The Trump administrations Department of Justice has launched a sweeping civil-rights lawsuit against the University of California system, accusing UCLA of permitting a climate of open hostility toward Jewish and Israeli employees in the wake of Hamass October 7 massacre in Israel.
According to The Post Millennial, the complaint filed by the DOJs Civil Rights Division contends that antisemitic harassment at UCLA pervaded the campus after the Hamas-led attack and that university officials failed to take meaningful action to stop it. Federal lawyers argue that the universitys inaction violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to maintain a workplace free from discrimination and harassment based on religion and national origin.
The lawsuit asserts that UCLA engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination by allowing antisemitic conduct to continue unchecked and by selectively enforcing campus rules on protests and demonstrations. Federal officials say the university failed to apply viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions, effectively giving a pass to demonstrators whose conduct targeted Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff.
According to the complaint, the situation deteriorated further in 2024 amid intensified campus activism over the war in Gaza. The Justice Department alleges that for several days near UCLAs Royce Hall, Jewish individuals were physically blocked from parts of the main quad, Jewish professors were assaulted, and swastikas were spray-painted on university buildings.
The filing describes Jewish and Israeli faculty being physically threatened, their classrooms disrupted, and their offices and workspaces plastered with what the government characterizes as disturbing images. It further claims that some Jewish professors were ostracized and harassed not only by students but also by colleagues, deepening the sense that antisemitism had been normalized within parts of the campus culture.
Federal investigators say that supervisors and co-workers often failed to report these incidents as required under university policy, and in some instances allegedly participated in the misconduct themselves. The Justice Department maintains that the environment became so intolerable that multiple Jewish and Israeli employees took leave, shifted to remote work, or resigned altogether to escape the harassment.
Based on our investigation, UCLA administrators allegedly allowed virulent anti-Semitism to flourish on campus, harming students and staff alike, Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement released with the lawsuit. Todays lawsuit underscores that this Department of Justice stands strong against hate and anti-Semitism in all its vile forms.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the Civil Rights Division, described the allegations as a mark of shame for the university if proven true and pledged to ensure that UCLA maintains a workplace free from antisemitic harassment. First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California emphasized that the federal government has a duty to step in when universities fail to provide employees with a discrimination-free environment.
The case traces back to a commissioners charge filed in June 2024 by then-Commissioner Andrea Lucas of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a mechanism that allows the EEOC to open an investigation even without an individual complainant. The Justice Department credits the EEOC with playing a central role in probing the harassment allegations at UCLA and in uncovering systemic flaws in how the university processed and resolved complaints.
The EEOC is committed to eradicating antisemitism at work, Lucas said in the DOJs announcement. If a University will not investigate and remedy repeated allegations of antisemitism against its employees, the EEOC will.
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk previously informed the campus community that the federal government had suspended certain research funding in response to violent Gaza encampments and protests that erupted after the October 7 attack, which left about 1,200 people dead in Israel. That funding freeze underscored the growing federal scrutiny of universities that appear unwilling or unable to rein in radical campus activism when it crosses the line into violence or bigotry.
The DOJs announcement also ties its campus enforcement agenda to broader Title IX concerns, particularly over sex-segregated spaces and womens athletics. Federal officials argue that some schools have unlawfully compelled women to share bathrooms and locker rooms with men who identify as women, a trend that has alarmed many parents and advocates of womens privacy and fairness in sports.
UCLA, already under fire for its handling of antisemitic incidents, recently agreed to pay $6.13 million to settle civil-rights claims brought by three Jewish students and a professor. The new lawsuit signals that, at least in this instance, the federal government is prepared to challenge universities that allow ideological extremism and identity politics to trump basic civil-rights protections for Jews and women alike.
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