UCLA activists, including students and faculty, announced Thursday that they are suing the school, alleging administrators failed to protect protestors at a campus pro-Palestinian encampment last school year.
Plaintiffs in the civil rights suit allege they experienced serious physical and verbal attacks, including sexual assault and being beaten, by both police and counterprotesters who attacked their encampment in April 2024, attorneys said.
The civil rights suit against counterprotestors, several police agencies and the university was announced Thursday at a news conference by the UCLA Luskin Conference Center, held by the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA). The UC Board of Regents were meeting at the center this week.
After the Israel-Hamas conflict unfolded in late 2023, pro-Palestinian protestors at UCLA set up a “Palestine Solidarity Encampment” near Royce Quad and held numerous protests in April 2024, echoing many college campuses across the country. Tensions were high as the activists, demanding their school divest and sever ties with Israeli entities, clashed with counterprotesters. Late on April 30, violence broke out as counterprotestors stormed the encampment, resulting in multiple injuries. Later, police in riot gear moved in to clear the encampment, resulting in over 200 arrests.
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The violence prompted an investigation, and in part led to the replacement of UCLA’s police chief and increased safety measures at all UC schools.
Several plaintiffs claimed they had severe, lasting injuries; some from being hit with rubber bullets; others pepper-sprayed in the attack.
Thistle Boosinger, a drummer, said that a counterprotester shattered her hand, leading to chronic pain and the loss of income.
“I am drowning in debt that piles up faster than I can pay it off, and I still cannot play drums, write, type, ride a bike, play sports, or even lay my hand flat on a table, or make a fist without terrible pain,” Boosinger said. “This has compromised my life and my emotional well-being in so many devastating and difficult ways.”
Another claim described a jumbotron playing clips with “graphic descriptions of rape and sexual violence, sounds of gunshots, screaming babies, clips of President Biden pledging unconditional support for Israel,” and amplified music, such as a loop of the children’s song ‘Meni Mamtera,’ which Israeli soldiers reportedly used to torture Palestinian captives.
A portion of the lawsuit also focused on the “militarization” of the campus, which plaintiffs argue violates the UC’s previous commitments to limit police involvement on campus, and leaves students of color more vulnerable.
The lawsuit, which includes 35 UCLA pro-Palestinian students, faculty, community members, reporters and legal observers, “seeks to hold those who engaged in violence, harassment, and intimidation against Palestine solidarity activists accountable, and remedy the failure to protect activists,” CAIR-CA officials said.
A 2024 CAIR study revealed that 1 in 2 Muslim students reported harassment at California colleges. In its annual civil rights report, released this month, the organization said Islamophobia is at an “all-time high” nationwide, and CAIR’s California offices receive the highest number of anti-Muslim discrimination complaints.
The report also claims a surge — 71.5% — in law enforcement encounters, coinciding with “student-led anti-genocide protests” at universities.
Reported hate against Jewish communities also rose over 50%, a 2024 report from the California Department of Justice said.
At Thursday’s news conference, plaintiffs shared personal accounts of the reported violence last spring.
Afnan Khawaja, a computer science major who graduated in December, said that his final year at UCLA left him with “scars no degree could ever justify.”
Khawaja described the physical abuse he sustained the night of April 30. He said he was punched, pepper sprayed, kicked in the face, and hit in the head with a wooden rod and was among multiple pro-Palestinian plaintiffs claiming they were attacked by counter protesters for around four hours, and alleging that UCLA did nothing to stop it.
“The true violence (was) the silence of an institution that called itself the number one university,” Khawaja said. “UCLA administration watched in merciless action as we were hunted on our own campus by organized Zionist mobs.”
One Jewish lawsuit plaintiff was “appalled” by the “antisemitism coming from the university,” and the “silencing of Jewish voices that criticize Israel.”
“I personally had to douse eye after eye of crying students and faculty with whatever milk or saline we could find,” said Binyamin Moryosef, who is a fourth-year English major. “They stood by until we had saved ourselves, and then they just shoved us as if we had started this violence.”
Daniel Gold, the executive director for UCLA Hillel, which claims to be a “home away from home at UCLA for all Jewish students.“ declined to comment on the new suit, or on Jewish students’ claims of being silenced.
On Thursday, university officials said they are aware of the CAIR-CA civil suit, and are “gathering more information.”
“We want to be clear: the University of California unequivocally rejects all forms of hate, harassment and discrimination. Violence of any kind has no place at UC,” said spokesperson Stett Holbrook by email. “We have instituted system-wide reforms to promote safety and combat harassment and discrimination on our campuses. Our focus remains to maintain a UC that is safe and welcoming to all.”
The Westwood university is tied up in several lawsuits related to last year’s violent protests.
Last summer, three Jewish UCLA students and a professor filed a civil lawsuit. alleging they were harassed and excluded from critical parts of campus during the first Palestine Solidarity Encampment. Afterwards, a federal judge ruled that UCLA must take action to prevent alleged “antisemitic zones” and create equal access for students.
The June 2024 suit against the UC Regents and UCLA alleges that pro-Palestinian activists within the encampment used checkpoints, built barriers and locked arms to prevent Jewish students from passing through — despite reports of some Jewish student groups, like Jewish Voice for Peace UCLA, joining the protests.
Last October, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against UCLA for shutting down the Palestine Solidarity Encampment, “unlawfully arresting (activists) engaged in nonviolent demonstration” and “violating students’ rights to free speech and expression.”
More recently, President Donald Trump announced a federal task force to investigate claims of antisemitism at 10 university campuses, including both UCLA and USC, during last year’s protests.
The Justice Department also announced this month that, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it will investigate the UC to assess whether the university system “engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, religion and national origin” against faculty and staff, by “allowing an antisemitic hostile work environment to exist” on its campuses.
And earlier this week, federal prosecutors filed letters of support for the lawsuit claiming UCLA failed to protect Jewish students and faculty from unlawful discrimination.
At Thursday’s presser, Robin D.G. Kelley, a member of a UCLA task force on anti-Palestinian and Muslim racism, shared that a year-long investigation showed that “UCLA is an unsafe environment for students and faculty” who advocate for Palestinian human rights.
Kelley and another member of the task force alleged that their reports on anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim racism have not been heard.
A similar UCLA task force to combat antisemitism and anti-Israel bias was also formed.
In the newest civil suit, plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for emotional distress, physical injury, loss of income, and pain and suffering. Other demands include that the clearing of the pro-Palestinian encampment and hundreds of arrests that ensued be declared illegal, among other demands.
On March 11, a protest was held on the UCLA campus following the arrest of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil.
Many civil rights activists worry these moves could signal the start of limiting free speech. The Trump administration has already promised further prosecution of other pro-Palestine protesters on other U.S. college campuses.
CAIR and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee have designated UCLA as an “institution of particular concern,” claiming the school created a hostile campus environment for Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and Jewish students and staff who “oppose Israel’s genocide” in Gaza.
Dina Chehata, an attorney with CAIR-LA, called the lawsuit “a strong reminder to UCLA and every thug, whether you’re attacking students at a public university, or issuing orders from the oval office: free speech in this country should never be silenced just because you don’t agree with it, plain and simple.”
“For a university whose motto is ‘Fiat Lux,’ or ‘Let There Be Light,’ that night of terror will be remembered as one of the darkest moments in UCLA’s history,” Chehata said.
The full suit can be found at www.peoplevucla.com/complaint.
Staff writer Allyson Vergara and City News Service contributed to this report.
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