UCLA settles discrimination lawsuit over ‘Jew Exclusion Zone’ for $6M

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has agreed to pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jewish students and faculty members over the school’s handling of anti-Israel protests, including allowing protesters to ban Jews from a part of the campus known as a “Jew Exclusion Zone.”

The lawsuit was brought last year by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which accused UCLA of “aiding and abetting” an antisemitic culture, including “segregating Jewish students and preventing them from accessing the heart of campus.” 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Mary Osako, the UCLA vice chancellor for strategic communications, said the university has taken “concrete action to enhance campus safety by creating a new Office of Campus and Community Safety, instituting new policies to manage protests on campus and taking decisive action for conduct that violates our longstanding policies.”

EDUCATION SECRETARY LINDA MCMAHON TOUTS COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S $200M SETTLEMENT ‘TEMPLATE’

More protests and arrests emerged at UCLA May 6, 2024, with police arresting multiple people who gathered in a campus parking garage.  (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

“Antisemitism has no place at UCLA, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to eradicating it from our community,” Osako said. “We have reflected candidly on our progress and are working to expunge antisemitism from our community in its entirety.

“These efforts have been supplemented by our continuing work to eliminate antisemitism completely and definitively through our Initiative to Combat Antisemitism,” she added. “This work, and today’s settlement, represent an important next step as we build upon our past efforts and stride toward fulfilling our promise of being an exemplary university.”

The university agreed to enter into a consent judgment and pay more than $6.13 million to the plaintiffs. A federal judge still needs to give final approval.  

In August 2024, a federal judge ordered the school to stop allowing anti-Israel protesters to ban Jews from portions of the school’s campus. School officials acknowledged that students had been physically blocked from accessing parts of campus.

UCLA student Eli Tsives on video getting blocked from going to class by what looked like a group of anti-Israel protesters. The school has agreed to pay more than $6 million to settle discrimination complaints brought by Jewish students and faculty.  (Credit: Eli Tsives/Facebook)

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Protesters gather outside an anti-Israel encampment on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)

“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 federal court found at the time. 

“This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.”

Yitzchok Frankel, then a third-year law student at UCLA and father of four who said he faced antisemitic harassment for wearing a kippah, was forced to abandon his regular routes through campus because of the Jew Exclusion Zone. 

“When antisemites were terrorizing Jews and excluding them from campus, UCLA chose to protect the thugs and help keep Jews out,” Frankel said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital by the Becket Fund. “That was shameful, and it is sad that my own school defended those actions for more than a year. But today’s court judgment brings justice back to our campus and ensures Jews will be safe and be treated equally once again.”

Mark Rienzi, president of Becket and an attorney for the students involved in the lawsuit, said campus administrators across the country bent their knees to antisemites as encampments spread across college campuses. 

Graffiti at the Powell Library on the UCLA campus, where anti-Israel demonstrators erected an encampment April 29, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Getty Images)

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“They are now on notice: Treating Jews like second-class citizens is wrong, illegal and very costly,” he said. “UCLA should be commended for accepting judgment against that misbehavior and setting the precedent that allowing mistreatment of Jews violates the Constitution and civil rights laws. Students across the country are safer for it.”

Fox News Digital’s Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.