In a mid-August ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi ruled in favor of three Jewish students who had accused the University of California-Los Angeles of permitting antisemitic harassment and illegal exclusion during last year's protests on campus. The students said pro-Palestinian protesters set up blockades and barricades, then required fellow students to voice support for their cause to enter and pass through.
The three Jewish students called the blockade a “Jewish Exclusion Zone” that blocked their access to Dickson Plaza, the central area on campus, and to the main undergraduate library on campus, Powell Library.
“Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” the judge wrote in his ruling. “This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.”
Naya Lekht is an expert on Zionism and antisemitism at the Institute for Global Studies of Antisemitism & Policy. She tells AFN there is no way to know what UCLA, which permitted the student encampment, will do if protests start again.
“I'm really hopeful that once the school year starts, we have become smarter and better prepared, but we just won't know,” she says.
According to a related article by the student newspaper, The Daily Bruin, UCLA filed an appeal to Judge Scarsi’s injunction but withdrew it late last week citing its new directives on campus protests.
In a statement, UC President Michael Drake said the university will no longer tolerate encampments, or protests that block student movements, or protesters who wear masks to hide their identities.
Asked about her prediction for the new school year, Lekht says antisemitism is not going away but it won’t be openly expressed like it was on the UCLA campus last spring.
