UCLA pleads for legal immunity for officials in 'Jew Exclusion Zone' lawsuit

What Jewish students and a professor suing UCLA see as the university's facilitation of a "Jew Exclusion Zone" – an anti-Israel encampment that required Jews to denounce their historic homeland to pass through campus – UCLA sees as its measured approach this past spring to safely shut down disruptive protests against Israel's response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks.

UCLA filed motions for judgment on the pleadings and to dismiss Tuesday on behalf of six current and former administrators, including President Michael Drake and ex-Chancellor Gene Block, arguing the new evidence introduced a month ago by students Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum and Eden Shemuelian and professor Kamran Shamsa actually weakens their lawsuit.

The University of California, Los Angeles continues to reject the characterization of its actions by the plaintiffs and the President Trump-nominated judge overseeing the case, Mark Rienzi, who issued an injunction in August that blasted the school for claiming it has "no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters."

He banned the taxpayer-funded university from offering services to some students when it "knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds" and "knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students," through de-escalation "or otherwise."

UCLA touted that ultimately "untenable" de-escalation as the first step in a necessary "tiered strategy" of "actively seeking to avoid violence" before calling in law enforcement to break up the encampment and arrest trespassers, in its memorandum of points and authorities Tuesday.

The school thundered against the plaintiffs for demanding punitive damages against the administrators, saying that only one of their claims – Title VI national-origin discrimination – doesn't require them to allege administrators "intentionally discriminated" against them, and punitive damages aren't available under Title VI.

"Even if the Court permits Plaintiffs to proceed on constitutional and state law claims that theoretically allow punitive damages, such damages are legally unavailable," not least because the administrators enjoy sovereign and qualified immunities, the filing says.

UCLA is particularly miffed at the plaintiffs for naming Assistant Vice Chancellor Rick Braziel as a defendant, given that he "was not even a UCLA employee until after the Royce Quad encampment was removed" and Rienzi has already ruled out post-encampment protests as "religious-belief-based exclusion."

The plaintiffs' lawyers at religious liberty law firm Becket accused UCLA of filing of contradicting public statements by University of California regents in response to the university's Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias report, which urged UCLA to "commit to remediation rather than fighting the case" in court.

"The UCLA administration’s last-ditch effort to throw out the claims is appalling," Becket said on X. "The school should stop dodging blame for its despicable behavior and admit its role in fanning the flames of antisemitism against its own students and faculty." 

The amended complaint contested UCLA's argument that the spring encampment was a "one-off incident," detailing "at least three more occupations and encampments" that disrupted spring finals, took over buildings and harassed a campus rabbi. 

Activists held a "Week of Rage" to mark the one-year anniversary of the October 2023 terrorist attack, "during which they repeatedly violated campus protest rules with impunity, including setting up a new encampment on October 21," the Oct. 22 filing said.

It's not the only lawsuit against UCLA related to the so-called Jew Exclusion Zone. 

Young America's Foundation sued in October, alleging viewpoint discrimination because UCLA threw up repeated roadblocks to its campus chapter's event with Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer this spring while allegedly protecting the encampment.

Some elite universities have suffered severe backlash for their alleged deference to disruptive anti-Israel protests or personal participation.

Following a damning task force report on violence against Jewish students and their exclusion from parts of campus by anti-Israel protesters, Columbia's donations plunged on its annual "Giving Day" in October.

The Ivy League school removed three deans who exchanged text messages mocking an antisemitism panel discussion, but also banned a pro-Israel professor from campus for allegedly harassing officials on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

UCLA's memorandum Tuesday tried to split the difference with Judge Rienzi, saying he could grant its motions while preserving a "nearly identical" injunction and urging him to shield officials as "government employees who have performed their duties based on a reasonable understanding of the applicable law."

UC administrators "have worked tirelessly over the past year to maintain a safe and inclusive environment for the entire campus community" in response to disruptive protests that put its anti-discrimination and First Amendment obligations "to the test," the filing says.

While the plaintiffs' amended complaint "omits many details about UCLA’s effort to respond to the Royce Quad encampment …  even without that context, Plaintiffs’ allegations reflect that UCLA sought to remove the encampment and minimize the risk of violent clashes with counter-protestors," the university said, describing specific actions.

The plaintiffs acknowledge "those efforts have succeeded," including an aborted occupation of  Kerckhoff Patio after administrators threatened arrest and school discipline and the failure of any subsequent disruptions to last "more than a few hours" or block Jewish students or faculty from any part of campus, according to the filing.

Regardless of Judge Rienzi's framing of its actions as maintaining "access" to trespassers who blocked Jews, through official state action, UCLA's failure to "forcibly remove the protestors earlier than UCLA actually did" does not create liability under the 14th Amendment, it argued.

The actions of protesters cannot be attributed to officials "simply because they did not immediately use physical force" to remove them. "There will always be some period – even if only hours – before law enforcement can remove protestors," and that by itself can't create a "benefit" for trespassers, more than 200 of whom were ultimately arrested.

"At minimum, the Court’s novel view of state-action doctrine" – that de-escalation of protests violates the law – "was not clearly established before its preliminary-injunction decision, which independently entitles" the administrators to qualified immunity, the filing says.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held 23 years ago, in a case on the "wrongful arrest, extradition, and incarceration" of a mentally disabled man, that a "facially neutral polic[y] of inaction" cannot violate equal protection "even if" if it has a "discriminatory impact” on a protected class, the filing says:

"There was no blueprint for how to respond to a protest encampment," and the amended complaint lists several actions UCLA took to "minimize tension and disband the encampment" in the context of "tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving" situations – those most appropriate for qualified immunity, according to the university. 

Even the plaintiffs recognize "UCLA’s leaders consistently condemned antisemitic conduct … and sought to make campus more welcoming for Jewish community members," and Rienzi himself emphasized "none of us thinks UCLA wants to have Jewish students excluded."