Feds Sue University of California, Claiming an Antisemitic Hostile Work Environment

Feds Sue University of California, Claiming an Antisemitic Hostile Work Environment

The University of California is once again facing a lawsuit over its failure to address rampant antisemitism on its Los Angeles (UCLA) campus following the October 7th Hamas attacks in Israel.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice sued the school for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by engaging in a hostile work environment at UCLA.

The University unlawfully discriminated against Jewish and Israeli employees at UCLA by failing to prevent and correct discriminatory and harassing conduct, according to the DOJ lawsuit.

The school also negligently permitted a hostile work environment against two Jewish professors and other Jewish and Israeli employees, the lawsuit alleges.

We covered the escalating antisemitism that culminated in the infamous “Jew-Free” zone at UCLA in 2024 here:

• Lawsuit: UCLA Facilitated “Jew Exclusion Zone” Blocking Access To Heart of Campus
• Judge Shuts Down UCLA “Jew-Free Zones”
• ‘Full Retreat:’ UCLA Withdraws Its Appeal Of Court’s Order To Give Jewish Students Equal Access To Campus

The DOJ filed the Title VII complaint in the federal district court for the Central District of California—the same court that earlier denounced the school’s feckless response to the anti-Israel protests as an “unimaginable” and “abhorrent” violation of religious freedom.

While that earlier action generally sought to protect Jewish students at UCLA, the new DOJ lawsuit addresses the wrongs against Jewish staff and faculty in violation of Title VII.

The DOJ complaint arises out of a Charge filed by then-Commissioner Andrea Lucas of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in June 2024.

The EEOC investigation uncovered the University’s poor complaint system. According to the lawsuit, the school’s “confusing and ineffective” reporting procedures puzzled Jewish and Israeli employees, leaving them with nowhere to turn.

“They got UCLA’s message that filing an antisemitism complaint was futile.”

Antisemitism was so severe and pervasive that UCLA’s own official Task Force on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias concluded the University’s failures to protect Jewish staff and faculty constituted a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII, the lawsuit says.

And yet the school took no action. According to the lawsuit, not a single one of the dozens of civil rights complaints filed by Jewish and Israeli employees since October 7 was properly investigated—until the DOJ notified the school it was conducting its own investigation in March 2025.

Antisemitism became “normalized” following the Hamas massacre, according to the complaint.

Throughout the 2023-2024 academic year, Jewish professors were assaulted, and Nazi swastikas were grafittied across the campus. Protesters staged marches and rallies featuring antisemitic slogans such as “kill the Jews” and “Jews=KKK.”

The demonstrations almost always took place without a permit and violated viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions, the complaint alleges. The University ignored and continues to ignore violations of these restrictions involving actions against Jewish and Israeli employees, the DOJ announced yesterday.

During the 2024 anti-Israel protests, members of the UCLA Jewish community were harassed and intimidated by pro-Hamas agitators camped out in a major thoroughfare on school grounds in late April. The school turned a blind eye—and at times facilitiated—the creation of a “Jew Exclusion Zone” that effectively barred both students and faculty from going to their classes, offices, and the library.

And again, there were no repercussions for the students involved, a congressional committee later found: No suspensions, no probations against any of the wrongdoers.

“UCLA violated—and continues to violate—Title VII,” the DOJ lawsuit concludes, promising to do what the University of California failed to do: protect its Jewish and Israeli employees from antisemitic harassment in their workplace.

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