UCLA has voluntarily withdrawn its appeal of a judge’s order to give Jewish students equal access to its campus.
In June, a group of Jewish students represented by the Becket Fund sued the school over the anti-Israel protests and encampments that created a “Jew Exclusion Zone” effectively barring both students and faculty from going to their classes, offices, and the library.
We covered their lawsuit here:
Lawsuit: UCLA Facilitated “Jew Exclusion Zone” Blocking Access To Heart of Campus
Last week, Judge Scarsi expressed outrage that “in the year 2024, in the United States of America … Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.” Denouncing the “unimaginable” and “abhorrent” violation of the students’ constitutional rights, he ruled that going forward, the school must provide the Jewish students the same access to campus areas and resources that it provides all its other students.
We covered the court’s decision here:
Judge Shuts Down UCLA “Jew-Free Zones”
UCLA filed a notice of appeal the next day. But it was hard to see how the school could argue with the court’s ruling, which gave them complete discretion as to how to guarantee equal access for all:
This was such a bad look for UCLA.
Today, the school reversed course and withdrew its appeal. In its statement announcing UCLA’s “full retreat,” Becket’s president, Mark Rienzi, said “appealing Judge Scarsi’s very reasonable order to stop discriminating against Jews was always a bad idea.”
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