News & Insights

California Federal Court Issues Preliminary Injunction to Protect Jewish Students

September 17, 2024

By: Stephen B. Stern

     In Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, Case No. 2:24-cv-04702-MCS-PD (C.D. Aug. 13, 2024), the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued a preliminary injunction that in essence required UCLA to provide access to programs, activities, and the campus equally to Jewish students and non-Jewish students after Jewish students were excluded from programs, activities, and parts of the campus based on their religion while people of other faiths were not similarly deprived access.

     In Frankel, the underlying facts largely were not in dispute.  Starting on April 25, 2024, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a portion of the UCLA campus known as Royce Quad with an encampment that had barriers and checkpoints and limited access to those who wore required wristbands.  Notably, “people who supported the existence of the state of Israel were kept out of the encampment” and the encampment “directly interfered with instruction by blocking students’ pathways to classrooms.”  Even after the encampment was taken down, protesters continued to disrupt life on campus, including, but not limited to, by blocking other areas of campus and creating other encampments.

     A number of Jewish students filed suit, claiming their federal and state constitutional rights were violated, including their rights under the Equal Protection Clause, the Free Speech Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause.  In addition, they claimed violations of their rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, conspiracy to interfere with their civil rights, and failure to prevent conspiracy, among other claims.

     UCLA challenged the plaintiffs’ standing on two fronts.  First, UCLA argued that there was no imminent likelihood of future injury because remedial actions were taken to end the encampment at Royce Quad.  The court found this argument unpersuasive, stating that UCLA’s “changes, while commendable, do not minimize the risk that [p]laintiffs ‘will again be wronged’ by their exclusion from UCLA’s ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas based on their sincerely held religious beliefs[,]” which was evidenced in part by the fact that other encampments were established and exclusionary measures were taken in other parts of the campus after the encampment at Royce Quad was dismantled and UCLA failed to “state[] affirmatively” that it “will not” provide programs and activities to non-Jewish students if protesters return and exclude Jewish students.  In addition, the relative quiet on campus during the summer was largely due to the fact that students were mostly away from campus at that time, not due to UCLA’s remedial measures.  Second, UCLA argued that it was not the “cause” of harm to Jewish students because the exclusionary measures were taken by individuals who were not representatives of the university.  This argument, however, according to the court, misconstrued the concept of the plaintiffs’ injuries, as the injuries were “not simply the exclusion . . . from certain of UCLA’s ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas[,]” but their exclusion while UCLA “still provide[d]” those programs, activities, and campus areas to other students while knowing that the plaintiffs and other students would be excluded based on their religious beliefs.  

     The court also found that the plaintiffs satisfied all the elements necessary to issue a preliminary injunction under the “sliding scale approach” established by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which requires a showing that “serious questions” go to the merits (which means the plaintiffs have a “fair chance” of success on the merits), the balance of hardships “tips sharply” in the plaintiffs’ favor, the plaintiff is likely to suffer irreparable injury, and an injunction is in the public interest.  Perhaps the most succinct way to summarize the court’s analysis is to quote the opening paragraph of the court’s opinion, which reads as follows:

In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.  This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating.  Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.  UCLA does not dispute this.  Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters.  But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion.

     The court’s opinion in Frankel is significant because it found what can be fairly characterized as egregious discrimination against Jewish students at a leading university.  While this decision concerns discrimination and the denial of constitutional rights, it is an important reminder for employers in the private sector as well.  In this regard, UCLA’s defense was premised in part on the fact that Jewish students were being excluded from parts of the campus and programs by third parties – parties over which the university arguably did not control.  Comparable arguments have been made and rejected in the harassment context when customers, vendors, and other third parties have been the perpetrators of harassment against employees, as courts have still held employers liable in those instances