The University of California, Los Angeles, will pay more than $6 million to settle discrimination complaints that included a “Jew Exclusion Zone” on campus.
The school agreed to enter consent judgment and pay $6.13 million to the plaintiffs in the largest private settlement of its kind, the New York Post reported. It will be in effect for 15 years if approved by a judge.
“Campus administrators across the country willingly bent the knee to antisemites during the encampments,” Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and an attorney for the students, said in a statement. “They are now on notice: treating Jews like second-class citizens is wrong, illegal, and very costly. UCLA should be commended for accepting judgment against that misbehavior and setting the precedent that allowing mistreatment of Jews violates the Constitution and civil rights laws. Students across the country are safer for it.”
The settlement includes damages to each of the plaintiffs, charitable contributions to pro-Jewish organizations, and attorneys’ fees and costs. The university also agreed to a permanent court order preventing it from enabling the exclusion of Jewish students and faculty from campus, according to a press release from the Becket Fund.
Last year, a video showed masked protestors wearing keffiyehs blocking a Jewish student from entering campus, even though he was an enrolled student.
“I’m a UCLA student, I deserve to go here, we pay tuition,” the student said as he tried to pass the students to reach his class building. “This is our school and they are not letting me walk in.”
“We’re not engaging with that behavior,” one protestor replied without moving.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said the behavior was “really inappropriate,” and students “could be” expelled for discriminating against any student because of race, religion, or ethnicity.
Students sued after Block and the Board of Regents admitted they had taken no action against the protestors who blocked the Jewish student.
Yitzchok Frankel, a recent UCLA Law graduate and one of the plaintiffs in the case, called UCLA’s actions “shameful.”
“When antisemites were terrorizing Jews and excluding them from campus, UCLA chose to protect the thugs and help keep Jews out,” Frankel said in a statement. “That was shameful, and it is sad that my own school defended those actions for more than a year. But today’s court judgment brings justice back to our campus and ensures Jews will be safe and be treated equally once again.”
UCLA’s settlement comes after Columbia University agreed to pay more than $200 million to settle with the Trump administration over its handling of anti-Israel protests. Harvard University is also considering settling with the administration for $500 million over alleged civil rights violations.