The University of California, Berkeley and its police force failed to protect Jews, including declining to identify and apprehend suspects, who allegedly attacked visibly Jewish students on the public school’s campus, according to a complaint under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act announced on Tuesday.
Yael Lerman, founding director of the legal department at StandWithUs, told JNS that Berkeley police said it did not approach suspects “while they remained with a large group because that might cause a riot.”
The explanation of police inaction during the Oct. 16, 2023 event “wholly fails to explain the refusal to approach them after they parted from the group,” Lerman said. And the problem was “compounded,” she said, at a Sept. 12, 2024 incident, during which the same visibly Jewish student again pointed attackers out to Berkeley police.
Officers told the student that they wouldn’t intervene but that the student could make a citizen’s arrest, per the complaint.
“Either campus police did not actually believe approaching the individuals posed a danger, or they felt it was appropriate to expose the student to that danger,” she told JNS. “Either way, they utterly failed to take the steps reasonably necessary to protect Jewish students on their campus.”
StandWithUS and the current Berkeley student filed the complaint with the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday.
Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor in the Berkeley communications office, told JNS that “we are not aware of any complaint that might have been filed today, and I am not aware of any incidents that have allegedly endangered or undermined the safety of Jewish students on the Berkeley campus since new directives were put in place last August.”
“UC Berkeley has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to confronting antisemitism as part of our support for a campus community where all can feel safe, respected and welcome regardless of their origins, identities, beliefs or perspectives,” Mogulof told JNS. “So, too, is the university committed to compliance with, and enforcement of the rules, laws and policies that prohibit identity-based harassment and discrimination on the campus.”
The public school “strengthened” its commitment to fighting Jew-hatred in 2015 when it created the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Jewish Student Life and Campus Climate, and in 2019, it launched an Antisemitism Education Initiative, “the first program of its kind in the country,” he said.
The complaint, filed on Tuesday, alleges that “UC Berkeley contributes to a hostile climate for Jewish, Zionist and Israeli students through its inaction, refusal to enforce its own policies, deliberate dismissiveness of Jewish students’ safety concerns and at times active participation in the deprivation of Jewish students’ rights.”
According to the complaint, the student—an Orthodox Jewish man who wears a kippah and tzitzit, and “considers his connection to Israel to be central to his Jewish ethnic and religious identity and a reflection of his Jewish ancestry—was pushed to the ground by two masked people, who tried to take his Israeli flag during the 2023 incident.
In the 2024 incident, a masked person at a Students for Justice in Palestine “die-in” blocked him from going through the university’s Sather Gate, as he sought to go to math class.
“The masked individual then put his hands on co-complainant to stop him from walking on campus through the display. When co-complainant tried walking around him, the masked individual continued to block him and pushed him back,” according to the complaint. “Co-complainant believes this unwanted physical contact and blocking was because co-complainant appeared identifiably Jewish and therefore was assumed not to be part of the anti-Zionist group unlawfully utilizing the space.”
Lerman told JNS that although complaints like the one filed today generally must be filed within 180 days of an incident, that limitation can be extended, including when an institution has said it is investigating the matter.
“The 2023 assault provides critical context and evidence of the flawed policies and processes at issue, which again led to violation of the student’s rights in 2024, culminating in the 2025 determination that the campus police’s conduct did not involve any policy violations,” she said.
Lerman added that the public university “has now had multiple opportunities to rectify this situation.”
“Its repeated failure to do so demonstrates its refusal to voluntarily resolve the issue, which is what made this complaint necessary,” she said.
