Culture war and struggle for Palestine heats up at UCLA ahead of academic year

As students and professors return to campus for the 2025 academic year, the spotlight is turning towards the University of California, Los Angeles, who are facing multiple lawsuits and defunding threats related to free speech, while the state's governor wages a social media war against the administration over congressional redistricting.

It is an unusually tense time for students to return to school, even more so than last year after the height of the encampment movement.

Under the second Trump administration, student protesters are being detained, foreign students are facing visa removals and deportations, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are conducting raids in almost all public spaces, including universities, particularly in southern California.

"Students are returning to a toxic environment. The MAGA [Make America Great Again] movement is using antisemitism and Title six [anti-discrimination] to hold university presidents ransom. The Trump administration is targeting [California Governor Gavin] Newsom and the blue states," David Frank, professor of political communication and rhetoric at the University of Oregon, told The New Arab.

"Universities will only survive if the public mount a campaign to resist MAGA influence," he said.

Last week, a federal judge ruled that US President Donald Trump, who had demanded a $1 billion settlement, restore to UCLA hundreds of millions of dollars in funding that he had paused over alleged antisemitism, a decision that many free speech advocates are welcoming following more conciliatory stances by other universities over the same allegations when faced with similar recent threats. 

Despite the university's comparatively tough stance on Trump this month, pro-Palestinian activists have not forgotten the university's position against their movement.

Trump's determination to withhold research funding was precipitated by a student encampment in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza, which was violently attacked last April for four hours by a mob of counterprotesters, while UCLA security personnel stood by and law enforcement were slow to respond once they arrived on the scene, according to news reports at the time.

"Unfortunately, schools like UCLA have been engaged in a lot of egregious conduct. On free speech, they haven't done nearly enough. This has only been exacerbated by the Trump administration," Amr Shabaik, legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Los Angeles, told TNA. He is representing students in a lawsuit against UCLA and pro-Israel extremists who were attacked in the encampment.

"If they can go after big institutions with a lot of resources, what does that mean for the everyday person without these resources?" said Shabaik. "We're seeing that with the immigration raids. It really is a step towards fascism."