UCLA forced to create plan to protect Jewish students from discrimination after exclusionary Gaza camps: federal judge

On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered the University of California to craft a plan so that Jewish students would have equal access to the campus after anti-Israel activists blocked parts of the school’s Los Angeles campus and set up checkpoints.

According to a lawsuit brought by three Jewish students, the pro-Hamas activists limited their access to parts of the campus and told them they would not be able to pass unless they “disavowed Israel’s right to exist.”

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the students by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to “ensure that Jewish students will never again face such antisemitic bigotry on campus,” also described the “identification system” used by the radical activists to give out “wristbands to those who had passed their anti-Israel ideological test.”

According to the suit, UCLA’s administration ordered police to stand down and step aside and even assigned security officers to keep those who would not agree to disavow Israel’s right to exist away from the area.

Kamran Shamsa, an associate clinical professor at the university’s medical school, said that while the Gaza camp, referred to in the lawsuit as the “Jew Exclusion Zone,” was at UCLA in April “a large, masked man approached me and aggressively pushed me to the ground,” within “plain sight of at least a dozen UCLA security guards” who “did nothing to intervene,” according to Just the News.

The judge ruled that UCLA must work with Becket and co-counsel from the firm Clement & Murphy to create a plan to protect the Jewish students by August 5.

The Gaza camp was finally dismantled by police after weeks on campus and several nights of violence. It was revealed by The Bruin that UCLA had to pay in excess of $12 million to repair all the damage. According to The Center Square, the University of California spent $29 million on security and cleanup services across its ten campuses, the majority of which was spent on security.