Judge Shuts Down UCLA “Jew-Free Zones”
Court: “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.”
A federal court is holding UCLA to account for turning its back on Jewish students who were blocked from campus by anti-Israel protesters at the end of last school year.
Going forward, the school must provide them the same access to campus areas and resources that it provides all its other students, ruled Judge Mark Scarsi in a scathing opinion denouncing the “unimaginable” and “abhorrent” violation of their constitutional rights.
Last April, UCLA stood by while its Jewish students were harassed, assaulted, and intimidated by pro-Hamas agitators camped out in a major thoroughfare on school grounds.
With the school looking on and even facilitating them, the activists created a “Jew Exclusion Zone” that effectively barred both students and faculty from going to their classes, offices, and the library. To get by the encampment, students had to pass a loyalty test—and disavow Israel.
And there was no response from “any kind of authority or law enforcement”:
This is insane but was entirely predictable
The university and those in charge own this for allowing the encampmentsWhere is law enforcement &/or campus police?!#UCLA #UCLAProtest pic.twitter.com/KVUTYljMIK
— Melly (@Belondyy) May 1, 2024
In a hard-hitting lawsuit filed this past June, a group of Jewish students sued UCLA over its refusal to remove the faculty-supported, school-facilitated antisemitic encampments that made it impossible for them to study, go to class, or simply meet with friends on campus.
We covered their case here:
Lawsuit: UCLA Facilitated “Jew Exclusion Zone” Blocking Access To Heart of Campus
The students alleged a barrage of constitutional and civil rights violations by the school administrators and asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction to stop the school from allowing those rights to be violated again.
Yesterday, the court agreed to grant the injunction—and it ripped UCLA a new one:
In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.
UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters. 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.
And in case anyone starts up about whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism, the court made clear “all references to the exclusion of Jewish students shall include exclusion of Jewish students based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.”
The court did not require UCLA to implement any specific policies or procedures. Its ruling only requires that once “UCLA’s ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas become unavailable to certain Jewish students, UCLA must stop providing those ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas to any students.”
With the new school year fast approaching, UCLA had not assuaged the students’ concerns that it would protect them when, in all likelihood, the anti-Israel protesters return. Notwithstanding the school’s efforts, the court “perceive[d] an imminent risk” that when the fall semester begins, Jewish students will once again be excluded.
After weeks of relative quiet, that’s the same risk students will soon face at universities all over the country. As this UCLA alum points out, the court’s injunction should be a lesson to all of them.
The injunction against @UCLA should be a lesson to colleges all over the country. Allowing pro Hamas campus encampments at the expense of the safety of Jewish students and faculty is against the law.
With the Fall semester beginning soon, I truly hope the lesson was learned. https://t.co/XIwEaFNdp5
— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) August 14, 2024
UPDATE: UCLA has filed a notice of appeal of the district court’s decision to the Ninth Circuit.
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Comments
UCLA will ban Jewish students because they are a threat to trigger violence by Jew hating hamas lovers.
They will not ban them. They will find some pretext to not admit them. The same shuffle to get around DEI bans.
Now that the federal district court has ruled —
— subsequent antics at UCLA, if not addressed by the administration, should leave the university vulnerable for severe sanctions.
— students at every other public college/university campus across the country with similar shenanigans should copy/paste this lawsuit and file in their jurisdiction.
— students at private universities with similar shenanigans should adapt the suit and file.
The federal government can do a lot to fight UC antisemitism. Withdraw all federal funds from the UC system. No research grants, no student loans etc. For the whole UC system.
At the individual level Jews need to fight back. How are the Jewish students prevented from entering the campus? Obviously with physical force. One can use lethal force to prevent an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm. Jews will need to act in protective groups. Otherwise we risk a repeat of Europe in the 1930s.
Again don’t try this anti Jewish stuff in Texas. You won’t like what happens.
UCLA, and likely other schools, now have a choice: they can stop encampments from blocking off parts of campus, or they can block off parts of campus to allow the encampments. I think the latter is more likely.
The judge’s decision actually gives more power to the encampments. They now can shut off access to anything they want, and UCLA is likely to step in and help.
The problem with that is it would relegate the camp cities to meaningless parts of the campus which will not be acceptable to the anti semites. If those clowns blocking roads were told they could but only this one dead end road over here they wouldn’t agree
Again, real CHAZ has never been tried!
Injunction is good, absolutely incredible that such an action is even necessary. But who at UCLA has been fired? Yeah, that’s what I thought. They can violate students’ basic constitutional rights with impunity. They only risk being told by a judge later – much later – to stop. And even if any monetary damages are eventually awarded, they’ll just be paid by the school, no one is risking their personal assets.
The headline really ought to use the proper phrase. They are Judenfrei zones.
blmplo was on video a years back not allowing students to go to class
harassing liberal professors
wielding baseball bats at white voters at the voting locations screamin ( obama) its our time now!!!
Good decision by this judge, but, it’s simply sad that litigation was necessary to vindicate the students’ rights.
The vile Dhimmi-crats’ gleeful alliance with goose-stepping, genocidal Islamofascists and Muslim terrorists demonstrates their unabashed and non-plussed attitude about enabling and fomenting rabid Jew-hate and discrimination against Jews who are perceived to support Israel.
when you give up your means to defend yourself
or can be taken to court for the act of defending yourself (lawfare) against imminent threat,
it’s almost guaranteed that you will find yourself in a state where you will be slaughtered
by elements approved by the state
It appears that the court’s ruling means that UCLA can either take action against the Islamo-fascist’s illegal blockade or shut down services to everyone. Which way do you think they will choose?
That means that if Jewish students are blocked from classrooms, then the whole place is shut down?
Interesting. Judge Mark Scarsi is a Trump judge, so there is a chance the decision is not an election-year stunt that will be reversed in 2025.
This is UCLA, which is run by the government of the Peoples’ Democrat Republic of Alta California. Said government is not known for obedience to the law or either the state or Federal Constitution when a Leftist political point is to be supported.
I expect an appeal on whatever frivolous grounds by the University and the California AG’s office to overturn the injunction and a motion to suspend it until a final judgement is reached. I suspect that they want it overturned until after the election. After the election, if the Left wins the Constitution may not have the same bearing on our governance.
Subotai Bahadur
We need a federal law that makes it illegal for government entities to discriminate on the basis of race or religion. This law should include prison sentences for the employees who implement the illegal policies.
This law would outlaw all forms of racist discrimination including affirmative action and DEI.
The lawyers who filed the Notice of Appeal were obviously ready to file right after the injunction was ordered. Let’s see whether what they file is frivolous and improper enough to get them and their clients sanctioned under FRCP 11 and have their clients hit with damages under FRAP 38.
I’m no legal scholar, so maybe I’m missing something. But shouldn’t the court decision include penalties for non-observance by UCLA?