Trump Justice Department Files Brief Supporting UCLA Students’ Antisemitism Case Against University

Allowing mob rule on campus suddenly has repercussions now that Donald Trump is president.

In its latest crack down on campus anti-Semitism, the Trump Justice Department this week filed court papers supporting the Jewish students and professor suing the school for allowing pro-Hamas mobs to block their access to parts of campus.

Despite repeatedly issuing  lofty statements about opposing anti-Semitism, UCLA continues to fight the lawsuit, and last November asked the judge to throw out the case.

Is UCLA  going to change course now that the Justice Department is breathing down their throat?

That remains to be seen. But the filing follows the Justice Department March 5th announcement  that they are investigating the entire University of California system for anti-Semitism.

In its new “statement of interest” the Justice Department trashed UCLA for trying to shirk responsibility for the campus mayhem that unfolded last Spring.  “Even though UCLA may not dispute that the antisemitic campus environment at UCLA last year was ‘unimaginable’ and ‘abhorrent,’ the Individual Defendants moved to dismiss this action to evade liability for what happened on the campus that they are supposed to lead and protect. The United States has a significant interest in the proper application of federal laws that ensure equal access to educational opportunities and facilities.”

“The United States, therefore, has a strong interest in ensuring the proper application of Title VI, particularly when the Court has already found that in 2024 on UCLA’s campus ‘Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,’” the brief continues. “Additionally, as described in the White House’s Executive Order on Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, it is the policy of the United States to combat antisemitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute.”

The plaintiffs are being represented by the Becket religious liberty law firm in Washington. Becket president Mark Rienzi said in a statement that the Trump Administration has “thrown down the gauntlet: If university administrators aid and abet mistreatment of Jews, they will pay the price. This is a wake-up call for every university that allows antisemitic hatred to fester unchecked.”

And Becket VP and senior counsel Eric Rassbach told the California Globe that the Justice Department filing gives credence to the lawsuit. “When the Department of Justice files a statement of interest in a civil rights case, it is a flashing red light that the civil rights violations at issue are serious and need to be dealt with.”

The lawsuit was filed on June 5, 2024 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.  The defendants are University of California system president Michael Drake, then-UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, Provost Darnell Hunt, Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs  Monroe Gorden, Jr. and Assistant Vice Chancellor Rick Braziel.

The complaint describes in chilling details how UCLA administrators ceded power to campus mobs.

“UCLA’s administration knew about the activists’ extreme actions, including the exclusion of Jews. But, in a remarkable display of cowardice, appeasement, and illegality, the administration did nothing to stop it.”

It recounts how UCLA used its own security guards to enforce the “Jew Exclusion Zone” that the pro-Hamas students had set up.

“Defendants not only failed to marshal resources to intervene—they adopted a policy facilitating the Jew Exclusion Zone, ordering among other things, UCLA campus police to stand down and step aside. “

“And not only that, but UCLA also hired security staff and stationed them on the outskirts of the encampment and other restricted areas.  But rather than instruct this additional staff to assist Jewish students in accessing campus resources, UCLA instead instructed them to discourage unapproved students from attempting to cross through the areas blocked by the activists. “

In fact, the security officers “acting as agents” of UCLA officials “informed Jewish persons that, if they wished to access the encampment or other restricted areas, they would first need to obtain the permission of the encampment members.”

Last August, United States District Court for the Central District of California Judge Mark Scarsi issued a blistering order blasting UCLA for allowing the “Jew Exclusion Zone” and ordering the school to give Jewish students equal access to campus.

“Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” he wrote. “This fact is so unimaginable and abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating.”

Scarsi also rebuked UCLA for claiming they were not responsible for what the students did.

“UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third parties,” he wrote. “But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion.”

Despite that stunning reproach, UCLA made no serious issue to settle the case and instead filed a motion to dismiss on November 26, 2024.

The motion said the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that UCLA officials had displayed animus towards Jews when they allowed the campus mobs to run wild.

“Plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim against the Individual Defendants independently fails because Plaintiffs do not plausibly allege that any Individual Defendant took intentionally discriminatory action—action motivated by animus toward students’ or faculty’s Jewish ethnicity or religion.”

“Here, aside from a conclusory allegation, Plaintiffs nowhere plausibly allege that any Individual Defendant acted—or failed to act—“because of” Plaintiffs’ Jewish status.”

So the UCLA officials did not personally dislike Jews–they just blithely allowed others to discriminate against them? And this is supposed to be exculpatory?

In its court filing the Justice Department takes issue with this argument and all the others that UCLA made.

For example, the brief cited a 2020 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that “deliberate indifference” to discrimination by school officials is legally actionable to  argue that even if the plaintiffs “failed to plausibly allege that Individual Defendants took affirmative actions that indicate an intent to deprive Jewish students of equal protection of the laws, the intent element of an Equal Protection claim can also be met by alleging that school administrators were deliberately indifferent to known religious discrimination.”

The Justice Department filing was welcomed by the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, UCLA law student Yitzchok Frankel. He said in a statement released by Becket that,  “Jews should never have to fear for their safety when they step foot on a college campus. I’m grateful that the federal government has condemned UCLA for kowtowing to antisemites, and I hope this sends a clear message to other universities that think they can do the same.”

The Becket media office declined to make Frankel available for an interview.

But Glenn Ricketts, spokesman for the National Association of Scholars, which fights political correctness on campus, sounded giddy when asked about the Justice Department action.

He told the California Globe:

“I’d say it’s certainly consistent with the administration’s policies so far, and also justifiable under federal law, since UCLA is a state institution and collects lots of federal [dollars]. Even without the dough, as a public school, they have to conform to federal civil rights protections, which clearly wasn’t the case here. I also have to say that I’m enjoying all of this immensely.”

UCLA Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications Mary Osako issued a statement about the Justice Department filing that offered no contrition for allowing pro-Hamas mobs to discriminate against Jewish students.

Osako asserted that UCLA is “committed to eradicating hate.”

“Chancellor Julio Frenk, who joined UCLA in January, has a strong track record of combating antisemitism and is actively at work to help UCLA achieve our goal of fostering an environment where all members of our community are able to live, work, and learn, freely and peacefully,” she said. “We recently launched the Initiative to Combat Antisemitism that brings together members of the Bruin community and civic leaders to work toward our shared, unwavering goal of extinguishing antisemitism.”