New Report From UCLA Antisemitism Task Force Offers Shocking Details of Anti-Jewish Harassment, Assault on Campus

The University of California, Los Angeles failed to protect its Jewish students and faculty from unbridled “harassment, bias, and discrimination,” a task force on antisemitism and anti-Israel at UCLA finds. The report, based on survey responses from 428 Jewish students, faculty, and staff at UCLA, was administered by a task force that sought to assess the experiences of Jewish community members at the California school after October 7 — and the findings are damning. According to the report, nearly 40 percent of respondents said that they had been the subject of antisemitic discrimination on campus and more than two-thirds described antisemitism on campus as “a problem or a serious problem.” The 93-page report offers harrowing details of Jewish students facing physical attacks, slurs, and vandalism. Images of UCLA’s campus littered with antisemitic graffiti — including several swastikas and threatening messages like “F*** ALL JEWS” — are included in the report. A sculpture of a pig with a clock that said “Time is Running Out,” a bag with a dollar sign, and a Jewish star surrounded with flames, was reportedly allowed to be on display on campus for an entire week. The antisemitic harassment wasn’t just perpetrated by UCLA students — the report found that numerous faculty members “engaged in and/or openly supported anti-Israeli bias or antisemitic activities” on campus. The task force reported instances of faculty members even offering extra credit for students who participated in the anti-Israel encampment or other anti-Israel related events. More than 40 percent reported that the antisemitism at UCLA had gotten so bad that they even considered leaving the school. Even with the damning evidence of antisemitism on campus — which prompted one-third of the survey respondents to submit an informal or formal complaint to the school — Jewish community members described having little luck with inspiring the university to take action on their behalf. According to the task force, the university “frequently failed to adequately address violations of laws and policies pertinent to protecting Jewish and Israeli community members.” In some instances, the report charges, the administration’s failure to act “denied Jewish affiliates of the University equal protection under the law, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” The school also reportedly violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — not to mention their own university campus rules and policies. The report offered several recommendations for the university to better protect its Jewish and Israeli community, including enhancing its antisemitism training and enforcing rule violations. The findings of the task force offer additional insight into the administration’s failures to address campus antisemitism that were first voiced over the summer in a lawsuit filed by three Jewish UCLA students. Those students allege that the university violated their civil rights by permitting the “segregation and exclusion” of Jewish students from areas at the center of campus, including classrooms and the main undergraduate library. The lawsuit describes how anti-Jewish agitators would prevent students “who refused to disavow Israel” to enter areas on campus by installing physical barriers and locking their arms together. In August, a federal district judge sided with the plaintiffs request for a preliminary injunction and ordered UCLA to take action to prevent anti-Israel protesters from barring Jews from areas on campus. The landmark ruling marks the first example of a court holding an American university responsible for permitting antisemitic and anti-Israel encampments to exist on campus.“In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” a Los Angeles district judge, Mark Scarsi, charged in his 16-page ruling. “This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating,” Judge Scarsi continued, emphasizing the point: “Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.” The university quickly released a statement condemning the ruling on the basis that the order “would improperly hamstring our ability to respond to events on the ground and to meet the needs of the Bruin community.” While the university initially appealed the decision, it later withdrew its motion. Following the release of the report, a UCLA spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that the school’s interim chancellor, Darnell Hunt, appreciated the task force’s finding and was reviewing the suggestions offered in the report.

New Report From UCLA Antisemitism Task Force Offers Shocking Details of Anti-Jewish Harassment, Assault on Campus

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