Student encampments at UCLA’s campus this past spring. [Photo: Usife Ahmad]
On April 30, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a grassroots student-led organization, gathered at Royce Quad for a screening of The Encampments, a film illuminating the encampment protests that spanned across American universities in the spring of 2024, including at UCLA in response to the administration’s continued investment in genocide. This screening marked one year since Zionist mobs infiltrated the encampment on UCLA’s campus, violently attacking and harassing students as campus police and administration stood by.
Due to SJP’s suspension by UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, the student-led group was warned not to proceed with the screening. In response, campus police violently shut down the screening and arrested two pro-Palestine protestors.
Back in May of 2024, violent Zionist mobs under the guise of the University of California campus police entered the UCLA encampment and viciously attacked, beat, and ambushed UCLA students, as security officers did nothing.
On February 12, 2025, Chancellor Frenk announced in an email that the university would temporarily suspend SJP and GSJP (Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine). UCLA decided on an indefinite suspension after SJP protested outside the home of UC Regent Jay Sures. Sures, an ardent Zionist, is known for adamantly securing the UC’s continued investment of their resources in Israel, despite calls from the student body to divest since the genocide in Gaza began on October 7, 2023.
The Daily Bruin stated that Sures is associated with United Talent Agency, where he serves as Vice Chairman and Managing Director. This company works closely with the Anti-Defamation League, a well known anti-Palestine Zionist organization that pushes for support of Israel, labeling any denunciation of the state as antisemitic.
Additionally, United Talent Agency is funded by a Swedish private equity firm called EQT, which is also known for investing over $100 million in CYE security, an Israeli-based global cybersecurity network. Florian Funk, an EQT partner, has stated that “…EQT intends to increase its activity going forward” with regard to its investment in Israel.
After 20 months of one of the most documented genocides of our time, Sure’s continued association with these Zionist organizations has proven his complacency and disregard toward Palestinian life.
Frenk’s decision to suspend two organizations practicing freedom of speech and their right to protest has emboldened the anti-Palestinian sentiment that has been rampant on UCLA’s campus and at universities across the country. But the chancellor’s support for Israel should come as no surprise as Frenk himself is also a renowned Zionist, having visited occupied Palestine multiple times. One of these trips was with Project Interchange, a program hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) that hosts educational trips to Israel for American and international leaders.
Ahmad, a Palestinian-American student at UCLA and previous member of SJP, describes how UCLA’s censorship of SJP is clearly targeted. “UCLA has very Zionist leadership. I would say though the students at UCLA are generally standing in solidarity with Palestine, as we have seen the student body pushing for multiple resolutions asking UCLA to divest from Israel, but the people in leadership are very much Zionist.”
Jay Sures claims SJP specifically targeted him because he is Jewish. Unsurprisingly, he spews typical Zionist talking points, using antisemitism and his Jewish identity as a red herring. This distracts from the root of what caused SJP to demonstrate at his home, nonviolently, in the first place: his unequivocal political and financial investment in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
After Trump cut $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University for its “failure to combat antisemitism” on its campus, Julio Frenk sent out an email to UCLA students on March 10, announcing a new “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism.” This initiative is an insidious attempt to silence pro-Palestine voices, as the letter explicitly states its intention to combat “Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Bias,” conflating the two concepts as one and the same.
UCLA, alongside other universities across the country, is continuing to crack down on students’ freedom of speech and their right to protest and condemn a foreign state committing genocide using their tax dollars.
Over 20,000 Palestinian babies and children have been slaughtered by the Israeli settler state. How can UCLA students tolerate a UC regent supporting and propping up these atrocities? How do these sentiments make Palestinian students on campus feel?
Does UCLA actually care for its Palestinian student body?
When the violent Zionist mob terrorized the encampment on UCLA’s campus this past spring, brutally assaulting students, the university administration’s response was utterly unconcerned and disdainful. Gene Block, the chancellor of UCLA at the time stood and watched, as students were terrorized by campus police.
These Zionist individuals, many of whom did not attend UCLA, viciously attacked students, throwing firecrackers and mice into the encampment as well as spraying mace and bear spray. Some also bludgeoned students with harmful objects such as wooden poles. Ahmad reflects on some of the violence he witnessed firsthand at the encampment, saying, “One of my friends was stabbed by a Zionist in the encampment; the university has done very little to address this.”
UCLA refused to get law enforcement to prevent the violent mob from terrorizing the students in the encampment. They intentionally allowed these abrasive individuals to incite violence and inflammatory counter-protests just a few feet away.
Universities that continue to invest in Israel, a genocidal settler colony, are disregarding the voices of their students — students who are putting hundreds of thousands of dollars towards their education and who refuse to send that money to fund genocide.
On April 19, SJP provided commentary regarding their recent suspension and the current developments happening on campus, stating:
“Since December, SJP received notifications from UCLA of 6 alleged violations of TPM (Time, Place, and Manner) policies, which were recently revised over the summer to become far more restrictive. In February, SJP received a notification from UCLA about being interim suspended, at the same time as a schoolwide announcement of the suspension was sent via email to all students and faculty. , they received another notification which was for allegedly failing to comply with interim suspension. In the hearing process for student organizations, UCLA groups have an initial meeting with the university representatives to “explain our side”, but have consistently faced shady practices from the Dean about scheduling these meetings. Currently, the university has proceeded with recommending sanctions despite skipping this initial step for many of the alleged violations. No sanctions have been imposed as of yet as the hearing process is ongoing, though the group is in an indefinite interim suspension. It is also significant to note that the university has again changed and revised their TPM policies as these conduct processes have been ongoing.”
The UCLA Taskforce on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, & Anti-Muslim Racism has published three recent reports since April of 2024, making it loud and clear that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students do not feel safe on campus whatsoever.
Trump’s attack on students’ First Amendment rights and any critical opinion of Israel has resulted in the visa revocation of at least 20 UCLA students. As threats of deportation and targeted attacks against students begin to rise, the suspension of SJP has proven that UCLA’s student body interests do not come first.
UCLA’s dereliction of duty to protect its students has exposed its inherent racism towards its Palestinian and Arab student body. The UC’s have made it abundantly clear as to what their stance is: “Genocide above everything.”
