Judge orders UCLA to protect equal campus access for Jewish students

(The Center Square) - A federal judge ordered the University of California to create a plan for maintaining equal campus access for Jewish students after pro-Palestine protestors allegedly established ideological checkpoints blocking off portions of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Three Jewish students alleged that pro-Palestine demonstration sites limited their access to central parts of the campus, and that they were told they would be unable to pass through “unless they disavowed Israel’s right to exist.” The lawsuit also details pro-Palestine demonstrators’ use of an “identification system” by which they gave “wristbands to those who had passed their anti-Israel ideological test.”

One plaintiff, Associate Clinical Professor Kamran Shamsa at UCLA’s medical school, recalled how in April “a large, masked man approached me and aggressively pushed me to the ground,” within “plain sight of at least a dozen UCLA security guards” who “did nothing to intervene.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a legal nonprofit representing individuals of all faiths, helped the students file their lawsuit against the University of California. Under the judge’s ruling, UCLA must work with Becket and co-counsel from Clement & Murphy to submit a plan to protect Jewish students by August 5.

After several nights of violence, UCLA’s protest sites were dismantled by police. In an earlier statement regarding the costs of pro-Palestine protests, the University of California said it is “actively exploring resources and strategies to prevent future incidents while upholding the principles of free expression.”

Across the ten-campus system, the University of California system spent $29 million on security and cleanup services, 90% of which was spent on security. The plurality of the spending, or $10.4 million, was spent at UCLA, which had the most on-campus protests.

At campuses where protestors were removed by force, costs were in the millions of dollars, while at those where protestors left peacefully the costs were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s unclear if forceful removals increased costs or if schools had to use force to deal with more unstable protest situations that had gotten out of hand.