We secured a permanent injunction and $6.13 million settlement from UCLA

Davis Polk represented the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against UCLA regarding campus encampments that forcibly barred Jewish students and faculty from areas of the UCLA campus on the basis of their Jewish identity and religious beliefs. On July 29, 2025, United States District Judge Mark C. Scarsi entered a consent judgment and permanent injunction against UCLA barring it from excluding Jews from the UCLA campus, UCLA’s campus programs or UCLA’s campus activities. The consent judgment is part of a broader settlement that will also see UCLA pay $6.13 million, including damages to the plaintiffs, millions in charitable contributions to organizations that support the Jewish community and attorneys’ fees and costs. The settlement is believed to be the largest private settlement in campus antisemitism cases.

The plaintiffs – a UCLA undergraduate student, two UCLA School of Law students and a UCLA School of Medicine professor – brought the case in June of 2024, in the wake of UCLA’s facilitation of encampments that were run as exclusionary zones that blocked Jews from attending classes, using the library and accessing other essential areas of campus. UCLA’s misconduct was documented in a report filed by UCLA’s own Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, which found that the university had fostered an antisemitic environment.

The plaintiffs brought claims in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against the Regents of the University of California as well as several UCLA administrators for, among other things, violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, violation of their free speech rights, violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act. They promptly sought and obtained sweeping preliminary injunctive relief from Judge Scarsi requiring UCLA to halt all exclusion of Jews from the UCLA campus, UCLA’s campus programs and UCLA’s campus activities. The settlement will officially bring the lawsuit to a close, making Judge Scarsi’s earlier injunction permanent and requiring UCLA to pay a total of $6.13 million.

Davis Polk represented the plaintiffs as pro bono counsel, alongside the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Clement & Murphy PLLC.

The Davis Polk team included partner Elliot Moskowitz, counsel Marc J. Tobak and associates Adam M. Greene, Leigh M. Terry Brinkerhoff and Emily Shire. Members of the Davis Polk team are based in the New York and Washington, DC offices.

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