The U.S. Department of Education announced on Dec. 20 that the University of California had agreed to a plan to resolve nine complaints of bigotry and discrimination in five of its schools.
The Department of Education investigated incidents at the University of California campuses in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Davis and Santa Cruz.
Students said that administrators failed to effectively address their reports of violent protest chants, vandalism, unwanted filming, checkpoints at encampments and failures to provide police protection. The complaints also alleged that some universities treated their students differently regarding access to campus or university programs.
The Education Department’s investigation found that the campuses failed to respond effectively when the harassment claims involved speech protected by the First Amendment.
“The universities appear not to have evaluated if the conduct nevertheless created a hostile environment based on shared ancestry for affected students,” the department stated.
Additionally, the department found that some of the universities that did respond failed to remedy potential or apparent hostile environments or prevent future harassment.
The University of California agreed to numerous actions to resolve the complaints, including reviewing claims of harassment and other discrimination in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years; and collecting the universities’ responses to the incidents.
The college system will also implement anti-bias training for staff and a climate assessment for university students and employees to evaluate the extent to which they are subjected to or witness harassment and other discrimination.
Based on the findings of these reviews, the University of California also agreed to submit a plan to “identify responsive steps” for the Education Department’s approval.
