WASHINGTON — The University of California, Los Angeles, is asking a judge to throw out a Trump administration lawsuit accusing it of abetting antisemitism against employees after Hamas’ attack on Israel in 2023.

The Justice Department brought the case in February 2026 and said UCLA had “turned a blind eye to — and at times facilitated — grossly antisemitic acts and systematically ignored cries for help from its own terrified Jewish and Israeli employees.”

UCLA said in a motion Monday evening that there was “no question that some university employees were exposed to antisemitism on campus.” But it nevertheless told Judge Christina A. Snyder of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that she should dismiss the lawsuit.

The government’s case, UCLA argued, brushed past the university’s efforts to combat antisemitism in recent years and did not prove a widespread “pattern or practice” of deliberate discrimination by the school.

“UCLA has responded — and will continue to respond — to antisemitism, regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit,” the university wrote. “But the legal claims raised in this litigation are flawed for numerous reasons and should be dismissed.”

Monday’s filing was the second time in less than a month that UCLA had asked Snyder, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, to shut down a case tied to accusations of antisemitism on campus. On Sept. 30, it forcefully pushed back against another Justice Department lawsuit making similar claims about the treatment of Jewish and Israeli students during campus protests in 2024.

In that case, UCLA accused the government of weaponizing civil rights laws to control universities.

Snyder has not ruled on that motion to dismiss.

UCLA tried a different tactic in its filing on the case concerning employees. The university insisted that the government’s suit was legally compromised, in part because UCLA was not responsible for discriminatory harassment by students and “unknown third parties.”

The government, the university said, wanted to pin liability on the school “on the purported ground that UCLA was negligent in response to harassment by third parties whose conduct it could not control.”

“That theory,” the university asserted, “stretches the law beyond recognition.”

The university also urged the judge to consider its steps to fight antisemitism on its campus, which was rocked by pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including an encampment, in 2024.

As it announced its case about the UCLA workers in February, the Justice Department said Jewish and Israeli faculty members had “been physically threatened, had their classrooms disrupted and had their workplaces papered with disturbing images.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about UCLA’s motion. After the September filing, though, it said it did not discuss pending litigation.

The two lawsuits against UCLA are part of a broader clash between the Trump administration and the University of California system. UCLA has been a top target, but all 10 of the system’s campuses are facing federal scrutiny.

Last year, the government sent UCLA a proposal to resolve accusations of civil rights violations. The offer floated policy changes and payments amounting to more than $1 billion. The university refused.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Alan Blinder/Mark Abramson
c. 2026 The New York Times Company