The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against the University of California, Los Angeles on Tuesday for “deliberate indifference” to “race and national origin discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students.”

In its complaint, filed in the Central District of California, the DOJ accuses UCLA of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits discrimination against or otherwise excluding individuals on the basis of race, color, or national origin” for any programs receiving federal funding.

“After the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, antisemitic hatred against UCLA’s Jewish and Israeli students reached a point where students were physically assaulted, injured, excluded from campus, and deprived of educational opportunities because of their perceived Jewish or Israeli heritage,” the DOJ’s press release reads. “As alleged in the United States’ complaint, UCLA violated Title VI through its deliberate indifference to this pervasive on-campus antisemitism. UCLA also breached its funding contracts and grants with the United States by certifying the school’s compliance with its Title VI duties to protect all students from unlawful discrimination while allowing discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students to infect its campus.”

The complaint sites the “flash point” of UCLA’s “tolerance of antisemitism” as April 2024 “when masked demonstrators erected an encampment outside of Royce Hall and slapped, kicked, beat with sticks, doused with pepper spray, and knocked unconscious Jewish and Israeli students.” Demonstrators also erected “human phalanxes” to block Jewish and Israeli students from entering campus buildings.

“Universities have an obligation to maintain safe and inclusive campuses for all students,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California said in the press release. “Universities that violate our nation’s civil rights laws by repeatedly failing to shield Jewish students from antisemitism will be held accountable.”

UCLA’s Chancellor, Dr. Julio Frenk, issued a statement in response to the DOJ’s lawsuit:

Let me be direct: the suggestion that UCLA has been passive in the face of antisemitism is simply wrong. Combating antisemitism is a moral imperative — one rooted, for me, in personal history that makes indifference unthinkable. In the past year alone, we’ve taken numerous concrete actions to combat antisemitism. We recruited an associate vice chancellor for campus and community safety. We reorganized our Civil Rights Office. We appointed a Title VI officer. And we strengthened our policies to protect both free expression and the safety of every member of our community.

On Feb. 24, 2026, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division filed a separate suit against the University of California for “engaging in a hostile work environment against Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff” at UCLA “in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

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