Three students had sued the university for violating their civil rights of free access during a week-long anti-Israel protest.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
A federal judge gave the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) on Monday a week to come up with a plan to protect Jewish students’ civil rights to free access on campus after three students sued the university for infringing on their rights during a week-long anti-Israel protest in the spring semester.
“Meet and confer to see if you can come up with some agreeable stipulated injunction or some other court order that would give both UCLA the flexibility it needs … but also provide Jewish students on campus some reassurance that their free exercise rights are not going to play second fiddle to anything else,” ordered U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi.
The students, who were represented by the nonprofit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, had accused their school of blocking their ability to walk in Royce Quad, the open area where an encampment full of anti-Israel protestors had been set up in April against the university’s rules.
The plaintiffs said that the school had put bike-rack barriers around the encampment to block it off and private security guards hired by the school didn’t do anything when the occupants wouldn’t allow the entry of Jewish students unless they denounced Israel.
As the anti-Israel protestors could come and go as they pleased, the plaintiffs charged that the university was facilitating “illegal discrimination,” and Scarsi seemingly agreed with them.
UCLA’s lawyers had argued that the guarded barriers were there to keep it from growing larger and to prevent clashes between the demonstrators and Israel supporters.
They also contended that following a violent fight between pro- and anti-Israel demonstrators in April where the police were finally called in and arrested over 200 participants, the administration had learned its lesson.
The school had since closed several encampments as soon as the tents started going up and in general enforced the university’s Code of Conduct regarding protests on campus, they said, so the lawsuit was moot.
This could be considered debatable, as in June pro-Hamas protesters set up another encampment, marched through the campus, screamed violent, antisemitic epithets at the school’s Chabad rabbi and clashed with police, who arrested 26 of them.
Although not the main focus of the court case, one of the plaintiffs, law student Yitzchok Frankel, had included examples of times that he did not feel safe taking part in activities on campus.
“UCLA is committed to maintaining a safe and inclusive campus, holding those who engaged in violence accountable, and combating antisemitism in all forms,” Mary Osako, UCLA vice chancellor of strategic communications, said in a statement after the ruling.
“We have applied lessons learned from this spring’s protests and continue to work to foster a campus culture where everyone feels welcome and free from intimidation, discrimination and harassment.”