DOJ says UCLA violated civil rights law with 'indifference' toward protecting Jewish and Israeli students

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Tuesday the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) violated civil rights laws by acting with "indifference" toward attacks on Israeli and Jewish students.

In a press release, the DOJ said that its Civil Rights Division on Tuesday “announced that the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”

“Our investigation into the University of California system has found concerning evidence of systemic anti-Semitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability from the institution,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in the release.

“This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand: DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system,” she added.

The Hill has reached out to UCLA and the University of California system for comment.

UCLA recently agreed to pay more than $6 million in a consent agreement in the wake of Jewish faculty and students bringing an antisemitism lawsuit against the university regarding its handling of pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations.

Last year, pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses erupted across the U.S. over Israel’s war in Gaza. Protesters faced accusations of antisemitism amid an already heated political climate on the issue of Israel and Palestine as the war in Gaza raged on.

The leading international authority on food crises said Tuesday via an alert that the worst-case scenario of famine was occurring in the Gaza Strip, with death and destruction of infrastructure also widespread in the territory.