Prosecutors Decline To Charge Hundreds of UCLA Encampment Arrestees, Citing School’s Failure To Assist Investigation

‘It’s absolutely pathetic that there’s been no discipline,’ UC regent Jay Sures tells the Free Beacon

UCLA failed to help prosecutors investigate the anti-Israel activists who set up an encampment last spring that blocked Jewish students from parts of campus, according to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. Of the hundreds arrested, only two—both counterprotesters—are facing criminal charges, while a third was referred to an informal proceeding.

Chaos broke out at UCLA last May when anti-Israel protesters, holed up in a weeklong encampment, and counterprotesters clashed, leading police to arrest 205. But almost all of those were thrown out, in part because of the “university’s failure or inability to assist,” the city attorney’s office announced Friday.

“Most of these cases were declined for evidentiary reasons or due to a university’s failure or inability to assist in identification or other information needed for prosecution,” the office wrote.

The development comes as UCLA continues to argue that it didn’t have a responsibility to stop the encampment from excluding Jews from parts of campus. The University of California system is also facing a Justice Department investigation into whether it “has engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, religion and national origin against its professors, staff and other employees by allowing an Antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses.”

University of California regent and United Talent Agency vice chairman Jay Sures told the Washington Free Beacon, “It’s absolutely pathetic” that the school hasn’t punished the encampment activists.

“Regardless of whether there was enough evidence to criminally prosecute those involved in the encampment, UCLA had enough evidence to take disciplinary student action. It’s absolutely pathetic that there’s been no discipline,” Sures, an outspoken defender of Israel and Jewish students, said. “UCLA must revamp, rethink, and retool the way student and faculty disciplinary processes are handled to ensure swift and appropriate action in the future.”

Sures and his family have faced their own anti-Israel harassment. In February, UCLA’s Students for Justice in Palestine, an encampment organizer, and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine chapters vandalized Sures’s home, surrounded a family member’s vehicle, and held a sign that read, “Jonathan Sures you will pay, until you see your final day.” In response, the university temporarily suspended the anti-Israel student groups as it conducts an “administrative review.”

UCLA’s failure to help the city attorney’s office is reminiscent of challenges prosecutors faced while investigating an assault on an Israeli Harvard Business School student during an October 2023 protest. The Ivy League school refused to cooperate with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in its investigation into the two student suspects, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo and Ibrahim Bharmal, delaying procedures for months. On Monday, 18 months after the incident, a judge ordered the students to complete an in-person anger management course and 80 hours of community service as part of a pretrial diversion program, the Free Beacon reported.

The anti-Israel encampment at UCLA, meanwhile, took over the center of campus for a week. Students could only gain access to the occupied area if given clearance and a wristband. The administration didn’t call in police until violence broke out between protesters and counterprotesters. After a tense, hours-long showdown—during which protesters likened officers to the Ku Klux Klan—authorities dismantled the tents.

In June, three Jewish students sued UCLA, alleging that officials “routinely turned their backs on Jewish students, aiding and abetting a culture that has allowed calls for the annihilation of the Jewish people, Nazi symbolism, and religious slurs to go unchecked.” The suit argued that the university knowingly allowed anti-Israel activists to enforce a “Jew Exclusion Zone” that segregated Jewish students, prevented them from accessing the heart of campus, and forced them to disavow their religious beliefs in order to obtain access.

In August, the federal judge presiding over the case slammed UCLA for standing by as Jewish students faced discrimination.

“Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” U.S. district judge Mark Scarsi wrote in a 16-page preliminary injunction. “This fact is so unimaginable and abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating,” he added, repeating the previous statement with emphasis.

The Biden administration separately let the university off the hook in December, reaching a toothless settlement with the University of California system to settle civil rights complaints that alleged widespread discrimination against Jewish students. The university agreed to develop voluntary campus “climate surveys” and take other underwhelming measures.

Neither UCLA nor the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office responded to a request for comment.