Three Jewish students have filed civil rights lawsuits against the University of California Board of Regents and officials at the university, according to Fox News Digital. The students claim that they were prevented from walking to class by “antisemitic activists.”
The two law students and one undergraduate student allege that the university allowed a group of students and unaffiliated demonstrators to set up an encampment on the campus. Consequently, Jewish students were barred from accessing the heart of the university property, per the report.
‘If masked agitators had excluded any other marginalized group at UCLA, Governor Newsom rightly would have sent in the National Guard immediately.’
Anti-Israel activists demonstrated throughout May and April in protest of Israel’s response to Hamas’ attacks against the Jewish state on October 7. On that day, Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and abducted hundreds more.
The Los Angeles Times reported that lawyers for the Jewish students said pro-Palestinian activists implemented checkpoints at their encampment on Royce Quad. They allege that those in charge of the encampment only allowed anti-Israel demonstrators to enter.
“With the knowledge and acquiescence of UCLA officials, the activists enforced what was effectively a ‘Jew Exclusion Zone,’ segregating Jewish students and preventing them from accessing the heart of campus, including classroom buildings and the main undergraduate library,” the lawsuit said.
“In many cases, the activists set up barriers and locked arms together, preventing those who refused to disavow Israel from passing through.”
UCLA is not the only university in the country facing lawsuits. Others include Rutgers University and Columbia University, per reports. Columbia recently settled a lawsuit with a Jewish student who claimed the university fostered an “unsafe educational environment.”
The complaint also noted that UCLA knew about the encampment for a week without taking action. It went on to say that the university urged security staff to discourage non-students from entering the encampment instead of dismantling the encampment entirely.
“If masked agitators had excluded any other marginalized group at UCLA, Governor Newsom rightly would have sent in the National Guard immediately,” Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket, said.
“But UCLA instead caved to the antisemitic activists and allowed its Jewish students to be segregated from the heart of their own campus. That is a profound and illegal failure of leadership.”
“This is America in 2024—not Germany in 1939. It is disgusting that an elite American university would let itself devolve into a hotbed of antisemitism,” Rienzi added. “UCLA’s administration should have to answer for allowing the Jew Exclusion Zone and promise that Jews will never again be segregated on campus.”
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