The U.S. Division of Justice’s Civil Rights Division sued the College of California system on Tuesday over allegations that its largest campus didn’t do sufficient to quell office antisemitism.
In its grievance, the DOJ accused the College of California, Los Angeles of failing to correctly examine what the company mentioned had been dozens of civil rights complaints filed by Jewish and Israeli workers since Oct. 7, 2023, when a Hamas assault on Israel erupted right into a yearslong warfare.
UCLA didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday.
A lot of the grievance facilities round pro-Palestinian protests in late 2023 and early 2024, and it closely cites an October 2024 report produced by UCLA’s antisemitism taskforce.
The DOJ’s grievance made dozens of references to a spring 2024 encampment on UCLA’s campus that college leaders allowed for roughly every week out of free speech issues earlier than calling within the police to disband it.
The company additionally accused UCLA of retaliating towards workers who filed antisemitism complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Fee.
“Based mostly on our investigation, UCLA directors allegedly allowed virulent anti-Semitism to flourish on campus, harming college students and workers alike,” U.S. Legal professional Common Pamela Bondi mentioned in a Tuesday assertion.
Nevertheless, Democratic lawmakers and a few Jewish teams have accused the Trump administration of weaponizing antisemitism allegations towards schools as a method of exerting management over the upper ed sector.
Thursday’s lawsuit is the newest assault from the Trump administration towards UCLA and the UC system.The federal authorities froze $584 million of UCLA’s analysis funding over allegations it violated civil rights legislation by failing to guard Jewish college students from harassment.
In November, a federal choose dominated that the freeze — and the Trump administration’s corresponding effort to wrest a $1.2 billion penalty from UC — was unconstitutional and illegally ignored current procedures for implementing civil rights legislation. Earlier this month, the administration dropped an attraction of the ruling.
The DOJ additionally opened a separate investigation into the UC system in June over a plan to rent various school members, alleging it might have violated federal antidiscrimination legislation.
