
UCLA Settles Lawsuit With Jewish Students for $6.45M
The University of California, Los Angeles, agreed to pay $6.45 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jewish students, the Los Angeles Times reported. The agreement, which would be in effect for 15 years, now awaits approval from the judge overseeing the case.
The lawsuit, brought by three Jewish students and a medical school professor in June 2024, alleged UCLA enabled pro-Palestinian activists to cut off Jewish students’ access to parts of campus, violating their civil rights.
Violence broke out in and around an encampment established at UCLA in spring 2024 when pro-Israel counterprotesters attacked it with fireworks and other projectiles. Hours of chaos ensued between protesters and counterprotesters before campus police intervened. UCLA’s former chancellor Gene D. Block, named in the lawsuit alongside other UCLA officials, was among the higher ed leaders called before Congress for campus antisemitism hearings.
As part of the settlement agreement, each plaintiff will receive $50,000. Another $320,000 will go toward a campus initiative to combat antisemitism. About $2.3 million will be donated to eight different Jewish community and advocacy groups, including Hillel at UCLA, the Academic Engagement Network, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation Los Angeles Campus Impact Network and the Film Collaborative Inc., to produce a film related to the Holocaust.
UCLA also agreed that it is “prohibited from knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students, faculty, and/or staff from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities, and/or campus areas,” which includes “exclusion … based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.”
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