Students, Faculty Sue UCLA for Violating Free Speech Rights

LOS ANGELES, OCTOBER 22, 2024 – Today, two students and two faculty members at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) filed suit against the UC Regents for violating their rights to free speech and expression and for unlawfully arresting students and faculty engaged in nonviolent demonstration at a campus encampment last spring.

Like at many other colleges across the nation, UCLA students erected an encampment on campus protesting certain actions of the State of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces and the university’s financial entanglements with those actions. UCLA historians described the Palestine Solidarity Encampment as an “orderly and self-disciplined environment” and which “seemed to have the support of the university administration.”

But on May 2, less than two days after a mob of more than 100 masked outsiders armed with toxic spray, fireworks, pipes, bottles, and other weapons attacked nonviolent protesters in the encampment, the UCLA Police Department and partner agencies – at the direction of UCLA and UC leadership – violently destroyed the encampment, resulting in the arrest of more than 200 students, staff members, and supporters.

“Students decrying the genocide of Palestinians and the university’s complicity were brutally shut down by the same administrators who profess to support free expression and thinking,” said Graeme Blair, a plaintiff in the case and an associate professor of political science who was arrested on May 2. “As an educator, I am ashamed that the university failed our students.”

When police broke into the encampment, the protestors were not engaged in any violence or criminal activity. Nevertheless, the university unlawfully declared the protest illegal, forced many protestors to abandon the encampment, then invited police to round up and arrest those who wished to remain.

“While administrators claimed that they cleared the encampment in order to protect protesters from further instances of mob violence, our laws prohibit the suppression of speech because it is unpopular or might provoke violent reactions,” said Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney at the ACLU SoCal. “Institutions of higher learning have and should continue to serve as critical spaces to contest ideas, critique mainstream orthodoxies, and encourage dissenting voices.”

The student protestors themselves, with the support of members of the faculty and staff, comprised a multi-racial and multi-ethnic group of Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists, agnostics, and members of other faiths.

“The encampment captured the ideals of campus life and the promises of an inclusive democracy where students from diverse backgrounds came together to protest, socialize, study, pray, eat and dance,” said Benjamin Kersten, a plaintiff in the case and a graduate student in art history at UCLA. “Our leaders and university administrators should take a page from their students instead of choosing to repress their students and workers fighting for justice.”

The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and Walkup, Melodia, Kelly and Schoenberger.


https://www.aclusocal.org/en/press-releases/students-faculty-sue-ucla-violating-free-speech-rights