UCLA administrators said Wednesday that they were suspending two students indefinitely for justice in Palestine organizations after activists on the masking pro-palestinian campus protested outside Brentwood's house at the University of California, Jay Sures the week Past, destroying her property and surrounding her wife while she was in her car was in her car. .
Foreign Minister Julio Frenk said that in a message on the entire campus, the decision of the UCLA Student Conductive Office was an interim suspension, while internal judicial procedures on the groups, students for justice in Palestine and students and students took place Graduates of Justice in Palestine.
The organizations, which supported the pro-Palestinian camps last year, will no longer be able to reserve space for meetings on the campus, request funds from the Student Club or join UCLA.
Behavior procedures and suspensions have no completion date.
“Without the basic feeling of security, humans cannot learn, teach, work and live, much less prosper and bloom,” Frenk said in his letter. “This is true regardless of which group is a member, or what identities has. There is no place for violence in our Bruin community. “
UCLA joins several other UC and other campuses throughout the country that have prohibited or suspended SJP.
In UC Santa Cruz, the organization is suspended until September 2026. In UC Irvine, a suspension extends until November 2029. And in UC San Diego, SJP was charged the past spring with activities “incompatible with the ordered operation of the campus “And he did not renew the state of his campus group in autumn.
UCLA suspensions occur after UC adopted “zero tolerance” policies for violations of the code of behavior after the riots during the spring of 2024 when the campuses bursted in contentious protests, and the violence went to the pro-palestine camp of the UCLA. Politics prohibits masking while the law breaks, including vandalism.
UCLA rules add that students can hold the students out of the campus if university leaders believe that students have acted violently or supported violence. While the LAPD is investigating potential crimes during the incident in the house of Surees, UCLA is not chasing campus charges against individual students related to actions.
In his letter, Frenk cited Instagram publications of the UCLA SJP groups that announce a protest on the morning February 5 outside the regent house. Dozens of protesters, their hidden faces with scarves and masks, appeared with drums, flyers and signs that demanded the disinvestment of the UC system of Israel.
The activists “harassed” Surs and used “threatening messages,” Frenk said, and maintained a banner that said: “Jonathan Surs will pay until he sees his last day.” Frenk also said that the protesters “destroyed the Souths home applying red hand traces to the outer walls of the house and hung banners in the hedges of the property.”
Sures, student of UCLA and vice president of the United Talent Agency, is one of the 18 regents of UC. An open supporter from Israel called the actions of pro-palestinian protesters of the Anti-Semitic Campus as camps and conflicts with the administrators and the police that intensified last year.
In an Instagram publication on February 5, accounts for the SJP chapters group said Surees is “one of the officials not chosen responsible for protecting Cu investments in genocide and the manufacture of weapons.” The publication includes an image manipulated from Surs in a suit with burning fire behind him under a pro-palestine banner and his hands edited to look bloody.
In another publication, the groups said: “The Regents have repeatedly expelled us from their meetings, canceled forums for public comments and criminalized our attempts to protest investment policies. We have brought our problems to regents because they have systematically militarized our campus in response. “
UC Regent Jay Sures in 2019.
(Stefanie Keenan / Getty images for The Hollywood Reporter)
In an interview, Sures said he believed that the students chose their home because he is Jewish.
“It's not about me. I am the goal, but it is about protecting all the members of our community from intimidation and hate, ”said Surees. “The presumption that it will somehow intimidate me and the University of California will deviate is nonsense and illogical. That will never happen. “
In response to the camps, the UC leaders said last year that they would not divert from Israel. About 18% of the $ 175 billion assets of the university system are connected to arms companies, investment funds with Israeli ties, corporations such as Disney led by pro-palestinian activists or American bonds.
Graeme Blair, a member of the Faculty of Justice of UCLA in Palestine, said the suspensions were part of a pattern of “violence against Arab, Muslim, Palestinian and Pro-Palestinian students.”
“As in April, the administrators today selectively deployed the position of violence, not against those whose actions cause physical damage, but against those whose speech they like,” said Blair, associate professor of Political Science. “Chancellor Frenk and the continuous complicity of the UC regents in genocide is violence. … calling pendant banners in shrubs Violence is a despicable distortion. “
UCLA SJP groups published Brief statements on Instagram Wednesday. “Curse, that is crazy,” said a publication in the group of graduated students under a copy of Frenk's letter.
“Hello guys, @ucla simply 'interim suspended' Our chapter,” said UCLA SJP account. “They are attentive and turn on our history and publish notifications to keep updated.” An emoji of a Palestinian flag finished the post.
Kira Stein, president of the Resilience Group of the Jewish Faculty of UCLA, said that “it was time” for the suspensions after more than a year of complaints that her group has raised about SJP.
Stein, a clinical professor of psychiatry, said that SJP organizations have been “assembling political dissent to mask shame List of SJP violations of the university rules and regulations that we have been sharing with the administration. “
In an interview, the regent of UC Rich Leib, who has also spoken in favor of the communities of the Pro-Israel Campus, said it was “very supportive” of suspension.
“I firmly believe in the peaceful protest, but doing things in private residences and intimidating people is not a peaceful protest. What they did to the house of Recent Sures and what they did to his family was far beyond a peaceful protest, “Leib said.
The union that represented the UC police praised the suspension, and asked UCLA to “demand the prosecution” if the protesters violate the law.
“Universities cannot allow illegality under the appearance of activism. Only through total responsibility, these students will learn to limit their actions to those allowed by the Law and University Policy, “said Wade Stern statement, president of the Federated University Association Association.
Pro-Palestinian movements grew rapidly on the US campus. After the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 to Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. The past spring, the protesters erected camps and demanded divestment. The actions in UCLA were among the largest in the nation.
UCLA, in internal and external reviews, has been failed for not quickly coordinating an answer with the Los Angeles Police and other forces of the order when the guards attacked the Pro-Palestinian camp there on April 30 and May 1.
The University created a new security office in the campus in response and, last month, said it hired the former CMDR of LAPD. Steve Lurie to lead him. Lurie previously supervised the western office of the department, which includes UCLA.
The Westwood campus has increased protests from fall, which makes most public areas outside the limits to demonstrations without permits, and increased the presence of campus security guards.
UCLA has also been involved in a series of demands, research and conflicts on pro-palestinian protests.
In October, a group of students and members of the Pro-Palestinian Faculty of the UCLA filed a lawsuit in a state court, claiming that the University violated their rights of freedom of expression when the spring camp cleared and erroneously submitted them to disciplinary measures About the protest. Previously, a federal judge in a separate case ordered UCLA to guarantee the same access to Jewish students, three of whom alleged that the university allowed the manifesters of the camp to block Jews from parts of the campus.
Also in October, UCLA's task force to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli bias published a 93-page report on “broad perceptions of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli base on the campus” Since 2023. UCLA's task force In Antipalestine, anti-Musulm and Anti-Arab racism has also published three reports since April detailing a campus that is “less safe than ever” for those groups and criticize “greater harassment, violence and guidance” of them.
