Justice Department lawsuit says UCLA failed to protect Jewish employees from hostility

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is suing the University of California over allegations that UCLA failed to protect Jewish employees from antisemitic harassment amid pro-Palestinian protests that roiled the campus in 2023 and 2024.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in California, is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign to punish top universities that it says have been soft on antisemitism. The suit accuses the University of California, Los Angeles of failing to discipline those who were involved in protests, including dozens who were arrested in 2024 for failing to leave a campus encampment.

Trump officials previously determined that UCLA failed to protect Jewish students, and last year UCLA reached a $6 million settlement with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who sued the university. The new lawsuit alleges the harm to Jewish and Israeli employees “goes much deeper” than the situations that settlement addressed.

“The United States will now do what UC has thus far failed to do: protect Jewish and Israeli employees” from antisemitic harassment, said the lawsuit, which was filed against the University of California, which consists of 10 campuses, but focuses on allegations...