YAF files lawsuit against UCLA for disallowing pro-Israel speaker
In May, YAF attempted to host Robert Spencer for a talk entitled 'Everything You Know About Palestine Is Wrong.'
The lawsuit says UCLA tried 'everything it could to derail Plaintiffs’ proposed pro-Israel lecture planned to take place in mid-May 2024 under controlled conditions in the Student Union.'
The conservative student group Young America’s Foundation (YAF) has filed a federal lawsuit against the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for allegedly preventing the group from hosting a pro-Israel event at the school.
In May, YAF attempted to host Robert Spencer, who is a critic of Islam, for a talk entitled “Everything You Know About Palestine Is Wrong.” But, the lawsuit alleges, YAF was prevented from hosting the lecture by the university administration.
The document, filed on Oct. 3, asserts that the UCLA administration did “everything it could to derail Plaintiffs’ proposed pro-Israel lecture planned to take place in mid-May 2024 under controlled conditions in the Student Union.”
“UCLA repeatedly ignored requests for information, withheld paperwork approvals, prevented Plaintiffs from effectively advertising in advance of the event, and engaged in other bureaucratic delay tactics,” the lawsuit continues.
“When that did not work, UCLA resorted to less subtle forms of censorship,” the plaintiffs allege. “At the very last minute, just before the lecture was scheduled to take place, UCLA pulled a fast one: locking the doors to the event space, and claiming that the talk needed to be moved to an out-of-the way location because of purported security concerns arising from threatened counter-protest activity.”
In a statement provided to Campus Reform, YAF President and former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker stated that “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 protects them and their First Amendment rights.”
Campus Reform has reported that the University of California system spent $29 million in order to recover from the pro-Palestine protests that rocked its campuses during the spring semester.
UCLA specifically paid more than $10 million, in addition to $400,000 spent on graffiti removal.
In August, Campus Reform also reported about a lawsuit filed against UCLA for allegedly allowing unchecked anti-Semitism on its campus. In that case, a judge ruled that the university must develop anti-discrimination policies to check anti-Jewish conduct and rhetoric.
“Meet and confer to see if you can come up with some agreeable stipulated injunction or some other court order that would give both UCLA the flexibility it needs,” the judge wrote in his opinion, “but also provide Jewish students on campus some reassurance that their free exercise rights are not going to play second fiddle to anything else.”
Campus Reform has contacted UCLA for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
