DOJ files its second 2026 antisemitism lawsuit against UCLA

On May 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a Title VI lawsuit against the University of California, alleging that UCLA was "deliberately indifferent to the suffering of its Jewish and Israeli students" during pro-Palestinian encampment protests in the spring of 2024. The 53-page complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, was the department's second antisemitism-related suit against the university in 2026; an earlier February suit had focused on UCLA's treatment of its Jewish and Israeli employees. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division, said the department was calling "UCLA to account for its toleration of the equally appalling hostile educational environment against its Jewish and Israeli students." The suit seeks redress including the return of federal grants made to UCLA "during the time of UCLA's noncompliance with Title VI."

UCLA disputed the suit's central premise. Chancellor Julio Frenk told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the claim the university had been passive was "simply wrong," citing the recruitment of a campus-safety vice chancellor, the reorganization of its Civil Rights Office, the appointment of a Title VI officer, and strengthened policies — actions that came alongside the school's own newly unveiled "Initiative to Combat Antisemitism." The university had previously resolved several Title VI antisemitism complaints under the Biden administration and reached a $6.13 million settlement with Jewish groups in a private suit over the same 2024 events, a case the DOJ's new complaint cites.

The filing carries a posture distinct from routine civil-rights enforcement. The Trump administration has publicly singled out UCLA as a particular target of its campus-antisemitism campaign, having sought fines exceeding $1 billion against the public university until a federal judge ruled in November 2025 that it could not levy them. And several DOJ attorneys who worked the underlying UCLA investigation resigned en masse, telling reporters the case was "fraudulent," a "sham," and driven by pressure from above to "find" evidence to support further legal action against the university. Those documented insider concerns about the integrity of the investigation — together with the repeated, escalating legal pressure on one named institution — are what distinguish this filing from a neutral application of Title VI and place it within The Standing's tracking of the use of Department of Justice enforcement power against designated targets.