This post was updated Nov. 11 at 11:22 p.m.
A judge ruled Nov. 4 that a lawsuit alleging that the UC violated free speech rights while clearing the spring 2024 Palestine solidarity encampment could move forward.
The claims were brought in October 2024 by four plaintiffs who participated in the encampment – professor Graeme Blair, associate professor Salih Can Açiksöz, doctoral student Benjamin Kersten and law student Catherine Washington. The plaintiffs alleged in the suit that the UC allowing police to clear the encampment and arrest hundreds of protesters violated their freedom of speech rights outlined in the California Constitution.
Pro-Palestine protesters set up an encampment in Dickson Plaza on April 25, 2024 to demand that UCLA divest from companies associated with the Israeli military.
Counter-protesters attacked the encampment April 30, 2024, throwing fireworks, tear gas and other objects into it. Mary Osako, UCLA’s vice chancellor for strategic communications, said in a statement May 1, 2024 at 12:12 a.m. that law enforcement had been called for immediate support. However, police did not intervene until more than two hours later.
[Related: ‘I thought I was going to die’: UCLA encampment protesters recall April 30 attack]
Police issued a dispersal order May 1 instructing people in the encampment to leave or risk arrest. Officers from California Highway Patrol, LAPD and UCPD swept the encampment in the early morning May 2, detaining more than 200 protesters.
[Related: Hundreds of protesters detained after police breach pro-Palestine encampment at UCLA]
Following UCPD’s May 1, 2024 dispersal order, Kersten – a student leader of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA – and Açiksöz allegedly left the encampment because of their fears of arrest, and Blair and Washington were allegedly arrested, according to court documents.
Defendants include the UC Board of Regents, former UC President Michael Drake, former UCLA Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt and Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck. Drake served as president during the encampment, while Hunt was UCLA’s executive vice chancellor and provost.
Drake stepped down as UC president at the end of the 2024-25 academic year, while Hunt served as interim chancellor from August to December 2024 and has now returned to his role as executive vice chancellor and provost.
[Related: UC President Michael Drake to step down following 2024-2025 academic year]
Counsel for the defendants argued that since UCPD made the dispersal order out of genuine safety concerns, the order and subsequent arrests were lawful. The counsel also claimed that participants engaging in an unlawful assembly do not need to individually commit unlawful acts to be legally arrested.
The plaintiffs, however, argued that the dispersal order and arrests were unconstitutional as they were motivated – whether directly or indirectly – by protesters’ speech and that indiscriminate arrests were not necessary.
The defendants’ counsel declined to comment in person immediately after the hearing Oct. 22. The UC Office of the President did not respond in time to a request for comment on the Nov. 4 ruling.
“Students have a right to protest on this campus, and when UCLA declared an unlawful assembly and called police to clear the Palestine Solidarity Encampment in May 2024, they took away that right,” Blair said in an emailed statement. “I joined this case to ensure that never happens again, and I am grateful we will have our day in court.”
Blair and Washington alleged that they faced disciplinary proceedings brought by UCLA, in which they said the university violated their rights to due process and the constitutional prohibition on ex post facto laws – where consequences are changed after the fact.
Judge Samantha Jessner heard arguments from the plaintiffs’ lawyer Oct. 22. The ruling allowed all seven claims to stand – which included that the dispersal order and arrests were unconstitutional, that the disciplinary action violated constitutional protections and that the UC misused taxpayer funds.
However, Jessner dismissed the plaintiffs’ requests for compensatory and punitive damages, which would have been awarded to the plaintiffs from the UC and had a yet-to-be-determined value.
Jessner, though, allowed the plaintiff’s requests for injunctive relief – court orders compelling rectifying action, in this case removing disciplinary records and preventing further practices suppressive of free speech – to remain.
The ruling enables the case to proceed more than a year after the complaint was initially filed and a year and a half since the sweep of the Dickson Plaza encampment. The next scheduled court date is Jan. 8, 2026.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs will now be allowed to argue that the dispersal orders and arrests made in Royce Quad violated free speech rights and amount to retaliation for exercising a protected right. They will also be allowed to argue that UCLA’s alleged changes to its disciplinary procedures violated the plaintiffs’ rights.
Jessner granted the defendants’ motion to strike claims against former UCLA Office of Campus Safety associate vice chancellor Rick Braziel, former acting UCPD chief of police Scott Scheffler and Monroe Gorden, Jr. – UCLA’s vice chancellor of student affairs – in their individual capacities.
UCLA hired Braziel – and opened the Office of Campus Safety – on May 5, 2024 as part of its post-encampment response. Braziel left UCLA in January 2025 and was succeeded by Steve Lurie, the current associate vice chancellor for campus and community safety.
[Related: Steve Lurie named new associate vice chancellor for campus and community safety]
Scheffler replaced former acting police chief Gawin Gibson – who currently remains on the force as a police captain – in fall 2024. Gibson stepped in for former UCPD chief John Thomas in May 2024 after he was “temporarily reassigned” following the encampment.
[Related: UCLA Police Chief John Thomas ‘temporarily reassigned’ from duties]
The court ruled that Braziel, Scheffler and Gorden’s actions were taken to serve the UC Board of Regents, rather than as individuals.
Jessner also limited the two counts relating to disciplinary procedures to only the Regents – striking Drake, Hunt and Beck as defendants on those counts for the same reasoning.
Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney for the Southern California American Civil Liberties Union representing the plaintiffs, said one of the case’s key questions will be whether the university can “shut down speech.”
“Nothing will rectify the damage that was done by the University,” Tajsar said. “Justice in that context is fleeting. What we are trying to do is ensure that the horrors of what happened in the spring of 2024 don’t happen again.”
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