Ava Rosenberg/OutWrite
Four UCLA community members are suing the UC Regents for violating the First Amendment right to free speech and allowing police and a Zionist mob to brutalize members of the non-violent encampment in Spring of 2024. The two students and two faculty members are represented by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger in their lawsuit.
Students, a faculty member, and a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) spoke to the media about their reasons for filing the lawsuit against the UC Regents in a press conference on Monday, Oct. 22 on the steps of Royce Hall.
UCLA students established the Palestine Solidarity Encampment in response to Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza and UCLA’s refusal to divest from companies that directly contribute to this genocide. Zionist counter-protesters assaulted the encampment, attacking members with bear spray, fireworks, and makeshift melee weapons.
Spearheaded by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCLA, the encampment lasted from April 25 until May 2, 2024, when UCPD and other law enforcement officers destroyed the encampment and brutalized protesters. More than 200 protesters were arrested, including Professor Graeme Blair, one of the plaintiffs who spoke at the press conference.
The press conference, advertised almost entirely by word of mouth, was attended by UCLA community members who supported the plaintiffs, as well as several major media outlets including ABC7 and KTLA 5.
The first to speak was a student member of SJP, who chose to remain anonymous to protect his safety. Condemning UCLA’s actions toward the students in the encampment, he said, “Universities must protect speech and expression, including when their students are protesting a genocide.” He demanded the university drop the conduct charges on students who were arrested at the encampment and that UCLA “stop enabling genocide.”
Professor Blair spoke next, affirming his support for free speech on campus and for the students who were arrested. In a quote posted to the SoCal ACLU’s Instagram, he said, “I wanted students and UCLA administrators to know that I supported students’ right to hold this protest.” Blair spoke of the wonderful conversations he had with students in the encampment and of focused commitment on a free Palestine, refusing to engage with counter-protesters. He also compared the university’s response — or lack thereof — to students camping out overnight for basketball tickets and to its handling of other protests at UCLA, including the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Mohammad Tajsar, a Senior Staff Attorney with ACLU SoCal spoke next, detailing the three outcomes he and the plaintiffs hope to achieve in the lawsuit:
- Expungement of all records associated with any individual [who] was targeted and arrested by the university on May 2,
- An end to the university’s unconstitutional practice of calling dispersal orders for violation of university policy [and]
- That the university not use the pretext of student safety as a mechanism for shutting down student speech.
In response to questions about potential university policy violations associated with setting up the encampment, Tajsar said, “Whatever technical violations may have arisen […] all of those are easily resolved by the university if the university took a collaborative and protective approach with student speech.”
He concluded by condemning the unconstitutional nature of the university’s actions: “The university took a hammer and bludgeoned everyone involved in this protest activity in ways the constitution does not permit.”
A spokesperson for UCLA released the following statement to Newsweek magazine in response to the lawsuit:
UCLA fully supports community members expressing their First Amendment rights in ways that do not violate the law or our policies, jeopardize community safety, or disrupt the functioning of the university. The encampment that arose on campus this Spring became a focal point for violence, a disruption to campus, and was in violation of the law. These conditions necessitated its removal.
This lawsuit follows a federal district court injunction ordering UCLA to allow Jewish students full access to all parts of campus, after claims that they were restricted from certain areas during the Palestine Solidarity Encampment. This decision garnered wide media attention and outrage, despite the claims of restrictions being far from the truth. During the time of the encampment, UCLA required everyone — not only Jewish students — to present ID to enter Powell Library and Royce Hall; all those who sought to enter the encampment had to check in at the entrance for safety reasons, although the plaintiffs in the injunction claim otherwise.
The contrasting responses to the injunction and the recent lawsuit highlight how the claim of discrimination against Jewish students is used to falsely demonize pro-Palestine protests. In reality, SJP and the encampment welcomed all who believed in a ceasefire and UC divestment from companies funding the American and Israeli war machines, regardless of ethnicity or religion. Notably, one of the plaintiffs who spoke at the press conference and participated in the encampment is a Jewish student.
Author’s note: As a queer community, it is imperative to continue to stand with the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the UC Regents, with all students and faculty who faced arrest or disciplinary actions from the university as a result of their peaceful resistance, and most of all, with the people of Palestine, who are still suffering a genocide. As queer people, our very existence is resistance — resistance against transphobic and heteronormative ideals, and against the people who want us silenced or dead.
We must carry that resistance into fighting for the groups that need it most because our liberation and existence are tied to the liberation of all oppressed people. We will live to see a free Palestine, but only if we take passionate, radical action and do not call for, but demand a ceasefire, and demand that UCLA take accountability for the blood on its hands — for both attacks on people in Gaza and its own students.
Do not let the threat of being silenced or the feeling that there is nothing more to be done keep you from starting or attending protests, donating eSIMs to people in Gaza, boycotting companies that profit from genocide, and continuing to fight tirelessly for a free Palestine. The ACLU and four plaintiffs are fighting to protect our right to protest, so it is our responsibility as a queer community to exercise that right.