The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been sued by two professors and two graduate students who took part in protests relating to the war in Gaza.
The four plaintiffs allege that UCLA violated their state constitutional rights.
The current conflict between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023, after Hamas launched a widescale attack on Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and some 251 were taken hostage.
Israel retaliated and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to eradicate Hamas. Over 42,792 people have been killed in Gaza, 16,765 of whom were children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
On April 25 this year a student protest began on the UCLA campus, where staff and students protested the institution's investment in Israel. The occupation lasted for eight days and was part of a string of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses across the U.S., which campaigned for divestment from Israel.
On May 2, the Los Angeles Police Department raided and dismantled the encampment, arresting the protestors and ending the occupation. The encampment was attacked on multiple occasions by counter protestors.
Blair v. Regents of the University of California is a lawsuit which is "challenging the suppression of student and faculty speech by UCLA administrators which culminated in the violent destruction of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment on May 2, 2024," according to a release from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The lawsuit was filed by two associate professors in political science and anthropology Graeme Blair and Salih Can Açıksöz and a graduate student, Benjamin Kersten.
The ACLU said, "By shutting down the encampment because of its speech content, UCLA and University of California (UC) administrations undermined the role of universities to foster critical thought and expression."
According to LAist, the lawsuit says that UCLA previously allowed students and staff to create encampments during previous protests, including in the protests against apartheid in South Africa back in the 1980s.
LAist also reported that two of the plaintiffs who were arrested after the police cleared out the encampment in May, say that their arrest violates the state constitution because the university did not have probable cause to declare that the encampment was an unlawful assembly.
The plaintiffs are asking that the court declare that the university's declaration that the encampment was an unlawful assembly, was itself unlawful, and to expunge arrest and disciplinary records.
Newsweek has reached out to UCLA for comment.
In June, Rick Braziel, UCLA's associate vice chancellor for campus safety, released a statement saying, "UCLA is firmly committed to protecting the free expression rights of everyone in our community, regardless of their views, as long as demonstrations are peaceful and follow guidelines for the appropriate time, place and manner for campus demonstrations."
Student protests over the war in Gaza have been ongoing across America since the spring, at college campuses in many states, including at Columbia University in New York and at the University of Minnesota.
The protests have led to arrests and concerns about antisemitism on college campuses.
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