Dueling free-speech lawsuits say UCLA botched balancing act

UCLA faces lawsuits from both supporters and opponents of a pro-Palestinian encampment where protesters gathered earlier this year.

The latest suit—filed last week—contends that UCLA officials illegally dismantled the protest encampment in May. Another lawsuit, pending a final decision, accuses the school of unfair actions toward Jewish students.

In last week’s suit, two students and two faculty members who participated in the protests argue that because the encampment was peaceful, officials had no right to take it down. Salih Can Açıksöz, a plaintiff and UCLA associate professor of anthropology, told the ACLU the encampment was “a vibrant gathering where students from diverse backgrounds came together to protest, socialize, study, pray, eat, dance, and perform music.”

Five days after the encampment had been set up, counterprotesters attacked it in what the lawsuit called a “mob attack” on April 30. The outsiders used toxic spray, fireworks, pipes, bottles, and other weapons against the “nonviolent protesters in the encampment to forcibly dismantle it.”

On May 1, university officials ordered the encampment to be shut down, telling the protesters to disperse. The next day, police cracked down on closing the encampment and arrested more than 200 students, faculty, staff and supporters.

“The university then used this mob violence as an excuse to subject our community to further violence under the guise of ensuring campus safety,” Açıksöz said. “The university has not only failed to protect the rights of pro-Palestinian students, staff, and faculty to freedom of speech and expression but has actively curtailed them.”

The suit argues UCLA officials unfairly targeted pro-Palestinian voices. The plaintiffs are seeking to have their disciplinary records expunged and to stop any academic discipline against protesters in the future.

The other suit, filed by three Jewish students this summer, dubbed the same encampment a “Jew Exclusion Zone.” The plaintiffs said that unless they disavowed their religious beliefs, protesters barred them or any Jewish member of UCLA from accessing vital areas of campus. UCLA officials allegedly played a part in this by instructing security staff to discourage these students from attempting to enter the blocked parts of campus, according to the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi sided with the Jewish students in a temporary ruling this August. He ordered UCLA to prevent any future anti-Semitic zones, and he found the encampment’s exclusion of Jewish students “abhorrent” and “unimaginable.”

“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,” Scarsi wrote, “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.”

A final ruling for the Jewish students is still pending. The plaintiffs amended their complaint last week to include more details in light of the suit filed by the protesters.

UCLA did not return WORLD’s request for comment on the two suits in time for publication.

Scarsi’s ruling demonstrates that there is a clear limit to what universities can allow protesters to do on campus, said Jessie Appleby, a program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

UCLA officials were sympathetic to free speech by allowing the encampment for a time period, she explained. But officials also needed to maintain campus peace and enforce rules to protect other students.

The case for the pro-Palestinian protesters could have some merit to its claims, Appleby said, as it bases them on nuanced California laws. The protesters contend that because their encampment was peaceful, UCLA unlawfully took it down and then wrongly arrested them.

But peacefulness doesn’t guarantee a protest is legal, Appleby said. Police can disperse peaceful protests lawfully if they violate time, place, and manner restrictions.

These restrictions regulate when, where, and how messages are communicated, said Ilya Shapiro, the director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. For instance, someone can’t use their free speech rights to block the main street of a town.

The UCLA protesters were “pretty egregious” in what they blocked off, he said.

“In the educational context, you can’t block access to the library, to the dining hall, to the dorms, to the classrooms, things like that,” Shapiro said. “You can’t disrupt the educational mission.”

Brad Jacob, a constitutional law expert and associate dean for academic programs at Regent University School of Law, predicted pro-Palestinian protesters will lose their case because of UCLA’s unbalanced treatment.

“They were sympathetic to pro-Hamas students,” Jacob said. “[UCLA] kept saying, ‘We just are letting them have free speech,’ but in the process they let them destroy the function of the campus and the ability of Jewish students to enjoy the campus and the education.”

Since protests erupted last year, many schools realized that they “got themselves into a mess” with encampments that favored one perspective, he said.

Some schools have moved to discourage or fully ban encampments. For example, the University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Pennsylvania have banned outdoor camping, The Washington Times reported.

Other schools have taken milder approaches. Indiana University requires protesters to stay 25 feet away from the entrance to university buildings and banned light projections on buildings without approval. Last week, Harvard University suspended faculty protesters from accessing the library after they held silent study-in protests.

“There is already a growing realization at the university level that we can’t keep running things this way. We are going to have to be a little more balanced,” Jacob said. “[Universities] can’t pick winners and losers and give one side just a level of domination over your campus that makes life hell for the other side.”