palestinian encampment erected on UCLA’s campus on April 25, 2024. Encampment demonstrators demanded that the university divest from companies with ties to Israel’s military. 

On the same day it was erected, a university spokesperson told the campus community that officials were monitoring the situation to balance the “right to free expression while minimizing disruption” to the institution’s teaching and learning mission. 

However, several days into the protest, some demonstrators formed human blockades to prevent some people on campus from moving freely throughout Royce Quad, including students wearing a Star of David or those who refused to denounce Zionism, according to an internal report from a university task force released last October. 

The task force also found the encampment violated university rules and that the blockades disparately impacted Jewish people. 

The Justice Department’s letter to UCLA heavily cited the university’s own task force report, as well as 11 complaints the university received alleging that encampment protesters discriminated against them based on their race, religion or national origin. 

“UCLA’s documentation established that it did not outright ignore these complaints; however, the University took no meaningful action to eliminate the hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students caused by the encampment until it was disbanded,” the letter states. 

Violence broke out at the site on the night of April 30, 2024, when counterprotesters attempted to dismantle the encampment’s barricade, The New York Times reported. 

The counterprotesters attacked those within the encampment, including by launching fireworks into the encampment and hitting the pro-Palestinian protesters with sticks, according to the publication. Some of the pro-Palestinian protesters also fought back.

Police arrived hours later, though they did not immediately break up the violence. The next day, UCLA officials made the call to have police break up the encampment, resulting in over 200 arrests. 

“In the end, the encampment on Royce Quad was both unlawful and a breach of policy,” then-UC Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement. “It led to unsafe conditions on our campus and it damaged our ability to carry out our mission. It needed to come to an end.”

In their letter, Justice Department officials criticized university leaders, alleging they knew that protesters were “engaging in non-expressive conduct unprotected by the First Amendment” and were denying “Jewish and Israeli students access to campus resources” days before they moved to disband the encampment. 

UCLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The Justice Department findings come the same day the university settled a lawsuit from Jewish students and a Jewish professor, who alleged their civil rights were violated because UCLA allowed protesters to block their campus access. 

The agency’s letter mentioned the lawsuit’s filings, though it did not refer to the settlement. 

As part of that agreement, UCLA agreed to pay about $6 million, with the funds going directly toward the plaintiffs and their legal fees, as well as to Jewish groups and a campus initiative to combat antisemitism.