U.C.L.A. Can’t Let Protesters Block Jewish Students From Campus, Judge Says

The judge’s temporary ruling came after protests over the war in Gaza in the spring led to over 200 arrests on campus.

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily barred the University of California, Los Angeles, from allowing protesters to set up encampments that blocked Jewish students from having access to central parts of the campus.

Issuing a preliminary injunction in favor of three Jewish students who had sued U.C.L.A., Judge Mark C. Scarsi said university administrators were prohibited from offering any programs, activities or access to campus if they were not “fully and equally accessible to Jewish students.”

“Jewish students were excluded from portions of the U.C.L.A. campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” Judge Scarsi, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, wrote in the order. “This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating.”

He added that U.C.L.A. had argued that it “has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters.” But Judge Scarsi said it did not matter who blocked the students.

Lawyers for the students said the injunction was the first in the nation against what they called “an antisemitic encampment.” Last spring, scores of pro-Palestinian encampments protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza sprang up at campuses across the nation. Many, including the one at U.C.L.A., were broken up by the police, leading to more than 3,100 arrests nationwide, and in some cases, physical confrontations.

Amid the clashes, Jewish students said they felt threatened and intimidated by the encampments. Protesters, on the other hand, said they were exercising their rights to free speech.