Trump administration files fresh suit against UCLA over ‘antisemitic hostile work environment’

US accuses the California university of having been ‘deliberately indifferent to the suffering of its Jewish and Israeli students,’ days after school unveiled new plan to combat Jew hatred

The US Department of Justice sued the University of California for the second time this year over allegations of an antisemitic campus environment at UCLA, claiming the school “was deliberately indifferent to the suffering of its Jewish and Israeli students” after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

The federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday, claims UCLA violated the students’ civil rights by failing to intervene during pro-Palestinian encampment activity against Israel in early 2024. It follows an earlier suit that focused on the university’s treatment of its Jewish and Israeli employees, and comes 10 days after the university unveiled its own “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism.”

“Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” assistant US attorney general Harmeet Dhillon said in a press release. “Now, the Department of Justice calls UCLA to account for its toleration of the equally appalling hostile educational environment against its Jewish and Israeli students.”

The new suit draws on widely reported accounts of UCLA’s campus environment in spring 2024, when protesters in pro-Palestinian encampments clashed with pro-Israel counter-protesters, sparking violence and turmoil. The failure to protect Jewish students violated their Title VI civil rights, attorneys said.

Citing the report of UCLA’s own task force on antisemitism, published in response to the 2024 campus upheaval, the suit states, “UCLA’s leadership apparently preferred a do-nothing ‘de-escalation strategy’ to protecting their Jewish and Israeli students from an angry mob organized by peers armed with tasers, lumber, and a sword.”

The Justice Department is seeking several redress measures, including the return of all federal grants made to UCLA “during the time of UCLA’s noncompliance with Title VI.” The school had previously resolved several Title VI antisemitism cases under the Biden administration, and also reached a $6.13 million settlement with Jewish groups in a private suit related to the spring 2024 incidents on campus — a case cited in DOJ’s new lawsuit.

“Universities have an obligation to maintain safe and inclusive campuses for all students,” said Bill Essayli, the first assistant US attorney for the Central District of California.

“Universities that violate our nation’s civil rights laws by repeatedly failing to shield Jewish students from antisemitism will be held accountable.”

UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk rejected the allegations, saying the university had taken concrete steps to combat antisemitism on campus.

“Let me be direct: the suggestion that UCLA has been passive in the face of antisemitism is simply wrong,” Frenk said in a statement. “Combating antisemitism is a moral imperative — one rooted, for me, in personal history that makes indifference unthinkable.”

Frenk said the university had recruited an associate vice chancellor for campus and community safety, reorganized its civil rights office, appointed a Title VI officer and strengthened policies to protect free expression and campus safety.

Frenk had introduced a campus-wide initiative to combat antisemitism, which issued a report in May outlining a roadmap to address campus antisemitism and bigotry.

The university in February 2025 suspended two student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine, over their involvement in a protest at the home of University of California regent Jay Sures. The following month, the university recommended revoking SJP’s status and suspending GSJP for four years.

The Trump administration has sought to make a particular example of UCLA in its aggressive approach to campus antisemitism. Officials had sought to levy fines in excess of $1 billion against the public university for its alleged failure to protect Jewish and Israeli students, until a federal judge intervened. Several DOJ lawyers have left the department over its UCLA investigation, telling reporters the case was “fraudulent,” a “sham” and driven by pressure to “find” evidence to support further legal action against UCLA.

In addition, some of the most violent clashes on the campuses included perpetrators on both sides of the conflict, leading some members of the UCLA Jewish community to complain that pro-Israel counter-protesters ultimately undercut the Jewish students’ legitimate grievances regarding the harassment they had been facing inside the campus gates.

The campus environment for Jews remains tense. Last month, the UCLA student senate condemned a campus visit by a freed Israeli hostage, drawing blowback from a university regent.

The Justice Department announced the lawsuit shortly after a federal appeals court earlier on Tuesday partially upheld an injunction that required it to restore grants awarded to the University of California that the Trump administration had terminated last year because it perceived they supported diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

The lawsuit is the latest legal action taken by the Trump administration to crack down on antisemitism at US universities in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7 invasion of southern Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.