Jewish students, blocked from UCLA campus, file suit against school

The nonprofit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represents the students.

By JNS

The University of California, Los Angeles allegedly allowed pro-Hamas protesters to prevent Jewish students from entering campus this spring, according to a lawsuit.

On Wednesday, three Jewish students—Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum and Eden Shemuelian—filed suit against their school, charging that UCLA had “deteriorated into a hotbed of antisemitism.”

In Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, the students state that “on April 25, 2024, and continuing until May 2, 2024, UCLA allowed a group of activists to set up barricades in the center of campus and establish an encampment that blocked access to critical educational infrastructure on campus.”

The nonprofit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represents the students.

“If masked agitators had excluded any other marginalized group at UCLA, Governor Newsom rightly would have sent in the National Guard immediately,” said Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket. “But UCLA instead caved to the antisemitic activists and allowed its Jewish students to be segregated from the heart of their own campus. That is a profound and illegal failure of leadership.”

AntisemitismBecket Fund for Religious LibertyLawsuitpro-Palestinian protestersUCLA