Feds accuse UCLA of allowing antisemitic harassment of faculty and staff

LOS ANGELES (CN) — The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday sued the Regents of the University of California for ignoring the purported antisemitic harassment of Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff at UCLA during protests over the Israel's invasion of Gaza.

The Justice Department says in a complaint in federal court in Los Angeles that UCLA's Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion has routinely ignored complaints of antisemitism after Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel that led to the war in Gaza.

“Based on our investigation, UCLA administrators allegedly allowed virulent antisemitism to flourish on campus, harming students and staff alike,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “Today’s lawsuit underscores that this Department of Justice stands strong against hate and antisemitism in all its vile forms.”

The feds claim UCLA engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, against Jewish and Israeli employees at UCLA by failing to prevent and correct the purported discriminatory and harassing conduct.

The Justice Department also claims that UCLA negligently permitted a hostile work environment against two professors who filed discrimination complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and against other aggrieved Jewish and Israeli employees.

Representatives of the University of California Office of the President referred questions about the lawsuit to UCLA, which did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

UCLA was 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 claimed that they were being exposed to a wave of antisemitism as a result of the anti-Israel protests and that they faced harassment and physical violence.

The university last year entered agreed to a consent judgment with Jewish students who had sued over their exclusion from parts of the campus because of pro-Palestinian protesters who had set up an encampment on Royce Quad, at the center of the campus.

The Trump administration set up a multiagency task force that prioritizes antisemitic harassment at schools and universities. The administration has also used funding cuts to punish universities that don't subscribe to the president's broader political views.

UCLA’s own antisemitism task force found in 2024 that Jewish students, faculty and staff were forced to tolerate classmates and teaching assistants making Holocaust jokes and at least one professor referring to the regents as “a bunch of Jewish pigs," according to the Justice Department's complaint.

"Jewish professors," the government claims, "have been, and continue to be, subjected to ostracism and harassment by their colleagues and students, while their colleagues and supervisors not only have failed to report those acts as required but have even participated in them. Numerous Jewish and Israeli employees have been forced to take leave, work from home, and even leave their jobs to avoid the hostile work environment."

As recently as this month, CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss cancelled her planned lecture at UCLA due to security concerns.

Weiss was to give the annual Daniel Pearl Memorial lecture — in memory of the Wall Street Journal journalist who was kidnapped and murdered by jihadists in Pakistan in 2002 — on Feb. 27 about “The Future of Journalism.”

Reportedly, employees at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, which was hosting the lecture, and thousands of students opposed her appearance.

CODEPINK, an antiwar organization, said it would be "shameful" for Weiss to give the lecture, claiming that she has a history of "flagrant xenophobic remarks about Palestinians, Muslims, and Arabs."

Mary Osako, UCLA's vice chancellor for strategic communications, said the university has made substantial investments to combat antisemitism.

"We stand firmly by the decisive actions we have taken to combat antisemitism in all its forms, and we will vigorously defend our efforts and our unwavering commitment to providing a safe, inclusive environment for all members of our community," Osako said.

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