The DOJ has given UCLA two choices: settle with the Trump administration or be sued by the DOJ.

LOS ANGELES —  In a notice addressed to Michael V. Drake, the President of the University of California, earlier today, the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) declared “that UCLA's response to its students' complaints of antisemitism on UCLA's campus violated its obligations under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states that no state may unequally uphold the protection of the law to any person under its jurisdiction. Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

In the notice, the DOJ declares that “UCLA's response to the protest encampment on its campus in the spring of 2024 was deliberately indifferent to a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI.” The DOJ claims “that Jewish and Israeli students at UCLA were subjected to severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment that created a hostile environment by members of the encampment.”

No mention of the harassment and the physical assault on the students at the encampment was noted at any point in the letter. On more than one occasion, the letter cites incidents that have been widely disproven in the past, and that had little to no evidence or were not corroborated by any witnesses.

Unreasonably, the DOJ concludes that the course of action UCLA should have undertaken was to “have disbanded the encampment” almost immediately. However, UCLA is already being sued by the ACLU in a case alleging that UCLA unlawfully cleared the protest site, forcing many protesters to abandon the encampment and inviting the police to round up and arrest those who wished to remain (ACLU Complaint, 2024).

The suit Blair v. Regents of the University of California challenges “the suppression of student and faculty speech by UCLA administrators that culminated in the violent destruction of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment on May 2, 2024.” One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is Jewish, as were many of the protesters inside the encampment.

Without announcing clear next steps, they state that the Department of Justice now “seeks to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement with the University to ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated and reasonable steps are taken to prevent its recurrence” (DOJ Notice of Findings, 2025).

On May 22nd, Columbia University was served a similar letter. Just days ago, they settled with the Trump Administration to the tune of $200m in an agreement that also accepted the presence of a federal DEI czar (who monitors the race of all admitted and rejected students). Before ‘official negotiations,’ the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism had already placed the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies department and the Center for Palestine Studies under review and control.

In a separate statement made earlier this morning, Attorney General Pamela Bondi stated that UCLA’s conduct last Spring “demands severe accountability from the institution. This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand: DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price” (DOJ Press Release, 2025).

These conclusions are part of a wider investigation the DOJ launched against the UC system and end with a note signaling this may only be the beginning as “the investigation of the greater UC System remains ongoing.”