Seven weeks after pro-Palestinian students vandalized a University of California regent’s Brentwood home during a protest against UC’s financial connections to Israel, UCLA this week banned a campus organization involved in the demonstration.
Students for Justice in Palestine was notified Thursday of an “indefinite revocation” of its status as a registered student group and another chapter, Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine, was banned for four years.
“UCLA is committed to fostering an environment where all students can live and learn freely and peacefully,” said a UCLA statement on the actions against the clubs. “… We will continue to uphold our policies to ensure UCLA remains a safe and respectful learning environment for all members of our Bruin community.”
Representatives for the organizations did not respond Friday to requests for comment. The groups have for years been central to student activism that reached a height during last year’s spring encampment.
The decisions do not prevent them from protesting on campus. As a public institution, limited parts of UCLA’s grounds are open to anybody to demonstrate at most times of day. But the moves prevent the organizations from registering for campus event space, applying for student activities funds and otherwise representing themselves as UCLA organizations.
The bans also represent a distancing of the university from local chapters of a pro-Palestinian organization that has grown across colleges and come under fire from the Trump administration, the Republican party and some Jewish civil rights organizations including the Anti-Defamation League.
UCLA is under multiple investigations from the Trump administration for its handling of pro-Palestinian protests and allegations of antisemitism.
The Trump administration has threatened to revoke federal funding from universities that don’t comply with largely vague demands to reign in protests and combat antisemitism.
On Friday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee said it was launching an investigation into American Muslims for Palestine amid “reports that the group has helped organize, support, and facilitate violent, antisemitic demonstrations that are disrupting college campuses across the country.” That group was founded by UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, who also founded Students for Justice in Palestine while studying at Berkeley more than three decades ago.
Both organizations have been critical to the surge in pro-Palestinian activism across the U.S. since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and its ensuing war in Gaza. Trump and the GOP have accused group members of being antisemitic supporters of Hamas, a U.S. designated terrorist group. Immigration authorities this month have detained foreign student activists at several East Coast colleges, accusing them of illegally promoting terrorism.
UCLA joins several other UC campuses and others throughout the country that have banned or suspended Students for Justice in Palestine, including UC Irvine, UC San Diego and UC Santa Cruz.
On Tuesday, UC Davis also dissolved a law student association that passed a financial and academic boycott of Israel. As a result, the university took control of the group’s $40,000 in funds. A UC Davis spokesman said the boycott violated a UC policy requiring student government groups to be “viewpoint neutral.”
The UCLA groups were under interim suspensions since Feb. 12, when Chancellor Julio Frenk announced the restrictions in a campuswide message, citing “violence” during a Feb. 5 action at the home of UC Regent Jay Sures.
“No one should ever fear for their safety. Without the basic feeling of safety, humans cannot learn, teach, work and live — much less thrive and flourish. This is true no matter what group you are a member of — or which identities you hold. There is no place for violence in our Bruin community,” Frenk’s letter said.
At the time, the student groups replied via Instagram statements, saying they rejected “Frenk’s accusations that student protesters have committed violence against the UCLA community.”
Sures, vice chairman at United Talent Agency, said he was targeted because he is Jewish. In addition to photos that showed his property vandalized with red blood-like handprints, there was video of protesters briefly surrounding Sures’ wife in her car as she tried to drive to work. A Feb. 5 Instagram post by UCLA Students for Justice in Palestine groups also showed a doctored image of Sures, who has spoken publicly about his support of Israel, in a suit with fire burning behind him under a pro-Palestinian banner and his hands edited to appear bloody.
UC has not suspended students for the rally at the regent’s home.
Students have continued to protest at UCLA, including events held last week during a bimonthly UC regents meeting. Those demonstrations were in opposition to billions in investments UC has that are tied to weapons companies, Israel and other targets of student activists. Last year, UC said that it had about $32 billion of its assets invested in areas activists have opposed.
Pro-Palestinian students have also started attacking other UC leaders in social media posts and events. On March 14, a group protested in the early morning outside UC Regent Elaine Batchlor’s home in Los Angeles.
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