This post was updated July 29 at 10:19 a.m.

UCLA spent over $12 million in relation to spring pro-Palestine protests, according to estimates obtained by the Daily Bruin.

The university spent $11,781,917 on security and law enforcement, including mutual aid with outside law enforcement agencies, private security and overtime payment for UC employees during the spring quarter, according to a preliminary estimate from the UCLA Compliance Office. Another $471,760 was spent on cleanup – including the repair of items damaged by vandalism, for a total of nearly $12.3 million in protest-related costs.

The university is considering collecting the money – the highest figure across the UC – from protest participants.

This $12.3 million disclosure by UCLA is higher than UC Office of the President estimates previously reported by the Los Angeles Times. Jorge Silva, the UC’s associate vice president for communications, said the numbers from UCOP were from June 25 and that the estimate from the UCLA Compliance Office would be more accurate as of July 18.

Mary Osako, the vice chancellor of strategic communications for UCLA, said in an emailed statement that the expenses were reviewed by the university’s Emergency Management Policy Group, which includes the chancellor, executive vice chancellor and provost, vice chancellor for administration, and chief financial officer, among others. The funds come from discretionary funding available to the chancellor, which is not raised through student tuition and fees, she said.

Osako added in the statement that UCLA has filed a claim through UC insurance to cover the costs of protest-related damages.

According to the L.A. Times, one UC regent said the UC should demand reimbursement from students who were found to have defaced and damaged campus property. Osako said in the statement a decision has not yet been made on plans to collect reimbursement from individuals or organizations, but would in part rely on the ability to identify the responsible people.

The total spent on costs related to the handling of demonstrations on campus – nearly $12.3 million – is equivalent to approximately 8% of the revenue generated in 2023 by UCLA’s investments.

A total of over $29.1 million was spent systemwide on costs related to demonstrations, according to a report from UCOP. The report showed UC Berkeley having spent the second-greatest amount in response to demonstrations, at an estimated $8 million.

Rick Braziel, associate vice chancellor for the Office of Campus Safety, said an issue the university ran into with its law enforcement for the spring protests is that they did not anticipate every scenario that could happen and plan the appropriate responses. He added that the hasty response time required for the protests made it so the university was “scrambling” to find law enforcement, hiring people at a rate that could have been lower with ample preparation.

“If we do our planning right, just the mere fact we’re planning to have a more efficient, effective response, we’re going to reduce costs,” he said.

Graeme Blair, a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, said in a written statement that he believes the UC refused simple demands from student protesters to discuss the university’s “complicity in the genocide in Gaza” – instead spending millions of dollars to call law enforcement from across California on its students and staff.

“We should spend precious California tax dollars on teaching and learning,” Blair said in the statement. “Not punishing our students for standing up for their beliefs and the Palestinian people.”

Blair, an associate professor of political science, said in the statement he hopes UC officials will be open to speaking with students about divestment from Israel.

Braziel said part of his vision for campus policing in the future is to have more community policing services, such as police service agents, who would talk and interact with students more.

Javier Nuñez-Verdugo, the external vice president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, expressed disappointment with the UCLA administration in response to the cost estimates.

“It’s a really big shame that a university … is willing to spend so much to quell student protests, yet they’re not willing to put in that same amount of money into our resource centers (and) not willing to put that same money into support services for students,” they said.

While they acknowledged that some pro-Palestine demonstrators were responsible for some vandalism on buildings around the Palestine solidarity encampment, Nuñez-Verdugo attributed the necessity for cleanup following the sweep of the encampment to actions by law enforcement and university administration.

“It is mainly because of law enforcement and the … way that the university chose to utilize their little lap dogs, their little agents of the state,” they said.

Contributing reports by Dylan Winward, News editor.