Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Against UCLA, Stemming from Risk of Repetition of Exclusion of Jewish or Pro-Israel Students from Parts of Campus

If participants in unauthorized encampments exclude Jewish or pro-Israel students from walking in parts of campus, UCLA would then have to close those parts to everyone.

From today's order by Judge Mark Scarsi (C.D. Cal.) in Frankel v. Regents:

In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters. But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion….

On April 25, 2024, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters 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 Powell Library and Royce Hall. The encampment was rimmed with plywood and metal barriers. Protesters established checkpoints and required passersby to wear a specific wristband to cross them. News reporting indicates that the encampment's entrances were guarded by protesters, and people who supported the existence of the state of Israel were kept out of the encampment. Protesters associated with the encampment "directly interfered with instruction by blocking students' pathways to classrooms."

Plaintiffs are three Jewish students who assert they have a religious obligation to support the Jewish state of Israel. Prior to the protests, Plaintiff Frankel often made use of Royce Quad. After protesters erected the encampment, Plaintiff Frankel stopped using the Royce Quad because he believed that he could not traverse the encampment without disavowing Israel. He also saw protesters attempt to erect an encampment at the UCLA School of Law's Shapiro courtyard on June 10, 2024.

Similarly, Plaintiff Ghayoum was unable to access Powell Library because he understood that traversing the encampment, which blocked entrance to the library, carried a risk of violence. He also canceled plans to meet a friend at Ackerman Union after four protesters stopped him while he walked toward Janss Steps and repeatedly asked him if he had a wristband. Plaintiff Ghayoum also could not study at Powell Library because protesters from the encampment blocked his access to the library.

And Plaintiff Shemuelian also decided not to traverse Royce Quad because of her knowledge that she would have to disavow her religious beliefs to do so. The encampment led UCLA to effectively make certain of its programs, activities, and campus areas available to other students when UCLA knew that some Jewish students, including Plaintiffs, were excluded based of their genuinely held religious beliefs.

The encampment persisted for a week, until the early morning of May 2, when UCLA directed the UCLA Police Department and outside law enforcement agencies to enter and clear the encampment. Since UCLA dismantled the encampment, protesters have continued to attempt to disrupt campus. For example, on May 6, protesters briefly occupied areas of the campus. And on May 23, protesters established a new encampment, "erecting barricades, establishing fortifications and blocking access to parts of the campus and buildings," and "disrupting campus operations."

Most recently, on June 10, protesters "set up an unauthorized and unlawful encampment with tents, canopies, wooden shields, and water-filled barriers" on campus. These protesters "restricted access to the general public" and "disrupted nearby final exams." Some students "miss[ed] finals because they were blocked from entering classrooms," and others were "evacuated in the middle" of finals.

Based on these facts and other allegations, Plaintiffs assert claims for violations of their federal constitutional rights, including violation of the Equal Protection Clause, the Free Speech Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause; claims for violations of their federal civil rights, including violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, conspiracy to interfere with civil rights, and failure to prevent conspiracy; claims for violations of their state constitutional rights, including violation of the California Equal Protection Clause and the California Free Exercise Clause; and claims for violations of their state civil rights, including violations of section 220 of the California Education Code, the Ralph Civil Rights Act of 1976, and the Bane Civil Rights Act….

The court rejected UCLA's standing objections, in part reasoning:

UCLA argues that Plaintiffs lack standing because they fail to allege an imminent likelihood of future injury…. UCLA contends that its remedial actions following the Royce Quad encampment make any "future injury speculative at best." These actions include the creation of a new Office of Campus Safety and the transfer of day-to-day responsibility for campus safety to an Emergency Operations Center. The changes, while commendable, do not minimize the risk that Plaintiffs "will again be wronged" by their exclusion from UCLA's ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas based on their sincerely held religious beliefs below "a sufficient likelihood."

First, since UCLA's changes, protesters have violated UCLA's protest rules at least three times: on May 6, May 23, and June 10. While these events may not have been as disruptive as the Royce Quad encampment, according to a UCLA email, the June 10 events "disrupted final exams," temporarily blocked off multiple areas of campus, and persisted from 3:15 p.m. to the evening. Similarly, also according to UCLA emails, the May 6 and 23 events disrupted access to several campus areas. Further, any relative quiet on UCLA's campus the past few months is belied by the facts that fewer people are on a university campus during the summer and that the armed conflict in Gaza continues.

Finally, while UCLA's focus on safety is compelling, UCLA has failed to assuage the Plaintiffs' concerns that some Jewish students may be excluded from UCLA's ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas based on their sincerely held religious beliefs should exclusionary encampments return. In response to these concerns raised at the hearing, UCLA did "not state[] affirmatively that" they "will not" provide ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas to non-Jewish students if protesters return and exclude Jewish students.

It remains to be seen how effective UCLA's policy changes will be with a full campus. While the May and June protests do not appear to have resulted in the same religious-belief-based exclusion as the prior encampment that gives rise to the Plaintiffs' free exercise concerns, the Court perceives an imminent risk that such exclusion will return in the fall with students, staff, faculty, and non-UCLA community members. As such, given that when government action "implicates First Amendment rights, the inquiry tilts dramatically toward a finding of standing," the Court finds that Plaintiffs have sufficiently shown an imminent likelihood of future injury for standing purposes….

And the court concluded that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their Free Exercise Clause claim (and thus declined to consider any of the other claims):

The Free Exercise Clause … "'protect[s] religious observers against unequal treatment' and subjects to the strictest scrutiny laws that target the religious for 'special disabilities' based on their 'religious status.'" "[A] State violates the Free Exercise Clause when it excludes religious observers from otherwise available public benefits." …

Here, UCLA made available certain of its programs, activities, and campus areas when certain students, including Plaintiffs, were excluded because of their genuinely held religious beliefs. For example, Plaintiff Frankel could not walk through Royce Quad because entering the encampment required disavowing the state of Israel. Similarly, Plaintiff Ghayoum was prevented from entering a campus area at a protester checkpoint, and Plaintiff Shemuelian could not traverse Royce Quad, unlike other students…. Plaintiffs' exclusion from campus resources while other students retained access raises serious questions going to the merits of their free exercise claim….

Plaintiffs have put forward a colorable claim that UCLA's acts violated their Free Exercise Clause rights. Further, given the risk that protests will return in the fall that will again restrict certain Jewish students' access to ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas, the Court finds that Plaintiffs are likely to suffer an irreparable injury absent a preliminary injunction…….

Under the Court's injunction, UCLA retains flexibility to administer the university. Specifically, the injunction does not mandate any specific policies and procedures UCLA must put in place, nor does it dictate any specific acts UCLA must take in response to campus protests. Rather, the injunction requires only that, if any part of UCLA's ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas become unavailable to certain Jewish students, UCLA must stop providing those ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas to any students. How best to make any unavailable programs, activities, and campus areas available again is left to UCLA's discretion….

The court therefore issued the following order:

[1.] Defendants Drake, Block, Hunt, Beck, Gordon, and Braziel ("Defendants") are prohibited from offering any ordinarily available programs, activities, or campus areas to students if Defendants know the ordinarily available programs, activities, or campus areas are not fully and equally accessible to Jewish students.

[2.] Defendants are prohibited from knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students from ordinarily available portions of UCLA's programs, activities, and campus areas, whether as a result of a de-escalation strategy or otherwise.

[3.] On or before August 15, 2024, Defendants shall instruct Student Affairs Mitigator/Monitor ("SAM") and any and all campus security teams (including without limitation UCPD and UCLA Security) that they are not to aid or participate in any obstruction of access for Jewish students to ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas.

[4.] For purposes of this order, all references to the exclusion of Jewish students shall include exclusion of Jewish students based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.

[5.] Nothing in this order prevents Defendants from excluding Jewish students from ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas pursuant to UCLA code of conduct standards applicable to all UCLA students.

[6.] Absent a stay of this injunction by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, this preliminary injunction shall take effect on August 15, 2024, and remain in effect pending trial in this action or further order of this Court or the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The court also noted:

[T]his case [is not] about the content or viewpoints contained in any protest or counterprotest slogans or other expressive conduct, which are generally protected by the First Amendment. See Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 358 (2003) ("The hallmark of the protection of free speech is to allow 'free trade in ideas'—even ideas that the overwhelming majority of people might find distasteful or discomforting." (quoting Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting)); see also Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414 (1989) ("If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.").

Amanda G. Dixon, Richard C. Osborne, Eric C. Rassbach, Mark L. Rienzi, Laura W. Slavis, and Jordan T. Varberg of the Becket Fund and Erin E. Murphy, Matthew David Rowen, and former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement (Clement & Murphy, LLC) represent plaintiffs.