UCLA faces injunction over exclusion of Jewish students from parts of campus

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A federal judge may levy a preliminary injunction on the University of California in Los Angeles to prevent a repeat of the situation during the spring when Jewish students were excluded from parts of the campus by a pro-Palestinian encampment.

At a hearing Monday afternoon in LA, U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi deferred a decision on the request for a court order by a group of Jewish students who claim private security guards hired by the university denied them to access to Royce Quad at the center of the campus where demonstrators had set up a camp in the spring to protest Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the murder of over 1,000 Israelis by Palestinian militants.

Scarsi appeared inclined to issue some sort of injunction along the lines that, if Jewish students are excluded from a building or part of campus, then all students need to be excluded.

He ordered the plaintiffs and the university to get back to him next week with a proposal he might issue in time for the start of the UCLA School of Law's fall semester in August.

UCLA has been among the many campuses in the U.S. and around the world where protesters set up encampments to protest the war in Gaza and the human toll among civilians. Jewish students and faculty have said that they are being exposed to a wave of antisemitism as a result of the anti-Israel protests and that they are facing harassment and physical violence.

"Once classes resume in the fall, plaintiffs should not be forced to take their classes remotely or transfer to law-abiding schools," the three Jewish students who sued the university said in their request. "Plaintiffs need injunctive relief now to ensure that UCLA ceases its illegal discrimination once and for all and provides the non-discriminatory access and equal treatment that the law requires."

Anton Metlitsky, an attorney for the university, told the judge that UCLA first tried to deescalate the heated situation by erecting a barricade around the encampment and employing private security to prevent violent confrontations between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protesters. In the end, the university had the police come in to clear the encampment.

"UCLA was trying to get rid of the encampment," Metlitsky said. "It took a few days for law enforcement to take the encampment down."

Since then, the attorney said, UCLA had made a number of policy changes to avoid a similar occupation of parts of the campus, including creating an office of campus safety, and has thwarted new attempts to occupy buildings and to set up an encampment.

According to Metlitsky, the university can't be held liable for the actions of demonstrators who purportedly didn't allow Jewish students through if they didn't denounce Israel. In addition, he said, it wouldn't make sense for the judge to order the university to do something that it was already doing in terms of the steps it has taken to ensure Jewish students equal access.

Mark Rienzi, an attorney for the Jewish students, asked the judge to order UCLA to ensure that Jewish students get equal treatment on campus.

"If you were one of the 'approved' people who shouted 'death to Israel,' they were allowed to come and go across the neutral zone, that UCLA's security had set up around the encampment," according to Rienzi.

He said UCLA didn't do anything to prevent the exclusion of Jewish students from Royce Quad while allowing the demonstrators encamped there to come and go as they pleased. It was only when there were violent confrontations around the encampment that the university brought in law enforcement, he claimed.

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