Three Jewish students at UCLA have filed a lawsuit against the university, claiming they faced severe antisemitism following the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel. Beckett Law and Clement & Murphy, PLLC, are representing the students in Frankel v. The Regents of the University of California.
The lawsuit alleges that pro-Hamas/anti-Israel protesters created a “Jewish Exclusion Zone” on the Los Angeles campus by setting up barricades and linking arms to block Jewish students from accessing key campus areas. Protesters also conducted ideological tests, allowing only those with anti-Israel views to pass through their “checkpoints” unimpeded.
Jewish students reported harassment and assaults. Yitzchok Frankel, a law student, was forced to find alternate routes to his classes. Sophomore Joshua Ghayoum missed classes and study sessions due to the exclusion zone, and Eden Shemuelian had difficulty reaching her final exams.
Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Beckett, criticized UCLA’s response, saying, “If masked agitators had excluded any other marginalized group at UCLA, Governor Newsom rightly would have sent in the National Guard immediately. But UCLA instead caved to the anti-Semitic activists and allowed its Jewish students to be segregated from the heart of their own campus.”
The lawsuit claims that UCLA’s actions violated the California Constitution by discriminating against Jewish students, causing them to lose access to educational opportunities and suffer emotional and physical stress. The primary goal of the lawsuit is to hold UCLA accountable and prevent such discrimination from occurring again.
Apparently, UCLA’s new motto is “Equal Access for All — Except on Tuesdays, Thursdays or if you’re Jewish.”
