In late April 2024, a mob attacked a pro-Palestinian student encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Police and campus security stood by and watched the assault for nearly five hours before intervening. Pleas to university officials went nowhere. And the next day police returned, only to violently and unlawfully clear the encampment and arrest protesters. These are the allegations of a group of students and faculty who are suing the people they blame for the attack, law enforcement agencies, and university officials for violating their civil rights.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, comes as the federal government deploys all of its might to restrict speech on Palestine in the name of eradicating antisemitism on college campuses. The Trump administration has begun arresting and revoking the visas of students and scholars over their advocacy for Palestine. It has also launched a Department of Justice investigation into the University of California system for allowing “an Antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses.” And this week, the DOJ threw its support behind two Jewish students who are suing UCLA for alleged antisemitism, accusing the school of trying to avoid responsibility in the case, according to legal filings.

The sprawling 96-page complaint, which identifies 20 alleged members of the mob by name, accuses university officials and police of violating their civil rights, carrying out unlawful arrests, firing less lethal munitions at protesters at close range without just cause, as well as negligence for failing to protect students and faculty from violence in late April. Plaintiffs said the mob incident followed a series of “physical attacks, threats of violence, and harassment” against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students on or near campus throughout the school year.

“The events at UCLA highlight systemic anti-Palestinian bias and the administration’s failure to uphold its obligation to protect the rights of students and faculty to engage in peaceful protest and expression,” the complaint said. “This action seeks to hold UCLA accountable for its failure to address and prevent Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab discrimination, its violation of civil rights of all pro-Palestinian protesters — a group comprised of a wide range of people including Jewish people — and to demand systemic changes to ensure the safety and equity of all members of the university community.”

“It’s really important to know UCLA did nothing to stop them on that night.”

The complaint alleges in stark terms the violence that the school allowed against protesters, said attorney Thomas Harvey, who is working on the suit.

“There’s this notion, broadly speaking, in the media, that there’s some kind of violence from the pro-Palestinian protesters,” Harvey said. “In this case, it’s four-plus hours of unmitigated violence is coming from the counter-protesters, whose problem is pro-Palestinian or anti-genocide speech.”

There were multiple police agencies present, but none stopped the attacks on protesters, Harvey added. Officers from the University of California Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department, California Highway Patrol, and private security were present, he said, but none intervened. “It’s really important to know UCLA did nothing to stop........

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