The students ‘were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,’ the judge wrote, calling it ’unimaginable.’
A federal judge ordered the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) on Aug. 13 to stop preventing Jewish students from traversing the campus amid pro-Palestinian protests.
The ruling was made after three Jewish students sued UCLA in June for allowing protesters to barricade the center of the campus and establish an encampment that obstructed passage to campus facilities.
The plaintiffs say they were blocked from certain areas of campus as “anti-Semitic activists” established checkpoints near their encampment, allowing only those who condemned Israel to pass.
U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi issued a preliminary injunction on Aug. 13, prohibiting UCLA from providing programs and access to buildings if Jewish students were blocked.
In his 16-page ruling, Scarsi described the situation as “unimaginable” and “so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.”
“In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” he stated.
Scarsi wrote that UCLA “does not dispute this” and that the university claims that it had “no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters.”
“But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion,” he stated.
The judge ordered UCLA to instruct its student affairs and campus security teams by Aug. 15 that “they are not to aid or participate in any obstruction of access for Jewish students to ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas.”
UCLA officials didn’t respond by publication time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
The preliminary injunction marked the first time a court has ruled against a university for “allowing an antisemitic encampment,” according to Becket Law, which represents the students.
Becket Law President Mark Rienzi called on UCLA to protect the rights of its Jewish students.
