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VOLUME 149, ISSUE 19 | THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2026
Department of Justice sues UC Los Angeles over alleged antisemitism
The lawsuit comes after the DOJ withdrew an appeal to an injunction heavily in the University of California’s favor BY RIVERS STOUT campus@theaggie.org The Department of Justice (DOJ) opened a lawsuit against UC Los Angeles (UCLA). Filed Feb. 24, the lawsuit alleges that the university failed to address claims of antisemitism toward U C L A e m p l oy e e s following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, claiming that the university facilitated pro-Palestine protesters in antisemetic acts. A DOJ press release on the suit alleged that the university repeatedly violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “After the Hamasled massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, antisemitic acts pervaded UCLA,” the release reads. “The suit alleges the university engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination in violation of Title VII against Jewish and Israeli employees at UCLA by failing to prevent and correct discriminatory and harassing conduct. The lawsuit further alleges the university negligently permitted a hostile work environment against two charging parties and other aggrieved Jewish and Israeli employees.” The 81-page complaint purported several violations of federal law, from a Jewish faculty member being denied a promotion
Royce Hall at UC Los Angeles. (Aggie File) because they repor ted antisemitism to the university failing to uphold its own time, place and manner (TPM) rules regarding protests that were in place at the time. TPM rules restrict and regulate how protests, protected by the First Amendment, can function in order to comply with local and federal laws.“The encampment featured antisemitic chants, visual images, and posters, as well as physical barriers designed to explicitly block Jews from accessing parts of UCLA’s campus — in open violation of the University’s TPM rules and federal law,” the complaint reads. The complaint also cited a press release regarding the 2024 Royce Quad encampment and
the university’s conduct from UCLA’s then-Chancellor Gene Block. “UCLA Chancellor Block nevertheless ‘allowed it to remain in place,’ although he himself declared it was ‘unlawful and a breach of policy,’” the complaint reads. “Block determined the purpose of the encampment was ‘maximizing our community members’ ability to make their voices heard on an urgent global issue.’” Jewish Voice for Peace Spokesperson and UCLA Ph.D. candidate in Art History Benjamin Kersten disagreed with the complaint’s characterization of the encampment. Jewish Voice for Peace is a nationwide organization composed primarily
by Jewish people who advocate for Palestinian livelihoods and the end of Israel’s occupation in Palestine. “Jewish students stood alongside Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students, as well as many other students, staff and faculty of conscience in building and maintaining this space,” Kersten said via email. “Not only are accusations that the encampments excluded Jews patently false […] but Jewish students, staff and faculty were much an active part of organizing, many of us out of a moral and political obligation to stand against state violence and genocide, regardless of who perpetrates genocide and whom they target.”
Woodland City Council votes to renew Flock Safety contract
Residents and councilmembers raise concerns over controversial surveillance technology BY SONJA WOOLEY city@theaggie.org The Woodland City Council voted unanimously to renew its contract with Flock Safety on Feb. 3. Flock Safety is an American manufacturer of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras that also operate a national database of surveillance footage for law enforcement usage. The company has recently faced scrutiny due to reports that federal and state agencies — U.S. Border Patrol, The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and certain local police departments — used Flock Safety data to search for undocumented immigrants, protestors and people seeking abortions, often without the knowledge of the cameras’ municipal operators. Woodland has contracted with Flock since 2021 and operates over 40 cameras on public thoroughfares around the city. Woodland Chief of Police Ryan Kinnan spoke about the ways Flock cameras have aided the Woodland Police Department during the council meeting. “The value of ALPR technology for us is straightforward,” Kinnan said. “It helps us identify stolen vehicles, it helps us identify suspect vehicles in violent and serious offenses, it assists us in missing person investigations and reduces officer time spent on manual canvassing.” Woodland Lieutenant Heath Parsons shared success stories with the Flock ALPR cameras. He explained how the Woodland Police Department used the cameras to locate two suicide victims in their vehicles and to call emergency medical response services. “That’s a mother and father that would not have their child without this technology,” Parsons said. Several public commenters attended the meeting and wrote letters to the Woodland City Council expressing their concerns about Flock’s potential violation of privacy rights.
The lawsuit came 13 days after the Donald Trump administration withdrew an appeal against an injunction that favored organizations representing UCLA employees. The injunction came as a result of a proposed settlement deal offered to UCLA amid the cancellation of federal research grants. The deal would have seen UCLA give $1 billion to the federal government, alongside a series of political concessions over protests and transgender rights, as well as race- and ethnicity-based scholarships. In return, researchers would receive funding previously cut by the federal government. “The unrebutted evidence shows that the Task Force
[to Combat AntiSemitism] Agencies and the [grant-awarding] Funding Agencies have gone well beyond that stated purpose,” the injunction reads. “The record shows that [the Trump administration] engaged in a concerted policy to use allegations of antisemitism to justify funding cancellations, when their intent is to coerce universities into purging disfavored ‘left’ and ‘woke’ viewpoints from their campuses and replace them with views that the Administration favors.” The University of California (UC) previously settled a similar lawsuit, Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, in July 2025. The lawsuit claimed that Jewish students, faculty and staff faced exclusion from usually accessible parts of the UCLA campus due to the encampment. The settlement reinforced the rights of Jewish people and of those who ascribe to Zionism. It also paid out $6.45 million, with some of the money going to Zionist organizations, including the AntiDefamation League and the Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus.
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Local nonprofit Heart of Davis organizes new Safe Parking Program
The program creates a safe and legal space for unhoused people to sleep in Davis BY GIA LOOMIS city@theaggie.org
One of several Flock cameras on Cowell Boulevard in Davis, Calif. (Sacha Chickering / Aggie) Jessica Martinez, a Yolo County resident, spoke to the council about her perspective on Flock Safety. “While Flock cameras are advertised as a way to make cities safer, [...] numerous security and federal overreach concerns have been raised throughout the country and throughout California,” Martinez said. “Flock’s track record repeatedly proves that they cannot secure our data.” Martinez referenced a report from November 2025 that the ALPR camera database of the Capitola Police Department — which contracts with Flock Safety — was illegally searched 3 million times by federal and out-of-state agencies, including 190 searches on behalf of ICE. This is in violation of California Senate Bill (SB) 34, a law that prohibits California cities from sharing their license plate reader data with federal or out-of-state agencies. This breach occurred when Capitola Police opted into Flock Safety’s National Lookup feature, according to a Flock spokesperson. This tool allows cities to search Flock’s national database for ALPR camera recordings but also exposes that city’s data to be searched by out-of-state agencies. Flock has since disabled this feature for all Californian cities, but the City of Capitola was only made aware that their data was being shared out of state due to
a citizen whistleblower. Martinez referred to a similar situation where the Santa Cruz Police Department unknowingly released their ALPR data into Flock’s national search tool. The city’s internal audit still showed ICE and Department of Homeland Security searches of Santa Cruz ALPR data, even after Flock claimed to have disabled its national lookup tool for California cities, according to Santa Cruz Councilmember Susie O’Hara. The City of Santa Cruz has since cancelled their contract with Flock Safety, in tandem with at least 30 other cities nationwide. This included the City of Mountain View, whose Flock system was set to the “National Lookup” setting against the explicit direction of the Mountain View Police Department. Kinnan addressed the security concerns during the council meeting. “We are allowed to share with police agencies in the state of California,” Kinnan said. “What we are not allowed to do is share with agencies outside the state of California. We have a full audit trail of who’s accessing [the ALPR data] and why, we audit that on an annual basis.” Councilmember Mayra Vega asked Kinnan whether the Woodland Police Department is notified about the purposes of other California municipalities’ searches of its ALPR database. “We don’t know what they’re
doing on their end,” Kinnan said. “It requires the governance of other agencies to make sure they’re running their program lawfully. [...] If another agency is violating state legislation, we won’t know.” Vega cited news reports that other cities across California have been sharing their ALPR data out of state, in violation of SB 34. In 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union, in conjunction with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sent an open letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, identifying over 70 Californian cities that shared their ALPR data with out-ofstate agencies in violation of California law. At the end of the open forum, the Woodland City Council voted unanimously to renew its contract with Flock Safety. Councilmember Rich Lansburgh explained that his vote was motivated by the city’s lack of public safety funding. “The tools that the chief [Kinnan] and lieutenant [Parsons] have described are useful to our community because we do not have the staffing to do everything all the time,” Lansburgh said. “So, I am all for providing the chief and lieutenant, who I trust with my life because I have to, with these tools. I have full confidence in our chief and our lieutenant, and I, as an American, have always had to give up a little bit here and there for my safety.”
In July 2025, Heart of Davis launched their pilot Safe Parking Program to the Davis public. The program was created to help unhoused people living in their car with nowhere safe or legal to sleep. As a temporary solution, the safe parking program provides unhoused people a place to park their car overnight where they would not be ticketed or harassed. Due to the City of Davis’ Anti-Camping ordinance, camping—including sleeping in one’s vehicle on public or private property—is prohibited. As a result, unhoused people living in their cars are violating city ordinance. This causes them to face harassment and tickets as well as leading them to park in unsafe locations. To circumvent this ordinance, Heart of Davis has worked for over a year to develop the Safe Parking Program and get the city’s approval to host people safely sleeping in their cars. President of Heart of Davis, Shoshana Zatz, shared their inspiration behind working to combat the city ordinance. “Essentially, someone sleeping in their car is criminalized just because they have nowhere else to be,” Zatz said. For the past few months, the city has been granting special permits to Heart of Davis to operate their host sites allowing attendees to sleep in their cars there with no city repercussions. As of Feb. 2026, Heart of Davis was given a permanent ordinance by the Davis City Council that allows their Safe Parking program to proceed without continuously obtaining temporary permits. Now with the approval of the Safe Parking ordinance, Heart of Davis will be able to expand their scope of operation dramatically. Previously, they were only approved to host five cars or campers per night, but
with the ordinance, the program can expand to up to five host sites with up to eight parking spots each so up to 40 campers can be accommodated. Local organizations help provide parking spots and bathrooms and the operation itself is entirely volunteer run. Volunteers help greet campers, provide food items, and send off campers in the morning. These volunteers are necessary for the program’s operation and Zatz explained the impact these volunteers have on campers. “The human connections that develop—between parkers and volunteers, and among the parkers themselves—have become one of the program’s most powerful outcomes,” said Zatz. “Parkers have told us how deeply they value these interactions, as many spend their days isolated and alone.” Another unique aspect of the safe parking program is the effort it makes to support the unhoused population past just a single night. In order to enroll as a camper, Heart of Davis requires that within 30 days, campers must connect with a case manager to develop and work towards a plan past homelessness. Rather than focusing on the short-term, Heart of Davis provides the framework for long-term change for those they help. Isabelle Sabsovich, a secondyear managerial economics major at UC Davis, shared her thoughts on the importance of the safe parking program’s aspect of helping plan for longer-term change. “I think this program is a really great way for the Heart of Davis and the city to take initiative,” said Sabsovich. “Giving homeless people an opportunity to find safe temporary housing while making long term progress in moving away from homelessness.
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