UCLA sued for blocking pro-Israel event while allegedly enabling 'Jew Exclusion Zone' encampment

On the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas that by one tally killed nearly 1,200 Israelis, two-thirds civilians, UCLA had more to fear than a potential repeat of the violent clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters that rocked campus this spring in response to the Gaza war, or a plunge in donations as Columbia University has experienced.

The university had to come up with a credible, viewpoint-neutral explanation for why it treated a peaceful pro-Israel lecture so differently from a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" that Jewish students called a "Jew Exclusion Zone," one of many campus occupations nationwide that rendered buildings and paths off-limits to disfavored groups, especially pro-Israel students.

Young America's Foundation sued the taxpayer-funded university Friday for "doing everything it could to derail" its campus chapter's May event with Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer, from "bureaucratic delay tactics" to "locking the doors to the event space" minutes before it started, while UCLA "tolerated months of abusive and even criminal misconduct by anti-Israel activists."

"Campus orthodoxy" that Israel is an illegitimate state "is reinforced and displayed in hundreds of ways, big and small, from the way UCLA hires faculty, to the seminars it hosts, to the courses it promotes, and –most importantly –to the voices it allows to dominate campus conversations," the First Amendment lawsuit says.

It describes Spencer's group as "dedicated to exposing dangerous and radical strains of Islamic thought."

The Oct. 4 complaint by the conservative organization and chapter leaders contrasts the "roadblock after roadblock" the University of California, Los Angeles erected "to thwart a modest pro-Israel speaking event … under controlled conditions" with the "campus mob" UCLA allegedly facilitates against them.

The university's justification for the last-minute locking of the doors – which prompted a farcical and "lengthy game of 'who has the key'" – and attempt to move the event to an "out-of-the-way venue" was a threatened protest that "UCLA itself had emboldened by its extreme passivity (not to mention its active complicity) only days before," according to the complaint.

Administrators also "expressly withheld approval for the event weeks before because of the mob" and now "cannot possibly claim to have been taken by surprise," the suit says. Individual defendants include ex-Chancellor Gene Block; the provost who replaced him, Darnell Hunt, and Hunt's replacement Michael Levine; and Office of Campus Safety chief Rick Braziel.

UCLA's actions minutes before YAF started the event "was simply a continuation of what it had already been doing: taking an extremely fastidious approach to one side of the debate (the pro-Israel side) and playing so 'hands off' with respect to the other side that the campus was descending into spirals of vandalism and violence," the suit says.

The university did not respond to Just the News queries Monday.

The only update to the case was its formal assignment Monday to U.S. District Judge Otis Wright, nominated by President George W. Bush. YAF is represented by the Mountain States Legal Foundation and Lex Rex Institute.

UCLA is already losing an earlier court battle stemming from its alleged indifference to Jewish students facing antisemitism in the form of the pro-Palestinian encampment, which video shows stopped Jewish students from passing through unless they renounced Israel.

After President Trump-nominated Judge Mark Scarsi issued a preliminary injunction requiring UCLA to protect equal campus access for students who were blocked "because they refused to denounce their faith," however, UCLA denied the Jewish plaintiffs were ever "segregat[ed]" or blocked, or that its actions or inactions caused them any harm.

The new complaint refers to that injunction and Scarsi's finding that Jewish students face "an imminent risk" of exclusion by anti-Israel activists again this fall.

YAF expects similar treatment from UCLA in the new academic year, when it plans to "host a series of on-campus speakers and activism projects that will present pro-Israel and conservative viewpoints," without a preliminary injunction along the lines of Scarsi's.

"UCLA has repeatedly thrown up roadblocks and delays" for its Oct. 21 event with conservative pundit Ben Shapiro "and has refused to approve the event or commit to providing adequate security," the suit says. YAF anticipates that UCLA "will change its mind at the last minute" even if Shapiro gets formal approval absent an injunction.

The Oct. 7 anniversary had escaped major disruption at UCLA as of early evening Pacific time. Campus newspaper The Daily Bruin's live tracker showed little more than security officers reportedly ordering a person to leave who "walked through and kicked" flags placed in front of a building to commemorate many nations' lives lost to the attacks.

The UCLA Police Department also posted an X thread on the rules for attending or organizing a memorial or protest, including time, place and manner restrictions and prohibitions on disrupting other campus activities, which "may result in removal or legal consequences."

Capitol and U.S. Park Police in D.C. weren't taking any chances Monday, with local news reporting that fencing around the National Mall and concrete barriers were going up before dawn.

The YAF suit puts UCLA's actions in the larger context of "policies that give the university unbridled discretion to determine a number of factors crucial to the success or failure of a speaking event," including attendance caps, location, timing and "pre-event publicity," which the group alleges are facially overbroad and unconstitutional.

UCLA invoked those policies to try to relocate the event half a mile away from the Student Union complex in the center of campus, which YAF specifically chose "to show that there are other legitimate views worth discussing on the issue of Israel and that their speech did not represent a second class point of view," the suit says. 

The intended relocation space, "an outer-campus computer science lecture hall," would signal to the community that UCLA disagreed with Spencer's supposedly "distasteful opinions," sided with protesters against him, and that its commitment to free expression was "merely a front." YAF canceled the event rather than submit.

When the chapter first requested a space, the Student Union quickly confirmed a room was available for the following month, but despite the chapter quickly asking to reserve it, UCLA dragged out approval, which prevented YAF from advertising the event, the suit says.

When the parties finally met virtually to discuss security logistics a week later after "numerous inquiries" from the chapter, which had originally named the event "Radical Islam on College Campuses," the meeting ended with UCLA refusing approval, event security "or even a timeline for when it might approve the event," which was 15 days away at that point.

UCLA police representatives made clear what was standing in their way, according to the suit: security approval from "the top levels of university administration" and the disbandment of the anti-Israel encampment.

With two weeks left before the event, YAF's lawyers warned the university it might sue for viewpoint discrimination and tacitly authorizing a "heckler's veto." Without getting a response from UCLA's counsel, the university "suddenly changed its tune" and Student Union representatives confirmed details that night. 

"By May 6, 2024, all outstanding administrative items were completed, and UCLA appeared to provide final approval for the event," sending the chapter into a mad rush to publicize an event nine days away, according to the suit.

Those activities included "projecting an announcement on the outside of a campus building," prompting complaints from anti-Israel activists on campus, who baselessly claimed it violated a campus rule. 

"Within hours," Dean of Students Jasmine Rush "threatened disciplinary action if they did not immediately stop their promotional activities," again citing no rule they had violated, but the chapter stopped anyway for fear of getting banned entirely.