UCLA slammed for ‘chaotic’ response to protest melee in UC independent review

Police officers clash with pro-Palestinian protesters as a fire extinguisher is deployed at UCLA on May 2. A call for reforms The review recommended that UCLA take key actions: Develop a detailed response plan Provide better training of civilian staff and police Increase real-time communications about campus disruptions Hire more civilians to help mediate conflicts before law enforcement is called in The report was based on tens of thousands of documents and interviews with current and former UCLA administrators, faculty, staff, students and law enforcement over five months. The Republican-led U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce also criticized UCLA and other elite universities, including Harvard and Columbia, for “dramatic failures in confronting antisemitism.” UC President Michael V. Drake said in a statement Thursday that the goal of the UCLA review was to learn what reforms were needed to prevent a recurrence of the shortcomings, while safeguarding campus health and safety, equal access to educational facilities and 1st Amendment rights to free speech. In a 93-page report released last month, a UCLA task force on antisemitism described “broad-based perceptions of antisemitic and anti-Israeli bias on campus” among students, lecturers, faculty, staff and administrators. Regent Jay Sures grilled UCLA Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt on the campus administration’s progress in investigating allegations of antisemitic, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim incidents since Oct. 7, 2023, which Hunt said were in the “hundreds” on “both sides.” Hunt said the investigations were ongoing and that “some of these cases can take up to a year to resolve.” Drake called the antisemitism report “deeply troubling” and touted the university’s new systemwide office of civil rights that is dealing with discrimination across campuses.