Pro-Palestinian protestors at UCLA

The University of California at Los Angeles has been allowing activists on their campus to create “Jew Exclusion Zones,” through which Jews are not allowed to travel. I’m not kidding. This is real. The spineless, cowardly, and shameful administrators at UCLA have, by their lack of action, allowed anti-Semitic activists to effectively ban Jewish students from entering certain sections at the heart of the UCLA campus. Why? Because they’re Jews.

A lawsuit was filed by Becket Law and co-counsel Clement & Murphy PLLC. Becket Law is a religious liberty law firm that has represented numerous clients around the country whose religious liberties were suppressed. The lawsuit accused UCLA of “aiding and abetting” an anti-Semitic environment on the campus (yeah, duh!), and explained that, in order to access a “Jew Exclusion Zone” on campus, a person was required to pledge their alliance with the activists’ positions as well as having an activist within the zone vouch for their adherence to the cause. “The practical effect,” the lawsuit says, “was to deny the overwhelming majority of Jews access to the heart of the campus.” The lawsuit went on to say that “UCLA’s administration knew about the activists’ extreme actions, including the exclusion of Jews. But, in a remarkable display of cowardice, appeasement, and illegality, the administration did nothing to stop it.”

Demonstrating that not everyone in American society has lost their sanity, or their dedication to American principles, a federal court in California ruled against UCLA’s claim that there was nothing they could do about the “Jew Exclusion Zones” because they had been created by “third-party protesters.” The court employed rather blunt language: “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.”

Good for the court, but what in the world was UCLA thinking? They essentially claimed that they, as administrators of a university, have no control over the activities on their campus when those activities are organized by “third-party protestors.” Which means anyone not associated with the university, per se, can come on campus, organize an illegal activity, and UCLA administrators are helpless to do anything to stop them. What, exactly, is their job, then? Who is responsible for securing the safety and protecting the rights of students on their campus if not them? This is a disgraceful claim to make. They are essentially telling their students to attend their university at their own risk. We have no responsibility to your safety or your rights when you’re on our campus. “Hey,” UCLA says, “we’re only charging you residents of California $42,000 a year and you non-residents $76,000 a year to attend our university. What can you expect for such bargain basement prices? Safety? The recognition of your constitutional rights? C’mon, man!”

No. Methinks, rather, that the UCLA administrators didn’t want to upset the anti-Israel protestors because anti-Israel is the current go-to cause for rich, while liberals, and those rich, white liberals are prolly the biggest contributors to UCLA’s endowment fund. Better to suppress the rights of the Jews on campus than to offend the sensibilities of our donors or of the social, cultural, and political elites. Hey, the Jews are used to being suppressed, so what’s the big deal?

The big deal, of course, is that we have a Constitution in this country, and that UCLA is a state institution and, as such, has an obligation to respect and protect the constitutional rights of its employees and students. Why is that too much to ask? Because in today’s culture wars, Israel is the big, bad wolf. No matter that most of those protesting likely have no idea of the history of the Middle East or of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their professors and their influencers have convinced them that Israel is a cancer on the world body politic, and that all Jews are complicit in Israel’s actions and worthy of the suppression of their rights, because that’s what they would do to Israel, if they could. Suppress it. Wipe it off the map. That remains the goal of Hamas and Iran. They desire no “two-state solution.” No. They desire the destruction of Israel. Jews in the U. S., as far as these protestors who (mostly blindly and ignorantly) support Hamas, represent Israel, so they deserve the suppression of their rights.

But this is still America, at least in the eyes of one federal court. Good. We need our courts to speak up for the protection of constitutional rights. But, more than that, we need our institutions to not be so spineless and cowardly that going to court to protect one’s constitutional rights is necessary. UCLA ought to have nipped this in the bud before it barely started. The fact that they didn’t, that students actually needed to go to court to get UCLA to do what they should have done in the first place, demonstrates the deep infection that has overtaken our colleges campuses, but also many in our media and many of the supposed thinking people in this country. That infection can be summed up neatly: “We believe our first priority is to aid and abet whatever causes are the current loudest among our social, cultural, and political elites, regardless of our duty to protect the rights and secure the safety of those under our charge, regardless of the facts, and regardless of the principles on which we were founded and are often still audacious enough to claim, if only in word and not in action.”

The administrators need to take back control of the asylum … er, campus.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.