Young America’s Foundation filed a free speech lawsuit against the University of California, Los Angeles on Thursday after UCLA administrators claimed “security concerns” to block the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter from hosting a lecture by scholar Robert Spencer last semester titled “Everything You Know About Palestine Is Wrong.”
With representation from the Mountain States Legal Foundation and Lex Rex Institute, Young America’s Foundation along with YAF activists Brooke Broll and Macy Roepke are suing a handful of UCLA administrators responsible for denying YAF’s event in violation of the First Amendment.
Defendants include former UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block, former Executive Vice Chancellor Darnell Hunt, Associate Vice Chancellor Rick Braziel, and several others from campus leadership who engaged in viewpoint discrimination by allowing anti-Israel events while shutting down pro-Israel speakers.
These UCLA administrators violated the YAF students’ rights and failed to prevent a heckler’s veto by caving to pro-Hamas agitators. As a public school run with taxpayer dollars, UCLA must remain viewpoint-neutral and is prohibited from picking winners and losers when it comes to free expression.
“Cancel culture has gone unchecked for far too long. YAF’s lawsuit aims to rebalance the equation, ensuring universities don’t cave to unhinged mobs by canceling pro-Israel speakers and instead protect them and their First Amendment rights,” said Governor Scott Walker, President of Young America’s Foundation.
“UCLA allowed its campus to be taken over by a radical anti-Israel mob, claiming that it could not do anything because the mob had a right to free speech (never mind the violence and property destruction),” reminded Mountain States Legal Foundation Senior Counsel James Kerwin.
“But when YAF wanted to put on a true free speech event—a peaceful lecture presenting another perspective on the Middle East conflict, UCLA changed its tune and shut the talk down. UCLA pretends it cares about freedom of expression, but when push comes to shove, it only allows one side to have its say,” Kerwin emphasized. “That is a violation of the First Amendment. This lawsuit will force UCLA to do what it should have done long ago: treat all viewpoints fairly and stop the campus shout down mobs.”
“Our higher education institutions are tasked with fostering debate, yet UCLA officials clearly violated this fundamental principle. By choosing sides, institutional leaders curtailed students’ intellectual growth and infringed upon our First Amendment rights,” said Brooke Broll, a YAF student and plaintiff in the lawsuit.
YAF’s latest lawsuit defending students seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting UCLA from engaging in this kind of viewpoint discrimination or bowing to a heckler’s veto as well as providing security equally without concern for the content of speech and events being protected. In addition, YAF seeks a declaratory judgment that UCLA violated the First Amendment with its actions surrounding YAF’s planned lecture with Robert Spencer. The lawsuit also seeks compensatory and nominal damages along with punitive damages and attorney fees.
UCLA’s decision to violate the Constitution and deprive students of a sorely needed perspective came as rabidly pro-Hamas and anti-Israel agitators were permitted to lay siege to campus by the same administrators. Among other galling scenes that unfolded on UCLA’s campus, students were “seen brandishing knives on campus destroying posters of kidnapped Israelis.”
Sadly, the situation necessitating YAF’s latest legal action to defend students’ rights is not the first time UCLA has showed its anti-Israel bias. The school was ranked as one of the top “Hotspots of Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Sentiment on US Campuses” by Brandeis University, previously approved an event with the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and offers classes on “Zionist settlement policy.”
Confirming the school’s institutional bias against Israel, UCLA sanctioned a violent encampment in the center of campus in the wake of Hamas terrorists’ October 7 massacre by issuing a stand-down order to law enforcement. UCLA’s demonstrated pattern of deference to the anti-Israel mob was continued with its administrators’ decision to deny YAF’s pro-Israel lecture with Robert Spencer.
The verified complaint can be viewed here.
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