60 No. 78 JUSTICE and indeed large, organized contingents of non-students arrived in anticipation of violence, many of them wearing goggles, helmets and gloves. This recruitment of outsiders through a coordinated social media campaign was part of the strategy outlined in the “Popular University for Gaza” playbook, which we cited in the complaint.26 In January 2026, the Court issued a significant ruling, denying motions to dismiss by lead defendants – National Students for Justice in Palestine (NJSP) and the People’s City Council (PCC) and allowing the civil-rights case to proceed. The Court recognized the gravity of the allegations arising from the 2024 UCLA encampment, which it described as a “fortified encampment” enforced by organized teams that excluded Jews and generated “numerous reports of violence and threats of violence directed at Jewish members of the community.” The Court also credited plaintiffs’ allegations of the defendants’ discriminatory intent, pointing to the volume of antisemitic exclusion and violence, antisemitic imagery and slogans, the targeting of buildings named after Jews, and NSJP’s on-the-ground leadership role.27 Importantly, the Court held that the defendants’ speech is not insulated from scrutiny and may be relied upon as evidence of discriminatory intent and animus in a civil-rights conspiracy, rejecting the effort to reframe coordinated exclusion and violence as First Amendment protected speech. The Court expressly emphasized that “the sheer volume of alleged incidents of exclusion and violence against Jews sets this case apart,” refusing to consider the claims that the exclusionary tactics were limited to Zionists.28 But sometimes our litigation strategies encounter setbacks. In our Columbia case, we sued in federal court in NYC on behalf of two (non-Jewish) employees of Columbia University who were victimized during the violent takeover of Hamilton Hall in 2024.29 Shortly after midnight on April 30, 2024, members of a highly coordinated mob donned masks and hoods to conceal their identities, armed themselves with rope, zip ties, and crowbars, and smashed their way through the doors and windows of Hamilton Hall. Once inside, the invaders encountered two janitors who were working the overnight shift. The defendants terrorized the two men, assaulted and battered them, held them against their will, and derided them as “Jew-lovers” and “Zionists.”30 The complaint, against The People’s Forum (“TPF”), a radical, revolutionary group integrally involved in the planning of the takeover, and several related individuals, alleges violations of the same two federal statutes that address conspiracies to violate civil rights as well as common law claims for assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.31 The District Court dismissed the federal civil rights claims with prejudice, concluding that even though Plaintiffs had (i) plausibly alleged a conspiracy to take over Hamilton Hall in the name of Intifada and (ii) plausibly alleged “that it was a goal of the conspirators to interfere with the rights of anyone” who stood in their way, nevertheless our complaint had failed to sufficiently allege that the conspirators were motivated by racial animus − even though the conspirators hurled antisemitic epithets at the two non-Jewish individuals who actually did get in their way. We are now pursuing an appeal. We will argue, first, that the Court failed to credit Plaintiffs’ well-pled factual allegations, misapplied – or wholly ignored – well-settled precedent, and invented a heightened pleading standard for Section 1985(3) claims out of whole cloth. If uncorrected, we assert, the trial court’s errors would upend decades of federal civil rights precedent, narrow the scope of the Ku Klux Klan Act’s robust protections, and make it all but impossible for victims of antisemitic, racist, or otherwise hate-fueled attacks to plead animus under Section 1985(3). Indeed, the District Court’s ruling excuses premeditated racial violence by waving it away as merely “a side effect” of “political behavior.” Furthermore, 26. Id. at *118. 27. Id. at *1-2. 28. Id. at *9. 29. Torres, supra note 23. 30. Id. at ¶ 2. 31. Id. at ¶ 16.
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