UCLA denies 'Jew Exclusion Zone' resulted from pro-Palestine encampment, contradicting judge

Several weeks after a federal judge nominated by President Trump ordered UCLA to stop "knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students" through a pro-Palestine encampment to protest Israel's actions against Hamas for its terrorist attack on civilians nearly a year ago, UCLA gave a legal answer to the Jewish students suing it: What exclusion?

The taxpayer-funded university filed its answer Tuesday to the lawsuit by religious liberty firm Becket on behalf of Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum and Eden Shemuelian, denying "Jewish students were 'segregat[ed]' or that Jewish students in particular were prevented from accessing classrooms or the main undergraduate library," as the plaintiffs allege.

"Plaintiffs’ claims are barred because Defendants [UCLA regents and several officials] exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any discriminatory conduct," and whatever harm Jewish students may have suffered "is by reason of the acts or omissions of some third party or parties," not UCLA's action or inaction, the answer says.

"Jewish students are headed into Rosh Hashanah knowing that their university denies it has a responsibility to protect its Jewish students,” Frankel, a third-year law student and father, said in a Becket press release that denounced UCLA for "stubbornly continu[ing] to deny responsibility for the Jew Exclusion Zone" and questioning "whether Jewish students were harmed at all."

Judge Mark Scarsi's introduction to the Aug. 13 injunction contradicts UCLA's portrayal of what happened due to the encampment. 

"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," he wrote, rewriting the first sentence in italics. "UCLA does not dispute this."

Scarsi previously ordered UCLA to devise a plan for ensuring that Jewish students have equal campus access after the pro-Palestine protesters set up checkpoints, captured on video.