The new sheriff in town won’t tolerate discrimination against Jews

Leonard Grunstein | Mar 26, 2025

A hearing has been scheduled for March 31 before U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi in the pending case of Yitzchok Frankel, et al. v University of California Board of Regents, et al., by the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney regarding the government’s interest in opposing the University of California, Los Angeles’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit.

This is the same case in which Scarsi issued a preliminary injunction against UCLA, on Aug. 13, 2024. In his ruling, the judge noted:

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.

Among other things, the court enjoined UCLA against knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students (including based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish State of Israel) from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities and campus areas. Shockingly, instead of settling the matter by agreeing to a plan of action to prevent a reoccurrence of the offensive conduct, UCLA callously appealed the decision.

The Statement of Interest (SOI) filed by the United States in the case references that injunction and, among other things, notes that the United States opposes the defendants’ motion to dismiss because, “(1) Plaintiffs are permitted to bring claims under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) against Individual Defendants in their official capacities, and (2) Plaintiffs sufficiently allege the intent element of an Equal Protection Clause claim against the Defendants.”

Title VI protects the right not to be discriminated against in schools, colleges or universities receiving federal assistance based on the person’s race, color or national origin. This prohibition encompasses discrimination, including harassment, based on a student’s actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, as well as their citizenship or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity.

The Department of Education provides that a school, college or university violates Title VI when:

1. harassing conduct on the basis of race, color or national origin is sufficiently serious as to limit or deny a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the educational program, i.e., creates a hostile environment;
2. a responsible employee of the school knew, or should have known, about the harassment; and,
3. the school failed to take prompt and effective steps reasonably calculated to end the harassment, eliminate the hostile environment, prevent the harassment from recurring, and, as appropriate, remedy its effects.

On Dec. 11, 2019, during his first term in office President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13899 on combating antisemitism, which reaffirmed that Article VI protects Jews from antisemitic harassment or other discrimination based on their race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.

Trump earlier this year also signed an executive order on “additional measures to combat antisemitism.” The government’s SOI referenced this order and recounted that it states in the order, “It is the policy of the United States to combat antisemitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”

The SOI also states, “The United States, therefore, has a strong interest in ensuring the proper application of Title VI, particularly when the Court has already found that in 2024 on UCLA’s campus ‘Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith’ … The Court is correct; this fact is ‘so unimaginable and so abhorrent …’”

The history and seriousness of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its expansion over time under federal and local laws and regulations to cover so many types of discrimination seeks to provide for a society where everyone truly enjoys equal protection under the law and freedom from unlawful discrimination and harassment is inspirational. Yet, it is mind-boggling to appreciate that there is still one type of discrimination and harassment that survives and is even gaslighted, to wit—when it is directed against Jews.

There are forces hard at work discriminating against and harassing Jews on college campuses, as detailed in a number of lawsuits filed against offending colleges and universities. Congressional hearings on the subject have also focused light on the wrongdoing. The problem is pervasive and there does not appear to be an end in sight. Indeed, the groups leading the Jew-hatred efforts have merely redoubled their efforts and renewed their offensive conduct in 2025.

This new proactive approach of the Department of Justice and the Trump administration should be applied to all the colleges and universities that have experienced similar problems. There are also many cases pending, and the DOJ should consider intervening in those as well, in support of the Jewish students.

The federal government has so many powerful tools to address the problem. Scarsi relied on the equal protection clause of the Constitution. However, there is also Title VI, as noted above. Why not suspend federal assistance until a satisfactory plan is implemented to prevent the offensive conduct, as was done in the case of Columbia University? The plan must perforce include security arrangements barring wrongdoers from campus and assuring all students, including Jewish ones, can freely and safely attend classes and use all of the university facilities.

It is also suggested that, given the reports of foreign involvement, actions pursuant to Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) (22 USC 611 et seq) and the Anti-Terrorism Laws (18 USC 2339) should be considered to deal with the root causes of the problem. The Hamasniks are not just Jew-haters, they are also anti-American.

The situation of invidious discrimination against Jews and harassment on campus is illegal, immoral and intolerable, and must not be countenanced. May antisemitism be ended and peace on college and university campuses be restored, enabling all students to learn and be successful, without fear of discrimination or harassment, in a safe and secure environment.