The Trump administration on Tuesday sued the University of California, alleging that UCLA is \u201cdeliberately indifferent\u201d to antisemitic harassment of Jewish students, marking the government\u2019s third lawsuit against the UC this year and a sharp escalation of federal civil rights pressure on the nation\u2019s largest public research university system.<\/p>\n
The 53-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges UCLA violated federal civil rights by tolerating a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel. The attack prompted Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, which drew widespread student protests and pro-Palestinian encampments in the spring, including one at UCLA that was the site of a violent melee<\/a> the night of April 30, 2024.<\/p>\n The government is asking the court to force UCLA to repay federal grant money going back more than two years \u2014 potentially hundreds of millions of dollars \u2014 bar it from new federal contracts until it\u2019s deemed in compliance with civil rights law, and install an independent court-appointed monitor that would oversee its civil rights practices. The department is also asking for the court to force reforms to UCLA\u2019s antidiscrimination procedures.<\/p>\n The demands are much narrower than the wide-reaching changes to campus policies and culture the Trump administration sought from UCLA in August 2025, when it unsuccessfully proposed the university pay roughly $1.2 billion to settle allegations of civil rights violations.<\/p>\n The suit centers on the encampment, alleging masked demonstrators \u201ckicked and slapped Jews, beat Jews with sticks, and assaulted Jews with pepper spray.\u201d The Trump administration said UCLA leaders \u201ctook no serious action whatsoever\u201d until May 2, 2024, when police cleared the camp.<\/p>\n The legal filing also alleges that campus leaders have failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students up through this year. To make the case, court documents cite rallies held by Students for Justice in Palestine groups, which are banned as formal UCLA organizations but have continued to hold unauthorized protests on campus. The group includes members and supporters who are Jewish.<\/p>\n \u201cEarlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic<\/a> hostile work environment,\u201d Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department\u2019s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. \u201cNow, the Department of Justice calls UCLA to account for its toleration of the equally appalling hostile educational environment against its Jewish and Israeli students.\u201d<\/p>\n Responding to the suit Tuesday, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said, \u201cthe suggestion that UCLA has been passive in the face of antisemitism is simply wrong. Combating antisemitism is a moral imperative \u2014 one rooted, for me, in personal history that makes indifference unthinkable.\u201d Frenk\u2019s grandparents fled Nazi Germany and his wife, Felicia Knaul, is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the past year alone, we\u2019ve taken numerous concrete actions to combat antisemitism. We recruited an associate vice chancellor for campus and community safety. We reorganized our civil rights office. We appointed a Title VI officer. And we strengthened our policies to protect both free expression and the safety of every member of our community,\u201d Frenk said.<\/p>\n In a separate statement, UC President James B. Milliken said it was \u201cso disappointing that this most recent lawsuit shows no recognition of or respect\u201d for antidiscrimination efforts under Frenk.<\/p>\n \u201cThis litigation \u2014 and other actions taken by the federal government targeting the University of California \u2014 does nothing to aid our ongoing efforts to address antisemitism and create safe and welcoming campus environments for all members of our community,\u201d Milliken said.<\/p>\n The Justice Department filed its suit the same morning that Frenk gave his first \u201cstate of campus\u201d annual address. The chancellor did not mention the court case in his speech. But he said UCLA was focused on combating antisemitism and \u201call forms of hatred and bigotry.\u201d Frenk said UCLA, during his tenure that began in January of last year, has been focused on replacing \u201cgood intentions with specific actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Suit cites UCLA\u2019s antisemitism task force<\/p>\n The suit draws several of its allegations from a 2024 report produced by UCLA\u2019s former Task Force on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, which late that fall faulted UCLA for \u201cbroad-based perceptions of antisemitic and anti-Israeli bias on campus.\u201d <\/p>\n That group transformed into UCLA\u2019s Initiative to Combat Antisemitism, which produced a report this month saying UCLA has made strides in improving campus culture, including new training and reforms to the civil rights complaint system, while still having more work to do.<\/p>\n In the wake of campus protests in 2024, UCLA also commissioned a task force on anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism, which found \u201cincreased harassment, violence, and targeting\u201d of those groups since 2024 and suggested reforms to policing and protest rules on campus that it said unfairly targeted pro-Palestinian voices. The Justice Department\u2019s lawsuit does not address those concerns.<\/p>\n The new legal filing adds to a growing list of Justice Department actions against UC this year. <\/p>\n