Jewish Federations of North America praised a court ruling issued late Tuesday that requires UCLA to take action to protect Jewish students from campus antisemitism.
  
In a historic ruling yesterday, US District Court Judge Mark C. Scarsi wrote: 

 
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.
 

Judge Scarsi put the university on notice: Beginning Thursday, UCLA can no longer allow Jewish students to be stopped from accessing classes and campus.

“The idea that a university would allow protesters to block Jewish students from participating in school life and their own education is outrageous," said Jewish Federations President & CEO Eric D. Fingerhut. "This ruling rightly requires UCLA to ensure that Jewish students, like all students, have equal and open access to the school’s campus and programming, and we expect other universities to take notice." 
 
Jewish Federation Los Angeles expressed the community's gratitude for the ruling:
 

Jewish Federations Los Angeles is grateful for Tuesday’s judicial ruling that requires @UCLA to ensure that Jewish students are not excluded from accessing any portion of the campus nor denied university services and programs. This injunction sets expectations for @UCLA administrators that Jewish students will be guaranteed equal treatment and will not be excluded in any way due to their religious beliefs, including their support for Israel. JFEDLA is acutely aware of how tenuous this moment is for the Jewish community, especially as the academic year approaches, antisemitism continues to rise, and tensions in the Middle East loom. We applaud this critical ruling and will continue our work with campus and student leadership throughout our region to ensure that Jewish students are included, protected, and safe on campus.The aggressive and often violent anti-Israel protests and encampments at UCLA were just one example among more than 150 at North American campuses in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israel that murdered over 1200 people and took over 200 innocent civilians hostage.  In these protests, Jewish students were harassed, threatened, blocked from accessing their classrooms, and even physically assaulted.
 

The entire nation will be watching to see whether UCLA will follow the rule of the law and the US Constitution, or if they will continue to let antisemitism run rampant.