By: Fern Sidman

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has agreed to a $6.45 million settlement with three Jewish students who accused the public institution of failing to protect them from antisemitism, marking what advocates believe to be the largest private settlement in a campus antisemitism case to date. The agreement, announced Tuesday, reflects both financial restitution and a series of institutional commitments intended to address the growing challenges faced by Jewish students in higher education.

As The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reported on Wednesday, the settlement requires UCLA to direct $2.33 million in donations to eight organizations that combat antisemitism, including Hillel at UCLA, the Academic Engagement Network, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Chabad of UCLA, the Film Collaborative, the Jewish Graduate Organization, and the Orthodox Union. In addition, the university has pledged $320,000 to its recently established Initiative to Combat Antisemitism, launched in March to implement recommendations from a task force dedicated to countering antisemitism on campus.

The lawsuit, filed last year, alleged that UCLA allowed anti-Israel protesters to prevent Jewish students from entering campus buildings, effectively facilitating exclusionary practices rooted in antisemitism. According to the information provided in the JNS report, the plaintiffs charged that administrators “chose to protect the thugs and help keep Jews out,” in the words of plaintiff Yitzchok Frankel.

“When antisemites were terrorizing Jews and excluding them from campus, UCLA chose to protect the thugs,” Frankel stated. “That was shameful, and it is sad that my own school defended those actions for more than a year. Today’s court judgment brings justice back to our campus and ensures Jews will be safe and treated equally once again.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the plaintiffs, emphasized the precedent-setting nature of the judgment. As the JNS report detailed, Becket noted that UCLA also agreed to a final judgment and a permanent court order preventing the university from supporting any efforts to exclude Jewish students or faculty. “The agreed judgment appropriately recognizes that it is discriminatory and antisemitic to prevent Jews from accessing public spaces because of their religious beliefs about Israel,” the group said.

Jewish leaders at UCLA and in Los Angeles welcomed the settlement while cautioning that it represents only an initial step in the ongoing fight against campus antisemitism. Dan Gold, executive director of Hillel at UCLA, told JNS that the outcome was “an important and meaningful step forward in addressing the very serious challenges that Jewish students have faced at UCLA.”

Gold stressed, however, that the work is far from complete. “There is still much more work left to be done to build a safer, more welcoming and more supportive campus that is free from antisemitic harassment and intimidation, and we look forward to working closely with the university and the UC system to counter antisemitism and bias at every turn,” he said in comments cited in the JNS report.

Dr. Kira Stein, chair and founder of the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group at UCLA, echoed this sentiment. She told JNS that her group, which brings together professors, researchers, and staff in support of Jewish life on campus, had long urged UCLA to resolve the lawsuits. “We welcome this signaling that things are going to change on campus,” said Stein. “Jews, like everyone else, deserve equal protection under the law, and that includes equal protection to learn, live and work at our university campuses.”

The scale of the settlement has attracted significant attention within legal and academic circles. According to the information contained in the JNS report, the Becket Fund noted that the $6.45 million resolution is believed to be the largest private settlement ever achieved in a campus antisemitism case.

Mark Rienzi, president of Becket, said the settlement should serve as a warning to administrators nationwide. “Campus administrators across the country willingly bent the knee to antisemites during the encampments,” Rienzi stated. “They are now on notice. Treating Jews like second-class citizens is wrong, illegal and very costly.”

The judgment also highlights the broader financial consequences universities may face if they fail to confront antisemitic discrimination effectively. In addition to the $2.33 million allocated to outside organizations and the $320,000 internal commitment, UCLA is bound by a permanent injunction ensuring that such acts of exclusion cannot recur with institutional sanction.

The settlement carries implications well beyond UCLA. Universities across the United States have been grappling with rising antisemitism on their campuses, often linked to protests and activism related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As JNS reported, Jewish advocacy groups have expressed concern that anti-Israel demonstrations too often cross the line into targeting Jewish students, leaving them vulnerable to harassment and exclusion.

The Los Angeles Jewish Federation welcomed the outcome, stressing that accountability is a crucial first step. In a joint statement cited in the JNS report, the Federation’s president and board chair declared: “Accountability is a vital first step to ensuring that the mistakes made by the university, leaving Jewish students vulnerable and endangered, should not happen again. This settlement clearly affirms: Antisemitism has no place at UCLA or on any campus.”

They added that the hope moving forward is for Jewish students “to make their voices heard, feel protected on campus, and hold our educational institutions accountable.”

For Jewish students, the settlement represents both restitution and a symbolic acknowledgment that their rights must be protected equally under the law. For universities nationwide, the message is clear: failure to safeguard Jewish students against discrimination carries not only moral and legal consequences but also significant financial repercussions.

The settlement is not simply about compensation. It is about affirming the principle that Jewish students should not be treated as outsiders on public campuses, nor denied access to the spaces and opportunities that universities promise to all.