UCLA reaches $6 million settlement with Jewish students and professor over campus protests

The University of California, Los Angeles, reached a $6 million settlement with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor whose lawsuit against the university argued it violated their civil rights by allowing pro-Palestinian protesters in 2024 to block their access to classes and other areas on campus.

The settlement comes nearly a year after a preliminary injunction was issued, marking the first time a U.S. judge had ruled against a university over their handling of on-campus demonstrations against Israel's war in Gaza.

UCLA initially had argued that it had no legal responsibility over the issue because protesters, not the university, blocked Jewish students’ access to areas. The university also worked with law enforcement to thwart attempts to set up new protest camps.

But U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi disagreed and ordered UCLA to create a plan to protect Jewish students on campus. The University of California, one of the nation’s largest public university systems, has since created systemwide campus guidelines on protests.

How the university handled dispersing the encampment in the spring drew widespread criticism. One night, counterprotesters attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment, throwing traffic cones and firing pepper spray, with fighting that continued for hours, injuring more than a dozen people, before police stepped in. The next day, after hundreds defied orders to leave, more than 200 people were arrested.

In March, the Trump administration joined the lawsuit filed by the Jewish students and Jewish professor as it opened new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; Northwestern University and Portland State University.

Last week, Columbia agreed to pay $200 million as part of a settlement to resolve investigations into alleged violations of federal antidiscrimination laws and restore more than $400 million in research grants.

The Trump administration plans to use its deal with Columbia as a template for other universities, with financial penalties that are now seen as an expectation for future agreements.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division found UCLA violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”

“UCLA failed to take timely and appropriate action in response to credible claims of harm and hostility on its campus,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

The university has said that it's committed to campus safety and will continue to implement recommendations.

"Today’s settlement reflects a critically important goal that we share with the plaintiffs: to foster a safe, secure and inclusive environment for all members of our community and ensure that there is no room for antisemitism anywhere on campus,” University of California Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly said in a statement.

As part of the settlement agreement, UCLA must ensure Jewish students, faculty and staff are not excluded from anything on-campus.

The $6.13 million settlement will pay the plaintiffs' damages and legal fees. About $2.3 million will go to eight organizations that combat antisemitism, the university said.

A group of 35 pro-Palestinian students, faculty members, legal observers, journalists and activists also has filed a lawsuit against UCLA, alleging the university failed to protect those who participated in the demonstrations. Some Jewish students have also taken part in protests on campuses around the country against Israel's war in Gaza.

During the 2014 protests at UCLA, at least 15 pro-Palestinian protesters were injured and the tepid response by authorities drew criticism from political leaders as well as Muslim students and advocacy groups.

FILE - Demonstrators walk in an encampment on the UCLA campus after clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups, May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Singer D4vd has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found last year in his apparently abandoned Tesla that was towed from the Hollywood Hills, authorities said Thursday.

Los Angeles police said in a brief statement that the 21-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer whose legal name is David Burke was being held without bail on suspicion of murder after his arrest in the investigation of the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Police said investigators would present a case to prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office on Monday. The office said in its own statement that it is aware of the arrest and its Major Crimes Division will review the case to determine whether there is enough evidence to file charges.

The singer had been under investigation by an LA County grand jury looking into the death of Rivas Hernandez. The probe was officially secret, but its existence — and the designation of D4vd as its target — was revealed on Feb. 25 when his mother, father and brother filed an objection in a Texas court to subpoenas demanding they testify.

Emails seeking comment from an attorney and a publicist who have previously worked with D4vd were not immediately returned. His representatives have not responded to multiple previous requests from The Associated Press for comment on the case.

The long-dead body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found in a Tesla on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in court documents.

The 2023 Tesla Model Y was registered in the singer's name at the Texas address of his subpoenaed family members, according to court filings from prosecutors. It had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.

Police investigators searching the Tesla in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odor of decay,” court documents said, and “detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso.”

Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office removed the bag and “discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” according to court documents. A second black bag was found under the first, and dismembered body parts were inside it. No cause of death has been publicly revealed.

Authorities had not publicly named D4vd — pronounced “David” — as a suspect prior to the arrest.

D4vd gained popularity among Generation Z fans for his blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit “Romantic Homicide,” which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP “Petals to Thorns” and a follow-up, “The Lost Petals,” in 2023.

When the body was discovered, D4vd had been on tour in support of his first full-length album, “Withered.” Later, the last two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a scheduled performance at LA’s Grammy Museum, were canceled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.

This story has been corrected to show that D4vd is 21, not 20 years old.

FILE - American singer-songwriter, David Anthony Burke, aka D4vd, performs on the Casino stage during the 58th Montreux Jazz Festival (MJF), in Montreux, Switzerland, July 19, 2024. (Cyril Zingaro/Keystone via AP, File)