UCLA has launched an initiative to combat campus antisemitism following the Trump administration pulling millions of dollars in grants from Columbia University for their failure to address the harassment of Jewish students.
“Antisemitism has no place in our society — and no place at UCLA. It threatens the mission of academia and is antithetical to the values that define the very essence of a university,” Chancellor Julio Frenk wrote in a campus statement. “Everyone deserves the right to learn, teach, work and live in a community that is free from discrimination and bigotry. With honest reflection, it is clear that while we have made progress in addressing antisemitism, we have more to do in our shared goal of eradicating it in its entirety.”
Frenk went on to announce an “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism” to “mobilize our broad community and propel our efforts in this area.”
“UCLA is at an inflection point,” he added. “Building on past efforts and lessons, we must now push ourselves to extinguish antisemitism, completely and definitively. The principles on which UCLA was founded — and which we continue to advance — point us toward a clear course of action: We must persevere in our fight to end hate, however it manifests itself. This is an opportunity for UCLA to rise to the challenge of being an exemplary university.”
Last year, a Jewish student filed a lawsuit against UCLA, alleging the university committed civil rights violations. According to the lawsuit, the university enabled “dangerous condition[s]” at the campus and states that students want to be “safe and free from campus terrorism and anti-Semitism.”
The suit adds that the Palestine protests were “enabled by and perpetrated under the university’s watchful eyes to such an extent that the Jewish students and faculty were so fearful for their lives and safety that they could not go into the university’s town square or anywhere else on campus without being verbally or physically assaulted by the campus terrorists.”
UCLA suspended two pro-Palestine groups in February after they threatened a pro-Israel member of the University of California Board of Regents.
