UCLA allowed a hostile work environment against Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attack against Israeli civilians, alleges a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Department of Justice’s civil rights division.

“Following the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel, UCLA’s administration turned a blind eye to—and at times facilitated—grossly antisemitic acts and systematically ignored cries for help from its own terrified Jewish and Israeli employees,” the lawsuit alleges.

The complaint alleges officials engaged in employment discrimination in violation of Title VII “by failing to prevent and correct discriminatory and harassing conduct,” a Feb. 24 department news release states.

“Until the United States Department of Justice issued its notice of investigation letter to UCLA in March 2025, not a single one of the dozens of civil rights complaints filed by Jewish and Israeli employees since October 7 was properly investigated,” the lawsuit alleges.

“UCLA’s Office of Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion, tasked with oversight of all discrimination complaints, routinely ignored complaints of antisemitism,” it alleges. “…[N]ot a single student, staff member, or faculty member was ultimately formally disciplined for antisemitic behavior—including those who were arrested for illegal conduct.”

In a statement to Higher Ed Dive, UCLA Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications Mary Osako said that Chancellor Julio Frenk, who took the helm in January 2025, has taken “concrete and significant steps to strengthen campus safety, enforce policies, and combat antisemitism in a systemic and sustained manner.”

“We stand firmly by the decisive actions we have taken to combat antisemitism in all its forms, and we will vigorously defend our efforts and our unwavering commitment to providing a safe, inclusive environment for all members of our community.”

According to the DOJ’s news release, the lawsuit alleges:

In 2024, the University allowed antisemitic harassment to continue unabated for days in front of its iconic Royce Hall: among other acts, Jews were not permitted on portions of the main quad, Jewish professors were assaulted, and swastikas were graffitied on University buildings. The University has ignored, and continues to ignore, gross and repeated violations of viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions involving these and other actions directed against Jewish and Israeli employees. Jewish and Israeli faculty have been physically threatened, had their classrooms disrupted, and had their workplaces papered with disturbing images. Jewish professors have been, and continue to be, subjected to ostracism and harassment by their colleagues and students, while their colleagues and supervisors not only have failed to report those acts as required but have even participated in them. Numerous Jewish and Israeli employees have been forced to take leave, work from home, and even leave their jobs to avoid the hostile work environment.

In July 2025, the University of California system agreed to a $6.13 million settlement to end a lawsuit filed by Jewish students who were blocked from accessing parts of the UCLA campus during raucous anti-Israel protests in recent years.

The lawsuit had been filed in June 2024 by three Jewish UCLA students and a Jewish UCLA professor, arguing pro-Palestinian activists had established encampments over the spring where they enforced a “Jew Exclusion Zone,” preventing Jewish students from going to classes and accessing the library.

UCLA, in a fact sheet released regarding the settlement, said it has “taken several important and proactive steps to combat antisemitism” since the lawsuit was filed, including banning campus encampments, unauthorized structures, restrictions on free movement and identity concealment.

Despite those efforts, the Trump administration in August 2025 suspended more than $200 million in research grants to UCLA, citing antisemitism and bias concerns.  

But in November, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot use the threat to cut federal research funding to force the University of California system to comply with its bias and antisemitism reform demands.

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