On April 25, 2024, a group of pro-Palestine protestors occupied a portion of the UCLA campus known as Royce Quad and established an encampment. Royce Quad is a major thoroughfare and gathering place, and borders several campus buildings, including the library. The encampment was rimmed with plywood and metal barriers, and protestors established checkpoints and required passersby to wear a specific wristband to cross through. The encampment entrances were guarded by protestors. People who supported the existence of the state of Israel were kept out of the encampment. Protestors blocked students’ pathways to classroom.
Three Jewish students filed suit against UCLA, asserting that they had a religious obligation to support the Jewish state of Israel and felt as though they could not cross the encampment or access the library without disavowing Israel or subjecting themselves to a risk of violence. The encampment lasted for a week, at which point UCLA directed the ULCA Police Department and outside law enforcement agencies to enter and clear the encampment.
Since the encampment, protestors have continued to attempt to disrupt campus, including briefly occupying areas of campus and erecting barricades to block access to parts of campus. Most recently, on June 10, protestors set up an unauthorized encampment with tents, wooden shields, and water-filled barriers that restricted access to the general public and disrupted final exams.
Based on these facts, the three Jewish students asserted a variety of claims including violations of their constitutional rights, such as the Equal Protection Clause, the Free Speech Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause; claims for violations of their federal civil rights, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act; and claims for violations of their state constitutional and civil rights under California law.
In response, UCLA challenged the Jewish students’ standing to sue. UCLA argued that the students failed to allege an imminent likelihood of future injury because their remedial actions following the encampment made any future injury speculative at best. UCLA created a new Office of Campus Safety and transferred day-to-day responsibility for campus safety to an Emergency Operations Center. The Court found that while these actions were commendable, they did not minimize the risks that the students would not be excluded from UCLA’s ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas based on their sincerely held religious beliefs. The Court noted that as recently as June 10, students’ final exams were disrupted and access to campus was diminished. Furthermore, the relative quiet on UCLA’s campus over the last few months could be attributed to the summer break. It therefore remains to be seen how effective the policy changes would be with a full campus.
UCLA also challenged the students’ standing to sue on the grounds that the students did not plead facts demonstrating that UCLA would be the cause of any future injury that they would suffer. To have standing, a plaintiff must show that the injury is fairly traceable to the action of the defendant, and not some independent action of a third party. Here, the Court found that UCLA misconstrued the students’ injuries. The injuries were not just exclusion from certain programs, activities, and campus areas; rather, the injuries were that these programs, activities, and campus areas were provided to other students knowing that the plaintiffs and students like them were excluded based on their religious exercise.
The Court determined that the students had standing to sue, and next considered the merits of the students’ claim. For a court to order a preliminary injunction, the moving party must show that they are likely to succeed on the merits, they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of the relief, the balance of equities tips in their favor, and an injunction is in the public interest.
Here, the Court found that the students had met this burden. UCLA, a state actor, excluded certain students from campus resources while others retained access to those resources, raising questions about the Jewish students’ rights to freely exercise their religion. The likelihood of injury was high, with the Court finding that there was a risk that protests will return in the fall that will again restrict certain Jewish students’ access to programs, activities, and campus areas. The Court balanced the equities and found that the potential infringement on constitutional violations weighed in favor of the Jewish students.
As a result, the Court issued the preliminary injunction. UCLA retained the flexibility to administer the University and the Court did not require specific policies, procedures, or acts that UCLA must take in response to the protests. However, the injunction requires that if any of UCLA’s ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas become unavailable to certain Jewish students, UCLA must stop providing those programs, activities, and areas to all students. How to make those unavailable programs, activities, and campus areas available again is left to UCLA’s discretion.
Note: Although UCLA is not a private educational institution, student protests and encampments are occurring at schools across the nation. Private and public school high school students in California have free speech rights, and schools must navigate the complexities of allowing for student free speech while also ensuring that students are not being treated less favorably based upon their protected classifications, such as national origin or religion.
Frankel v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. (C.D.Cal. Aug. 13, 2024) 2024 U.S.Dist.LEXIS 146433.