The UC reached an agreement with the United States Department of Education on Friday, resolving nine open investigations over anti-Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Palestinian and Arab discrimination allegations.

Students and employees claimed that during last year’s protests over the Israel-Hamas war, UCLA, along with four other UC schools – UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego – violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents institutions receiving federal funding from discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin or perceived national origin. In the agreement, the Office for Civil Rights – an agency within the U.S. Department of Education – laid out guidelines the UC must follow to resolve these Title VI cases.

“This agreement builds upon the University’s ongoing efforts to combat discrimination and harassment based on national origin, including Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim ancestry,” said UC Office of the President senior director Rachel Zaentz in an emailed statement to the Daily Bruin. “We are glad to reach a resolution with OCR and will continue working with them throughout the implementation of the agreement.”

According to the resolution letter, Title VI complaints began at UCLA during Students for Justice in Palestine’s 2022 Palestine Liberation Week. They continued throughout protests in October and November 2023 and during the first Palestine solidarity encampment in April 2024, according to the letter.

The UC agreed to several terms with the OCR to rectify its Title VI compliance issues, according to the resolution agreement. The two parties first agreed that the OCR would review and approve any revisions to the University’s antidiscrimination policies and “guidelines that it uses to address its compliance with Title VI.”

The agreement also requires the UC to train its employees who investigate discrimination complaints for impartiality and effectiveness in response. Public safety officers who respond to or investigate discrimination incidents must also receive training on nondiscrimination requirements under Title VI, according to the agreement.

The University must provide documentation of this training to the OCR by Dec. 31, 2025, according to the agreement.

“The University will provide training to its employees responsible for investigating complaints and other reports of discrimination, including harassment, based on actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics,” the agreement said.

By Sept. 30, 2025, the OCR must also receive a file of the University’s – or each individual campus’ – response to discrimination complaints at UCSB, UCSC, UCSD, UC Davis and UCLA during the 2024-2025 academic year, according to the agreement.

These reports will include 23 data points at a minimum, including the supportive measures offered to the complainant, names of the individuals who engaged in discrimination, outcomes of the investigations, corrective actions taken and steps the University or individual campus took to eliminate a potential recurrence of the event.

The University must also develop voluntary “climate surveys” that include questions regarding a student’s knowledge of discriminatory acts against students or employees on the basis of shared ancestry or national origin, according to the agreement. The UC has also agreed to provide a report to the OCR regarding proposed actions based on the survey and, within 60 days of the OCR’s approval, must provide documentation of implementation of these actions.

“The University will analyze the results of the climate survey(s) within 90 calendar days of its completion to identify appropriate action(s) that the University and/or the individual University campuses will take to improve the climate at the campus and the University more broadly with respect to nondiscrimination based on national origin, including shared Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim, and/or Arab ancestry,” the agreement said.

By Jan. 17, UC President Michael Drake must issue a statement to students and employees stating the University’s intolerance for discrimination, commitment to addressing such issues and ways to report harassment, according to the agreement. The UCLA chancellor must also send a campuswide message by the same deadline with a telephone number and email address to report discriminatory incidents, the agreement said.

The OCR received over 150 reports of discriminatory acts at UCLA that occurred between October 2023 and spring 2024, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Education. Incidents of violence against Jewish and Israeli students during the encampment, counter-protesters’ April 30 attacks on pro-Palestine protesters and UCPD’s subsequent response concerned the office particularly, the press release added.

“UCLA, through its campus police, allegedly failed to protect Palestinian, Arab, and/or pro-Palestinian student protestors while they were violently attacked, injured, and intimidated by counter-protestors, including third parties,” the press release said.

The agreement mandates UCLA to further investigate whether the university’s police, public safety officers and security contractors harassed or discriminated against certain students and employees based on their actual or perceived national origin or shared ancestry when responding to the April 30 counter-protester attacks on the encampment.

Reports also alleged incidents of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment at UCLA outside of the encampment.

The office received reports of rally chants including, “Death to Israel,” and “Intifada now.” It also obtained a video of students beating an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while allegedly chanting for physical violence toward him.

The Daily Bruin was unable to confirm reports of the chants or students chanting the phrases.

Reports further alleged that members of the first Palestine solidarity encampment at UCLA would not let Jewish students enter who did not “denounce their Zionism,” according to the press release.

“OCR has a concern that the encampment at UCLA in spring 2024 may have subjected students to different treatment based on their national origin/shared Jewish ancestry, when their access to parts of the campus or UCLA programs was limited,” the press release said.

UCLA must “promptly investigate” if students were blocked from accessing campus based on their Jewish or Israeli heritage, according to the agreement, as well as if faculty held classes or office hours within the encampment.

Muslim, Palestinian and pro-Palestine students also faced discrimination, the reports found, which included allegations that other students and members of the public followed, filmed and doxxed them.

The reports found that leaders of UCSB, UCSC, UCSD and UC Davis violated Title VI by recognizing – but failing to act on – alleged harassment against students of Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim and Arab ancestry. According to the press release, UCSB leadership knew of antisemitic vandalism of a Jewish student’s dorm room and signs that targeted Jews and Zionists, and administrations at UCSD and UC Davis also received reports of antisemitic comments made by students and professors.

“The evidence to date showed that UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, UC San Diego, and UC Santa Cruz all had widely reported incidents of alleged harassment against students based on their national origin,” the press release said. “Chancellors at various UC campuses made statements to their communities acknowledging hate speech, antisemitic and anti-Muslim discrimination.”

The OCR said in the agreement that it would provide the UC with a notice and 60 days to fix any potential violations of the contract that may occur. If the UC does not comply within 60 days, the Department of Education could initiate enforcement proceedings or refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice.