Justice Department suit accuses UCLA of failing to protect Jewish employees from campus hostility
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is suing the University of California at UCLA over allegations that UCLA failed to protect its Jewish employees from antisemitic harassment during pro-Palestinian protests that roiled the campus in 2023 and 2024.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in California, is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign to punish leading universities it says have gone easy on anti-Semitism. The lawsuit accuses UCLA of failing to discipline those who participated in the protests, including dozens of people arrested in 2024 for failing to leave a campus camp.
UCLA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump officials have previously found that UCLA failed to protect Jewish students, and last year UCLA hit $6 million residential Along with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who sued the university. The new lawsuit alleges that the harm to Jewish and Israeli employees “goes much deeper” than this agreement addresses.
“The United States will now do what the UC has not been able to do so far: protect Jewish and Israeli employees from anti-Semitic harassment,” the lawsuit said.
The bulk of the complaints focus on the 2024 protest camp, which federal authorities say blocked Jewish employees and students from parts of the campus and included anti-Semitic signs and slogans. He claims that UCLA violated its own policies by turning a blind eye to the camps and accuses the university of failing to discipline any students, faculty or staff for antisemitic behavior.
The lawsuit asks a judge to force UCLA to enforce its own anti-discrimination policies and award compensation to Jewish employees who faced a hostile work environment at UCLA.
The Trump administration has focused primarily on elite private universities in its campaign to win the compliance of campuses it accuses of liberal and anti-Semitic biases. UCLA is one of the few public universities targeting this effort.
Last summer, the Trump administration announced its search. $1 billion from UCLA as part of an agreement to end federal scrutiny. Trump cut officials hundreds of millions of dollars The university received federal funding, but a federal judge ordered the money repaid in September.
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