Justice Department lawsuit says UCLA failed to protect Jewish employees
from hostility
[February 25, 2026]
By COLLIN BINKLEY and JOCELYN GECKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is suing the University of
California over allegations that UCLA failed to protect Jewish employees
from antisemitic harassment amid pro-Palestinian protests that roiled
the campus in 2023 and 2024.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in California, is the latest escalation in
the Trump administration’s campaign to punish top universities that it
says have been soft on antisemitism. The suit accuses the University of
California, Los Angeles of failing to discipline those who were involved
in protests, including dozens who were arrested in 2024 for failing to
leave a campus encampment.
Trump officials previously determined that UCLA failed to protect Jewish
students, and last year UCLA reached a $6 million settlement with three
Jewish students and a Jewish professor who sued the university. The new
lawsuit alleges the harm to Jewish and Israeli employees “goes much
deeper” than the situations that settlement addressed.
“The United States will now do what UC has thus far failed to do:
protect Jewish and Israeli employees” from antisemitic harassment, said
the lawsuit, which was filed against the University of California, which
consists of 10 campuses, but focuses on allegations against UCLA.
The University of California referred a request for comment to UCLA,
which said Tuesday it has taken “concrete and significant steps” to
strengthen campus security, enforce policies and combat antisemitism. It
did not mention the federal government's lawsuit.
“Antisemitism is abhorrent and has no place at UCLA or elsewhere,” Mary
Osako, UCLA’s vice chancellor for strategic communications, said in the
statement.
Much of the federal complaint focuses on the 2024 protest encampment
that federal officials say blocked Jewish employees and students from
parts of campus and included antisemitic signs and chants. One night,
counterprotesters attacked the encampment, throwing traffic cones and
firing pepper spray, with fighting that continued for hours, injuring
more than a dozen people, before police stepped in. The next day, after
hundreds defied orders to leave, more than 200 people were arrested.
The 81-page lawsuit alleges UCLA violated its own policies by tolerating
the encampment and accuses the university of failing to discipline any
students, faculty or staff over antisemitic behavior.
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Children play outside Royce Hall at the University of California,
Los Angeles, campus, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes,
File)
“UCLA’s administration turned a blind eye to — and at times facilitated
— grossly antisemitic acts and systematically ignored cries for help
from its own terrified Jewish and Israeli employees,” the Justice
Department alleges in the lawsuit.
The suit asks a judge to force UCLA to enforce its own
anti-discrimination policies and to “award damages,” without specifying
an amount, to Jewish employees at UCLA who faced a hostile work
environment.
The university has said it has taken numerous steps toward improving
campus safety and inclusivity, including the creation of an Office of
Campus and Community Safety and new policies to manage protests on
campus. UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, whose Jewish father and
grandparents fled to Mexico to escape Nazi Germany and whose wife is the
daughter of a Holocaust survivor, launched an initiative to combat
antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias.
“We stand firmly by the decisive actions we have taken to combat
antisemitism in all its forms, and we will vigorously defend our efforts
and our unwavering commitment to providing a safe, inclusive environment
for all members of our community,” Osako said in the university's
statement.
The Trump administration has primarily focused on elite private
universities in its campaign to win obedience from campuses it accuses
of liberal and antisemitic bias. UCLA is one of the few public
universities targeted in that effort.
Last summer, the Trump administration said it was seeking $1 billion
from UCLA as part of a settlement to end federal scrutiny. Trump
officials had cut hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding
from the university, though a federal judge ordered the money to be
restored in September. In November, that same judge barred the federal
government from fining UCLA.
___
Gecker reported from San Francisco.
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