Students and faculty sue administrators over last spring’s UCLA pro-Palestinian protests

Nearly a year after a mob attacked UCLA students and faculty who formed an encampment protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, participants in that encampment are suing senior officials from the University of California and UCLA, alleging that the system violated their civil rights and rights to free expression by summoning law enforcement to clear their protest.

The suit also alleges that UC officials discriminated against pro-Palestinian supporters and failed to protect members of the encampment from the attackers. The students and faculty, plus members of the public, are also suing individuals the legal team alleges attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment last April 30.

In all, 35 individuals filed suit over three events: the attack on the UCLA encampment, law enforcement’s clearing of the encampment the next day when more than 200 people were arrested, and a separate protest on June 10 in which additional students and faculty were arrested. Lawyers for the group want a trial by jury. The legal process may drag out for months, if not longer.

“I don't believe that many people fully understand the extent of the violence that was inflicted upon (the plaintiffs), both by the counter-protesters and by the police,” said Thomas Harvey, one of the lawyers representing the students and faculty filing the suit, at a press conference today. “People were beaten with 2-by-4s. People were shot in the chest. People had their fingers blown off. They sought serious medical treatment that they continue to seek today.”

Stett Holbrook, a spokesperson for the UC Office of the President, said the system knows about the lawsuit and is “currently gathering additional information.” He added that the “University of California unequivocally rejects all forms of hate, harassment and discrimination. Violence of any kind has no place at UC.”

“We have instituted system-wide reforms to promote safety and combat harassment and discrimination on our campuses,” he said. “Our focus remains to maintain a UC that is safe and welcoming to all.”

Several students and professors who are plaintiffs in the suit, including those who are Jewish, spoke at the press conference about the beatings they incurred during the April 30 melee.

“I was punched, kicked in the face, causing my lip to burst open and bleed,” said Afnan Khawaja, a recent computer science graduate from UCLA. “Later, while I was trying to reinforce our barricade, I was hit hard on the head with a wooden rod, leaving me concussed and dazed and leaving a scar on the back of my ear.”

The plaintiffs collectively seek millions of dollars in compensation from the UC and the other defendants for sustaining physical and emotional harm, Harvey said, though precise figures will emerge if a trial ensues. The suit also wants the UC to change its policies for when they summon police to break up protests.

The suit comes at a difficult time for the UC as President Donald Trump’s administration has filed inquiries into alleged antisemitism at the system’s campuses and activities that the administration says violate students’ civil rights. The UC is also staging a legal defense to fight the administration’s efforts to cut key research funding to the system and other higher education institutions nationwide. Meanwhile, UC is anticipating an 8% cut in state funding. The threat of financial turmoil prompted UC President Michael Drake to enforce a systemwide hiring freeze this week.

The 86-page suit also alleges that police were wrong to arrest protesters, arguing that police had no right to issue a dispersal order to the protesters because the order was based on campus violations, not criminal acts. Any arrests that followed were illegal, the suit argues. Next, it faults unnamed law enforcement officers for firing non-lethal projectiles at protesters. The legal team created a website compiling some of the evidence for the lawsuit. It linked to a CalMatters article that stated law enforcement appeared to have not followed its own procedures by firing at protesters’ heads.

The suit was filed Wednesday afternoon in a Los Angeles County court but so far has no case number or judge assigned. The suits' claims are similar to the accusations graduate student workers made last year in justifying their labor strike at multiple UC campuses.

Members of the legal team say they pored over hundreds of hours of video to identify some of the individuals the suit alleges attacked the encampment last year. Other individuals named were identified by media reports on CNN and elsewhere. The attack was filmed by numerous onlookers as well as local and national news media.

Some of the suit’s allegations appear to run counter to reporting by CalMatters that showed the encampment violated UCLA rules. The suit said that shutting down the encampment was “without legal justification, especially because the Plaintiffs themselves did not violate any criminal law or university policy at any point during their participation and association with the encampment.”

However, UCLA at the time had rules that generally banned camping and lodging on campus. The rules also prohibited blocking entrances and the free flow of traffic to buildings. Encampment participants slept in tents and set up barricades to limit the public’s access to doorways and the quad where the encampment was erected. Building facades were also marked with graffiti at the time of the encampment, another UCLA violation.

Campus activism continues

Pro-Palestinian activism at UCLA continues as students protest Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank. On Wednesday about 50 to 100 students unfurled large banners from a second-floor courtyard and blocked access to a stairwell at an engineering building. They were denouncing the war in Gaza and again called on UC leaders to divest the system’s $180 billion investments from weapons manufacturers and companies and assets tied to Israel.

UC police briefly swept the building but by then no protesting students were atop the courtyard or near the stairwell. No arrests were made.

The protest occurred as UC’s governing body, the UC Board of Regents, was meeting in an adjacent building. On Tuesday, the system’s chief investment officer, Jagdeep Singh Bachher, said defense companies were good investments for the system’s portfolio, which exists largely to pay for the pensions of its retirees, support the endowment, and manage short-term cash for the campuses.

“We’re looking for opportunities ... I think they’re gonna come from AI, life sciences, the technology marketplaces, growth industries, they’re gonna come from defense, they’re gonna come from drones,” said Bachher. Last year he said the UC invests about $3.3 billion in defense firms. A total of $32 billion was invested in firms and assets with ties to Israel or weapons makers. No tuition money funds UC investments.

The lawsuit states that until protesters’ demands are met, “UCLA will continue to be a site of rallies and protests, and plaintiffs are likely to encounter the same repression” unless the UC changes its practices.

Some student protesters briefly halted the regents meeting today with chants. A line of police assembled, but students cleared the meeting space on their own. No arrests were made.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.