Jewish faculty, students and others are asking UC leaders to improve how they handle complaints about atheism — saying the university’s response has been inadequate — but their comments paint a stark picture of the campus climate for Jews.
One letter from a national group that works to combat antisemitism on college campuses cited its research to conclude that Jewish students at UC have faced “unprecedented harassment, intimidation, and exclusion” since the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza sparked widespread anti-Israel protests.
Separately on Monday, at least 117 Jewish members of UCLA released a letter saying they are “totally united in our opposition” to the Trump administration’s latest lawsuit accusing the university of allowing rampant racism on campus and calling on the government to drop the lawsuit. Faculty members expressed fear that the Trump administration wants UC to “take a lie” by placing “severe restrictions on academic freedom and freedom of speech, to the detriment of all of us, including Jewish faculty and staff.”
Both letters were released after a major Jewish civil rights group said last week that the environment on many UC campuses has improved for the Jewish community as of fall 2023.
The rankings from the Anti-Defamation League’s Campus Antisemitism Report gave UCLA and UC Santa Cruz a “B,” up from a “D” last year. UC Berkeley also received a “B,” up from a “C.” The standards measure campus policies, the quality of Jewish campus organizations and programs and anti-Semitic behavior and climate in schools.
The range of opinions expressed comes at a critical time for UC — amid a multifaceted, ongoing investigation by the Trump administration into allegations of anti-Semitism on campus and before the UC Board of Regents met behind closed doors this week about the allegations.
In a statement, UC spokeswoman Rachel Zaentz said UC “unequivocally condemns racism and has taken many steps to address it and other expressions of hate and intolerance on our campuses.
‘Unprecedented torture,’ said the report
The AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization founded by two former UC employees to investigate, document and reduce anti-Semitism in the nation’s higher education institutions, sent a letter to administrators with 4,000 students, alumni and parent signatories saying Jewish students have faced “unprecedented harassment, intimidation” since the 23rd year.
The letter cited a recent report by the AMCHA Initiative — which used publicly available Israeli boycott petitions, department websites, social media posts and records of campus events — to show an increase in incidents between July 2023 and June 2025 at UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.
The AMCHA Initiative report said it found 115 members of UCLA who have endorsed boycotting classes in Israel, 117 at UC Berkeley and 55 at UC Santa Cruz. The group is similar to other major Jewish organizations that view the boycott of Israel as anti-Semitic. It also cited a number of department-sponsored programs at three institutions that it says are “one-sided, anti-Israel events.”
“When university authority is used to promote political agendas, the line between individual expression and institutional legitimacy disappears,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director and founder of the AMCHA Initiative, in a statement. “The result is a deterioration of educational standards and an environment where Jewish students face intimidation and exclusion.”
The AMCHA Initiative called on UC leaders to “stop faculty and academic institutions from using UC authority, facilities, classrooms, and platforms bearing the UC name to promote political advocacy” and to strengthen and enforce existing UC policies against “political indoctrination” in academics.
UCLA faculty ‘strongly opposes’ Trump suit
At UCLA, faculty members from multiple departments wrote their letter of response to Trump’s lawsuit on February 24, alleging that UCLA administrators routinely ignored and failed to report employee complaints of “strong” disfavor since the fall of 2023.
The lawsuit centers on the 2024 spring camp at UCLA, the site of a violent attack, arguing that it was anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. It cited images of antisemitic graffiti on the campus, including swastikas. The lawsuit recounts the lawsuits filed by two Jewish professors — at the nursing school and the medical school — when they alleged that UCLA mishandled discrimination complaints.
In response, UC President James B. Milliken said the university has an “unwavering” commitment to promoting a safe environment for Jewish people and called the suit “unnecessary.”
The letter, whose signatories include at least a dozen members of the law school, argues that the federal lawsuit uses “false claims” and “very flimsy” legal grounds to argue that UCLA violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“A hostile work environment under Title VII is one in which we are subjected to serious or general harassment in order to change our working conditions,” the letter said. “It would be something that has never happened in law for the court to issue a decision that any class of students and staff should face such a work situation, especially on the basis of the student’s speech.”
“The complaint paints a picture of our institution that we do not see,” the letter said.
Faculty also sent their message to UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, Milliken and the UC Board of Regents. “We urge the university to defend itself, and protect our community, by challenging the factual and legal basis” of the case, the professors said.
There are several signatories from the David Geffen School of Medicine, where several Jewish faculty have complained about controversial incidents. Members of UCLA’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, which in a 2024 report found “widespread perceptions of anti-Israeli bias on campus,” did not sign.
Another idea
Another non-affiliated UCLA Jewish organization, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group, does not oppose the government’s decision. “The DOJ case reflects the experiences reported by the Jewish community who have described severe harassment, ostracism, and retaliation based on their Jewishness,” the group said.
It is not clear what percentage of Jewish faculty and staff or what characters they represent. At UCLA, there are approximately 5,460 faculty members and 42,000 staff and other employees.
Joey Fishkin, a UCLA law school professor who co-authored the teacher’s letter, said he disagrees with the AMCHA Initiative’s findings.
The AMCHA Initiative “aims to challenge the principles of academic freedom within the university by falsifying many statements that criticize the actions of the Israeli government as antisemitic and somehow ‘political,’ but the book itself is an attempt to insert ‘politics’ outside the university into our academic life,” said Fishkin.
