The school ‘systematically ignored cries for help from its own terrified Jewish and Israeli employees,’ according to the complaint
The Trump administration sued the University of California on Tuesday, alleging that its Los Angeles campus created a “hostile work environment” for Jewish employees and “turned a blind eye to—and at times facilitated—grossly antisemitic acts.”
“Swastikas, calls for the extermination of Jews and the Jewish state of Israel, antisemitic violence, and open harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff: this was the grim scene at the University of California Los Angeles,” the Department of Justice’s complaint read. Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, UCLA “systematically ignored cries for help from its own terrified Jewish and Israeli employees.”
The suit represents the Trump administration’s latest escalation in its battle with the University of California over campus anti-Semitism, having already frozen nearly $600 million of UCLA’s federal funding. In August, the White House demanded UCLA, which saw one of the nation’s largest anti-Israel protests, pay over $1 billion to resolve the dispute, but a federal court blocked the fine and restored the federal funding in recent months.
It’s also the Trump administration’s latest foray in its efforts to curb campus discrimination. Last month, it sued Harvard University for withholding race-related admissions data. Columbia University is still recovering from its battle with the federal government after it became the epicenter of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic campus protests in the wake of Hamas’s attack.
The Tuesday complaint highlighted examples of anti-Semitism identified by UCLA’s own task force. Its report noted that messages like “Die you fucking Jew” and “FUCK ALL Jews” were found across campus during the 2023-24 school year. A Jewish star with the words “STEP HERE” was scrawled on a sidewalk, as were various Nazi symbols.
The Trump administration also alleged that anti-Semitism affected UCLA’s hiring practices. Prosecutors said the school’s Undergraduate Students Association Council Cultural Affairs Commission included a policy stating that it had the right to remove Zionists, according to the complaint. It also noted that the council’s former commissioner, Alicia Verdugo, said, “‘lots of zionists are applying – please do your research when you look at applicants and I will also share a doc of no hire list during retreat.’”
No students “who expressed their Jewish identity were hired by the CAC in fall 2024,” federal prosecutors alleged. A student lodged a complaint, ultimately leading Verdugo to resign just days before she was scheduled to appear before the Undergraduate Students Association Judicial Board.
And while UCLA suspended its Students for Justice in Palestine and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine chapters in February after their members harassed a Hollywood talent agent and his family and vandalized their home, the Justice Department alleged that the school “failed to effectively ban” the organizations’ campus activities. The complaint said SJP “continued to organize and hold demonstrations at UCLA” throughout 2025.
UCLA has a track record of resisting efforts to punish anti-Semites—and has repeatedly found itself in hot water as a result. When hundreds of anti-Israel activists were arrested for setting up an encampment in May 2024, which included a “Jew Exclusion Zone,” the school officials failed to help prosecutors investigate the agitators. Just 2 of the 205 protesters arrested faced criminal charges.
When UCLA claimed in federal court that it didn’t have a responsibility to stop the encampment from excluding Jews, the judge condemned the school and called the exclusion zone “unimaginable and abhorrent.”
Last summer, UCLA agreed to pay more than $6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jewish students who accused the university of allowing anti-Semitic discrimination during the encampments.
UCLA’s vice chancellor for strategic communications, Mary Osako, told the Washington Free Beacon that the school’s initiatives to combat anti-Semitism “are working.” “These ongoing and long-standing institutional efforts, including clear expectations and a commitment to enforcement, are working,” she said, adding that, “we stand firmly by the decisive actions we have taken to combat antisemitism in all its forms.”
Update 7:51 p.m.: This story was updated to reflect a comment from UCLA.
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