The revelation of anti-Semitic hatred in deep pockets of American society has come as something of a shock to me and others. It is the hate that dares to speak its name in the university, in the Democratic Party, and elsewhere. The resignation of the Columbia University president this week reminds us of the horror show in Morningside Heights (more here).
As Steve Hayward noted earlier this week, Judge Mark Scarsi has now ordered UCLA to get its act together under federal civil rights law in the case of Frankel v. Regents of the University of California (UCLA). Regardless of what happens down the road in the case, this should leave a scar:
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.
UCLA challenges plaintiffs’ standing, but its essential defense in the case all but invokes Bob Dylan’s song: It ain’t me, babe. “It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.”
Here are the terms of Judge Scarsi’s order:
1. Defendants…are prohibited from offering any ordinarily available programs, activities, or campus areas to students if Defendants know the ordinarily available programs, activities, or campus areas are not fully and equally accessible to Jewish students.
2. Defendants are prohibited from knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities, and campus areas, whether as a result of a de-escalation strategy or otherwise.
3. On or before August 15, 2024, Defendants shall instruct Student Affairs Mitigator/Monitor (“SAM”) and any and all campus security teams (including without limitation UCPD and UCLA Security) that they are not to aid or participate in any obstruction of access for Jewish students to ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas.
4. For purposes of this order, all references to the exclusion of Jewish students shall include exclusion of Jewish students based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.
5. Nothing in this order prevents Defendants from excluding Jewish students from ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas pursuant to UCLA code of conduct standards applicable to all UCLA students.
Here the court has issued a preliminary injunction based on the parties’ written submissions. Judge Scarsi declined to stay the injunction pending appeal as a result of procedural failures on the part of UCLA. Judge Scarsi all but invites UCLA to get its act together and bring the stay issue before him again. I assume it will do so. In the meantime, UCLA has appealed the preliminary injunction to the Ninth Circuit, which could also review the stay issue. Judge Scarsi’s order provides that the preliminary injunction took effect yesterday.
As I say, regardless of the ultimate disposition of this lawsuit, Judge Scarsi’s order will leave a scar. I have embedded the 16-page order below via Scribd.
Frankel v Ucla Injunction by Scott Johnson on Scribd
