UCLA is asking a federal judge to kill the Trump administration’s antisemitism lawsuit permanently.
The university’s lawyers acknowledged in a Monday filing that “there is no question that some University employees were exposed to antisemitism on campus,” but argued the Justice Department’s legal claims are “flawed for numerous reasons and should be dismissed.” UCLA wants U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder to toss the case “with prejudice,” which would bar the government from refiling it.
The school contends it cannot be held liable for harassment carried out by protesters, students and outsiders it does not control, calling the administration’s legal theory one that “stretches the law beyond recognition.” UCLA also “categorically denies” that it intentionally refused to address harassment of Jewish and Israeli employees.
The university took direct aim at the four plaintiffs the DOJ is representing. The filing notes there are “over 55,000 faculty and staff at UCLA. Yet DOJ proffers individual hostile work environment claims for just two employees, Drs. Shamsa and Holloway.”
Dr. Kamran Shamsa already received “financial compensation” when he settled a separate antisemitism lawsuit against UCLA in 2025, the filing states, and that agreement bars his claims in this case. The university added that Shamsa attended the protests “during his work breaks,” away from his workplace at the medical school. Regarding Professor Ian Holloway, UCLA said the email announcing his discrimination complaint to his department was a standard records-preservation notice it was legally required to send.
Two other plaintiffs lack employee status altogether, the school argued: one is a professor emeritus who retired in 2004, the other an unpaid volunteer.
The Justice Department responded that it “will respond to UCLA’s motion in court.”
UCLA also used the filing to attack the administration’s funding cuts, calling its suspension of $584 million in federal funding “an unlawful tactic” and accusing the feds of “retaliatory defundings.” The university highlighted its improvement from a “D” to a “B” on the Anti-Defamation League’s campus antisemitism report card, and pointed to a federal judge’s recent dismissal of similar claims for injunctive relief against Harvard.
The school emphasized actions taken under Chancellor Julio Frenk, whose grandparents fled Nazi Germany. These include Frenk’s Initiative to Combat Antisemitism, which released a roadmap in May 2026, plus a reorganized civil rights office, a new campus safety chief and a dedicated Title VI officer. UCLA noted it suspended Students for Justice in Palestine and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine in February 2025.
More than 130 Jewish UCLA faculty and staff signed a public letter opposing the DOJ lawsuit, the filing noted, and ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has praised the school’s progress.
The Trump administration sued UCLA and the broader University of California system in June, alleging the school allowed “open harassment” of Jewish students and staff during campus protests over the war in Gaza. The lawsuit marked an escalation in the administration’s campaign against elite universities, coming alongside a separate Justice Department suit against Harvard and funding freezes for multiple schools. The complaints centered on demonstrations that roiled campuses nationwide in 2024, with protesters setting up encampments and clashing with counter-protesters and police.
The administration has framed the lawsuits as civil rights enforcement, while universities have accused the White House of political retaliation for campus speech critical of Israel. UCLA’s filing attempts to thread a narrow needle: conceding that antisemitic incidents occurred while insisting the legal mechanism chosen by the DOJ cannot hold the institution responsible.
The university, in response to a request for comment, pointed to its motion and stated that UCLA “has taken strong actions to combat antisemitism over the last three years.”
The case is being heard in federal court in Los Angeles.