Another Hill Not to Die On

We pointed to some legal hills that UC should not want to die on in prior posts. Those hills involved admissions and we urged that some kind of settlement be reached, given all the other challenges facing UC. 

Another hill not to die on is the Frankel et al case against UCLA with regard to issues regarding antisemitism and the events of last spring. You probably saw the recent LA Times story that the Trump administration filed a brief in that case.* 

If you just read the headline, you might think that the Trump administration is somehow initiating the case or is the plaintiff in the case. Not so! The plaintiffs are mainly some UCLA students. The filing by the Trump administration just says it agrees with the students' complaints. The actual complaint by the plaintiffs runs almost 100 pages with a history of events, exhibits, etc. But when you get to what the plaintiffs are asking, the demands seem to be readily amenable to settlement. Here is the salient portion, i.e., what they are asking from the court:

What seems to be at stake is an agreement by UCLA that it will not deny the plaintiffs their "constitutional and statutory rights" and some monetary damages that will be pennies compared to all the other funding now at risk for reasons unrelated to this case. 

You may have noticed that when the full Board of Regents met at UCLA earlier this week on the morning of March 19th, after an hour of public comments and statements by various officials and representatives, they went into closed session to discuss "External Funding Litigation and Legal Issues." What was unusual is that they set aside a full three hours for that private discussion. Normally, there would have been at most a short session and then various committee meetings that morning. 

In short, the Frankel et al case is a flea on the back of a much larger elephant. Settle the Frankel case. Deal with the elephant. Don't let the flea aggravate the elephant.

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*The LA Times story is at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-03-18/trump-court-action-supports-jewish-students-in-ucla-of-antisemitism-case. The Frankel et al case is at https://ia600402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/Amended-Complaint-in-Frankel-v.-Regents-of-the-University-of-California%2010-22-2024.pdf. The government's filing in the case is at https://ia800402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/United_States_statement_of_interest_-_Frankel_et_al._v._UCLA_508.pdf.