UCLA Can’t Let Protesters Block Jewish Students From Campus, Judge Rules – The Forward

A federal judge has ordered UCLA to take action against encampments that block access to pro-Israel students, accepting the Jewish students’ claim that it violates their religious beliefs.

In issuing a preliminary injunction against the university, Judge Mark Scarsi criticized its handling of the pro-Palestinian encampment that UCLA students set up on campus in April.

“Jewish students were barred from parts of the UCLA campus because they refused to renounce their faith,” Scarsi wrote. “This is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating.”

UCLA’s Royce Quad encampment became a national flashpoint when similar protests began popping up on college campuses across the country in April. Unlike deans at other universities who quickly called in law enforcement to dismantle them, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block initially allowed the encampment to remain in place, and campus security officers were stationed around its perimeter to de-escalate any confrontations with counterprotesters.

Over the course of a week, the encampment grew to occupy the entire quadrangle, with encampment leaders erecting wooden and steel barriers around them and allowing entry only to members with wristbands. Because the quadrangle adjoins Powell Library, the largest undergraduate library on campus, students without wristbands were unable to access its main entrance.

Police dismantled the encampment on May 2, a day after a group of pro-Israel agitators attacked it, throwing fireworks, poles and other objects.

In their complaint, three Jewish students said that camp leaders demanded that they renounce Israel and Zionism in order to pass. When they refused, they were denied entry.

One of the plaintiffs, Yitzchok Frankel, said in the lawsuit that as an Orthodox Jew, Jewish law required Zionist beliefs and prohibited him from denying Israel. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed’s opiniona contemporary religious-Zionist compiler of Jewish law, according to which one may not speak ill of Israel, as well as a view in the Talmud that the Jewish people were punished in the Hebrew Bible because the Twelve Spies slandered the land of Israel. (You can read the full trial here.)

Judges are not allowed to question the truth of religious claims — they must only ensure that they are sincere, according to Michael Helfand, a professor at Pepperdine School of Law who has written extensively on the intersection of church and state.

“Whether it is true or not that Judaism requires these things or does not require them is not a question for the judges to engage in,” Helfand said.

Scarsi, a Federalist Society member appointed by former President Trump, demanded that the school inform campus security that she cannot assist or participate in any activities. obstruction of access in the future.

The school had requested a different injunction in a Note of August 5 before the court, committing to prohibiting any demonstration involving overnight camping and to dismantling any encampment obstructing access to buildings or walkways within 24 hours of being reported.

However, under Scarsi’s injunction, such encampments would be permitted as long as they allow all students to pass through them.

Mark Rienzi, chairman of Becket Law, a religious liberty firm that represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement Tuesday that UCLA had allowed “anti-Semitic thugs to terrorize Jews on campus.”

“Today’s decision signals that UCLA’s policy of helping anti-Semitic activists target Jews is not only morally wrong, but also a flagrant violation of the Constitution,” Rienzi said. “UCLA should stop fighting the Constitution and start protecting Jews on campus.”

Lawyers representing the university did not respond to a request for comment.