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UCLA disciplined a pro-Palestinian protester behind closed doors. Now he’s suing
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-31/ucla-pro-palestinian-protest-discipline-lawsuit
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the UCLA campus on May 1, 2024.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the UCLA …campus on May 1, 2024. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Jaweed Kaleem staff headshot at LA Times Photo Studio in El Segundo, CA on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
By Jaweed Kaleem
Staff Writer
Aug. 31, 2026 3 AM PT
A UCLA student is suing the UC system after a nearly two-year disciplinary process over pro-Palestinian protests in which he was suspended and his degree was withheld.
Nearly all his conduct charges were dismissed, the suit says, even as the student faced a lengthy campus ban.
The lawsuit offers a rare window into campus discipline at UCLA.
In a prolonged case that offers a rare look into the fiercely private student discipline process, a UCLA computer science doctoral student is suing the University of California, asking a judge to reverse his two-quarter suspension and release a master’s degree withheld for more than 600 days.
The case centers on one of the most volatile chapters in UCLA history — the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests that racked the university, culminating in a violent spring attack at a campus encampment. The demonstrations helped fuel a relentless Trump administration campaign against UCLA and other elite universities over their handling of antisemitism allegations.
The campus turmoil divided UCLA and the nation. Protesters demanded UC divest from companies tied to the Israeli military’s war in Gaza. Some Jewish students and faculty called the demonstrations antisemitic, though others joined them.
Dylan Kupsh, 27, emerged as a vocal UCLA protester and an outlier in the campus movement. He did not mask his identity at rallies and has gone public about the discipline against him, while hundreds of others in similar proceedings have stayed anonymous.
He filed the civil lawsuit last week in Los Angeles Superior Court against the UC Board of Regents, two UCLA student conduct administrators and a UCLA police captain. Los Angeles-area civil rights lawyers and attorneys from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee represent him.
The suit alleges viewpoint discrimination and due process violations, including a lack of meaningful notice of cases against him.
A UCLA spokesperson said the university “will respond to this lawsuit as appropriate in court.”
The university, like campuses nationwide, is barred by federal privacy law from discussing individual discipline cases or internal deliberations, even when a student goes public.
A person poses in front of a brick building.
Dylan Kupsh, 27, is suing the University of California over a student conduct discipline process at UCLA. He is shown at Royce Hall on campus. (Gary Coronado / For The Times)
How the case unfolded
Kupsh’s case grew out of the protests that followed UCLA’s spring 2024 encampment — which some pro-Israel Jewish students alleged blocked them from part of the campus. That claim was cited in a civil rights case that cost UC $6.45 million in a settlement and set the stage for a Justice Department lawsuit. Kupsh’s charges stem not from the encampment itself but from a year of smaller protests that came after it.
He originally faced 14 campus citations — issued between August 2024 and June 2025 — for blocking pathways, disrupting campus and defying orders at five demonstrations from June 2024 to May 2025, the suit said. The charges were later amended twice, most recently in April 2026.
The allegations are university conduct violations, not crimes. Kupsh was arrested at a June 2024 demonstration but never criminally charged. Campus police still urged the university to act, the suit said.
In a May 2025 email, UCLA police Capt. Jeff Chobanian told Steve Lurie, UCLA’s chief safety officer, that Kupsh was “a known organizer and public face” of the suspended Students for Justice in Palestine, and urged “firm and immediate action,” the suit said. Within half an hour, Lurie forwarded the email to two student conduct administrators, saying, “perhaps Jeff’s narrative can help us make a determination on an interim suspension.”
Chobanian and Lurie declined to comment about the suit to The Times. Bryan Murotake, a defendant and former UCLA assistant dean of students who signed charging notices against Kupsh, did not respond to a request for comment.
The university issued an interim suspension in June 2025, barring Kupsh from campus for 291 days as the disciplinary process proceeded, the lawsuit said. The ban lifted in March 2026.
Beyond emails included in the suit, the court documents do not show how UCLA weighed its decision.
The lawsuit alleges Kupsh was not told what evidence the university had against him before it imposed interim suspension. Under university policy, a student can be barred from campus once a conduct case is open, without any finding that the student broke the rules.
On the day the interim suspension took effect, UCLA filed new citations from a May 2025 protest alleging obstruction, disorderly conduct and failure to follow orders, the suit said. Kupsh, who taught a class online, was allowed on campus Monday afternoons for lab meetings.
“I felt like half my life was basically ripped off,” Kupsh told The Times. “I was not even able to visit my next-door neighbor, who lives on university property.”
Student conduct proceedings unfold behind closed doors, and college campuses typically decide cases on a “more likely than not” standard — a far lower bar than criminal proceedings. Three-member UCLA panels of faculty, staff and students heard Kupsh’s cases.
Over five hearings between June 2025 and May 2026, panels dismissed all but two of the citations, the suit said. UCLA had shown Kupsh was present at most of the demonstrations, they ruled, but not that he organized them, gave orders or blocked access.
The university did find him responsible for violations at two separate protests, one for not showing his student ID to authorities and another for failing to move out of a walking student’s path. An appeal of a June finding was denied July 31.
A pro-Israel demonstrator at UCLA in 2024.
In the lawsuit, Kupsh acknowledges attending most of the demonstrations but denies being a ringleader, blocking anyone from campus walkways or refusing orders.
“He was disciplined for what he believes, not what he did,” Thomas B. Harvey, one of the lawyers representing Kupsh, alleged in an interview with The Times.
The two-quarter suspension runs through Dec. 11, 2026, barring him from classes, teaching duties and pay, the suit said. His master’s degree in computer science, submitted for conferral in December 2024, remains unawarded.
Under UCLA policy, he cannot resume his doctorate when the suspension lifts. Kupsh must apply for readmission.
The suit alleges his punishment threatens a doctorate seven years in the making and two quarters from completion. It values his lost pay at more than $17,000. He is seeking unspecified damages, including punitive damages against two administrators and the police captain, and attorney fees.
Campus discipline by the numbers
Last year, city and county prosecutors declined to charge all but two of the nearly 350 people arrested at UCLA and USC pro-Palestinian protests. UC reported more than 400 protest-related internal discipline cases from spring 2024 alone.
A May 2025 UC systemwide review of hundreds of spring 2024 cases found those reaching a hearing took 225 days on average — three times as long as those settled without one. The longest, at UCLA, ran 361 days.
Overall, UC campuses issued 14,231 sanctions in 2023-24 — most unrelated to protests. Suspensions accounted for 3%. They were reserved, the review said, for the most serious cases such as violence and repeated drug offenses. Interim suspensions, imposed before any hearing, numbered 131 systemwide.
Most students received milder penalties — warnings, probation or requirements to attend counseling or workshops, which together made up 93% of sanctions.
Two years later, the demonstrations have largely disappeared from UC amid strict enforcement of campus protest rules.
Protest-related pressure continues
UCLA has faced some of the Trump administration’s toughest sanctions on any university: a $584-million funding freeze a federal judge later lifted, a $1.2-billion settlement demand the university refused and multiple Justice Departmentantisemitism investigations and lawsuits growing out of the protests.
Some faculty have praised the university for not settling. Others say it has cracked down on free speech to fend off further federal action.
Several Jewish community or faculty groups say UCLA has not gone far enough to discourage anti-Israel protests. The AMCHA Initiative argues that UC campuses, including UCLA, have been too lenient with pro-Palestinian activists. The nonprofit tracks anti-Jewish bias on college campuses. Kupsh and pro-Palestinian activists have rejected the antisemitism charge.
Judge dismisses suit over alleged Harvard antisemitism. What it could mean for UC cases
The UCLA Jewish Faculty Resilience Group has complained that the university has unevenly enforced rules, such as those against masking and blocking walkways, and must “hold those that break them accountable.”
Members of the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Racism and Faculty for Justice in Palestine accuse leaders of using the discipline process to quash pro-Palestinian voices. This year, 148 Jewish faculty signed an open letter critical of “insinuation and misdirection” that painted student activists as antisemitic. The professors expressed fear of UC responding to government actions over protests with “draconian limits on academic freedom and free speech.”
Kupsh said he sued because he had run out of options.
“I do want to attain a PhD, and UCLA is trying to take that away from me,” he said.
UCLA PhD student Dylan Kupsh, who was a pro-Palestinian campus protester, is suing UC over its student discipline process. The lawsuit alleges…
www.latimes.comUCLA disciplined a pro-Palestinian protester behind closed doors. Now he’s suing
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-31/ucla-pro-palestinian-protest-discipline-lawsuit
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the UCLA campus on May 1, 2024.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the UCLA …campus on May 1, 2024. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Jaweed Kaleem staff headshot at LA Times Photo Studio in El Segundo, CA on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
By Jaweed Kaleem
Staff Writer
Aug. 31, 2026 3 AM PT
A UCLA student is suing the UC system after a nearly two-year disciplinary process over pro-Palestinian protests in which he was suspended and his degree was withheld.
Nearly all his conduct charges were dismissed, the suit says, even as the student faced a lengthy campus ban.
The lawsuit offers a rare window into campus discipline at UCLA.
In a prolonged case that offers a rare look into the fiercely private student discipline process, a UCLA computer science doctoral student is suing the University of California, asking a judge to reverse his two-quarter suspension and release a master’s degree withheld for more than 600 days.
The case centers on one of the most volatile chapters in UCLA history — the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests that racked the university, culminating in a violent spring attack at a campus encampment. The demonstrations helped fuel a relentless Trump administration campaign against UCLA and other elite universities over their handling of antisemitism allegations.
The campus turmoil divided UCLA and the nation. Protesters demanded UC divest from companies tied to the Israeli military’s war in Gaza. Some Jewish students and faculty called the demonstrations antisemitic, though others joined them.
Dylan Kupsh, 27, emerged as a vocal UCLA protester and an outlier in the campus movement. He did not mask his identity at rallies and has gone public about the discipline against him, while hundreds of others in similar proceedings have stayed anonymous.
He filed the civil lawsuit last week in Los Angeles Superior Court against the UC Board of Regents, two UCLA student conduct administrators and a UCLA police captain. Los Angeles-area civil rights lawyers and attorneys from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee represent him.
The suit alleges viewpoint discrimination and due process violations, including a lack of meaningful notice of cases against him.
A UCLA spokesperson said the university “will respond to this lawsuit as appropriate in court.”
The university, like campuses nationwide, is barred by federal privacy law from discussing individual discipline cases or internal deliberations, even when a student goes public.
A person poses in front of a brick building.
Dylan Kupsh, 27, is suing the University of California over a student conduct discipline process at UCLA. He is shown at Royce Hall on campus. (Gary Coronado / For The Times)
How the case unfolded
Kupsh’s case grew out of the protests that followed UCLA’s spring 2024 encampment — which some pro-Israel Jewish students alleged blocked them from part of the campus. That claim was cited in a civil rights case that cost UC $6.45 million in a settlement and set the stage for a Justice Department lawsuit. Kupsh’s charges stem not from the encampment itself but from a year of smaller protests that came after it.
He originally faced 14 campus citations — issued between August 2024 and June 2025 — for blocking pathways, disrupting campus and defying orders at five demonstrations from June 2024 to May 2025, the suit said. The charges were later amended twice, most recently in April 2026.
The allegations are university conduct violations, not crimes. Kupsh was arrested at a June 2024 demonstration but never criminally charged. Campus police still urged the university to act, the suit said.
In a May 2025 email, UCLA police Capt. Jeff Chobanian told Steve Lurie, UCLA’s chief safety officer, that Kupsh was “a known organizer and public face” of the suspended Students for Justice in Palestine, and urged “firm and immediate action,” the suit said. Within half an hour, Lurie forwarded the email to two student conduct administrators, saying, “perhaps Jeff’s narrative can help us make a determination on an interim suspension.”
Chobanian and Lurie declined to comment about the suit to The Times. Bryan Murotake, a defendant and former UCLA assistant dean of students who signed charging notices against Kupsh, did not respond to a request for comment.
The university issued an interim suspension in June 2025, barring Kupsh from campus for 291 days as the disciplinary process proceeded, the lawsuit said. The ban lifted in March 2026.
Beyond emails included in the suit, the court documents do not show how UCLA weighed its decision.
The lawsuit alleges Kupsh was not told what evidence the university had against him before it imposed interim suspension. Under university policy, a student can be barred from campus once a conduct case is open, without any finding that the student broke the rules.
On the day the interim suspension took effect, UCLA filed new citations from a May 2025 protest alleging obstruction, disorderly conduct and failure to follow orders, the suit said. Kupsh, who taught a class online, was allowed on campus Monday afternoons for lab meetings.
“I felt like half my life was basically ripped off,” Kupsh told The Times. “I was not even able to visit my next-door neighbor, who lives on university property.”
Student conduct proceedings unfold behind closed doors, and college campuses typically decide cases on a “more likely than not” standard — a far lower bar than criminal proceedings. Three-member UCLA panels of faculty, staff and students heard Kupsh’s cases.
Over five hearings between June 2025 and May 2026, panels dismissed all but two of the citations, the suit said. UCLA had shown Kupsh was present at most of the demonstrations, they ruled, but not that he organized them, gave orders or blocked access.
The university did find him responsible for violations at two separate protests, one for not showing his student ID to authorities and another for failing to move out of a walking student’s path. An appeal of a June finding was denied July 31.
A pro-Israel demonstrator at UCLA in 2024.
In the lawsuit, Kupsh acknowledges attending most of the demonstrations but denies being a ringleader, blocking anyone from campus walkways or refusing orders.
“He was disciplined for what he believes, not what he did,” Thomas B. Harvey, one of the lawyers representing Kupsh, alleged in an interview with The Times.
The two-quarter suspension runs through Dec. 11, 2026, barring him from classes, teaching duties and pay, the suit said. His master’s degree in computer science, submitted for conferral in December 2024, remains unawarded.
Under UCLA policy, he cannot resume his doctorate when the suspension lifts. Kupsh must apply for readmission.
The suit alleges his punishment threatens a doctorate seven years in the making and two quarters from completion. It values his lost pay at more than $17,000. He is seeking unspecified damages, including punitive damages against two administrators and the police captain, and attorney fees.
Campus discipline by the numbers
Last year, city and county prosecutors declined to charge all but two of the nearly 350 people arrested at UCLA and USC pro-Palestinian protests. UC reported more than 400 protest-related internal discipline cases from spring 2024 alone.
A May 2025 UC systemwide review of hundreds of spring 2024 cases found those reaching a hearing took 225 days on average — three times as long as those settled without one. The longest, at UCLA, ran 361 days.
Overall, UC campuses issued 14,231 sanctions in 2023-24 — most unrelated to protests. Suspensions accounted for 3%. They were reserved, the review said, for the most serious cases such as violence and repeated drug offenses. Interim suspensions, imposed before any hearing, numbered 131 systemwide.
Most students received milder penalties — warnings, probation or requirements to attend counseling or workshops, which together made up 93% of sanctions.
Two years later, the demonstrations have largely disappeared from UC amid strict enforcement of campus protest rules.
Protest-related pressure continues
UCLA has faced some of the Trump administration’s toughest sanctions on any university: a $584-million funding freeze a federal judge later lifted, a $1.2-billion settlement demand the university refused and multiple Justice Departmentantisemitism investigations and lawsuits growing out of the protests.
Some faculty have praised the university for not settling. Others say it has cracked down on free speech to fend off further federal action.
Several Jewish community or faculty groups say UCLA has not gone far enough to discourage anti-Israel protests. The AMCHA Initiative argues that UC campuses, including UCLA, have been too lenient with pro-Palestinian activists. The nonprofit tracks anti-Jewish bias on college campuses. Kupsh and pro-Palestinian activists have rejected the antisemitism charge.
Judge dismisses suit over alleged Harvard antisemitism. What it could mean for UC cases
The UCLA Jewish Faculty Resilience Group has complained that the university has unevenly enforced rules, such as those against masking and blocking walkways, and must “hold those that break them accountable.”
Members of the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Racism and Faculty for Justice in Palestine accuse leaders of using the discipline process to quash pro-Palestinian voices. This year, 148 Jewish faculty signed an open letter critical of “insinuation and misdirection” that painted student activists as antisemitic. The professors expressed fear of UC responding to government actions over protests with “draconian limits on academic freedom and free speech.”
Kupsh said he sued because he had run out of options.
“I do want to attain a PhD, and UCLA is trying to take that away from me,” he said.
UCLA PhD student Dylan Kupsh, who was a pro-Palestinian campus protester, is suing UC over its student discipline process. The lawsuit alleges…
www.latimes.comUCLA disciplined a pro-Palestinian protester behind closed doors. Now he’s suing
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-31/ucla-pro-palestinian-protest-discipline-lawsuit
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the UCLA campus on May 1, 2024.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the UCLA …campus on May 1, 2024. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Jaweed Kaleem staff headshot at LA Times Photo Studio in El Segundo, CA on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
By Jaweed Kaleem
Staff Writer
Aug. 31, 2026 3 AM PT
A UCLA student is suing the UC system after a nearly two-year disciplinary process over pro-Palestinian protests in which he was suspended and his degree was withheld.
Nearly all his conduct charges were dismissed, the suit says, even as the student faced a lengthy campus ban.
The lawsuit offers a rare window into campus discipline at UCLA.
In a prolonged case that offers a rare look into the fiercely private student discipline process, a UCLA computer science doctoral student is suing the University of California, asking a judge to reverse his two-quarter suspension and release a master’s degree withheld for more than 600 days.
The case centers on one of the most volatile chapters in UCLA history — the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests that racked the university, culminating in a violent spring attack at a campus encampment. The demonstrations helped fuel a relentless Trump administration campaign against UCLA and other elite universities over their handling of antisemitism allegations.
The campus turmoil divided UCLA and the nation. Protesters demanded UC divest from companies tied to the Israeli military’s war in Gaza. Some Jewish students and faculty called the demonstrations antisemitic, though others joined them.
Dylan Kupsh, 27, emerged as a vocal UCLA protester and an outlier in the campus movement. He did not mask his identity at rallies and has gone public about the discipline against him, while hundreds of others in similar proceedings have stayed anonymous.
He filed the civil lawsuit last week in Los Angeles Superior Court against the UC Board of Regents, two UCLA student conduct administrators and a UCLA police captain. Los Angeles-area civil rights lawyers and attorneys from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee represent him.
The suit alleges viewpoint discrimination and due process violations, including a lack of meaningful notice of cases against him.
A UCLA spokesperson said the university “will respond to this lawsuit as appropriate in court.”
The university, like campuses nationwide, is barred by federal privacy law from discussing individual discipline cases or internal deliberations, even when a student goes public.
A person poses in front of a brick building.
Dylan Kupsh, 27, is suing the University of California over a student conduct discipline process at UCLA. He is shown at Royce Hall on campus. (Gary Coronado / For The Times)
How the case unfolded
Kupsh’s case grew out of the protests that followed UCLA’s spring 2024 encampment — which some pro-Israel Jewish students alleged blocked them from part of the campus. That claim was cited in a civil rights case that cost UC $6.45 million in a settlement and set the stage for a Justice Department lawsuit. Kupsh’s charges stem not from the encampment itself but from a year of smaller protests that came after it.
He originally faced 14 campus citations — issued between August 2024 and June 2025 — for blocking pathways, disrupting campus and defying orders at five demonstrations from June 2024 to May 2025, the suit said. The charges were later amended twice, most recently in April 2026.
The allegations are university conduct violations, not crimes. Kupsh was arrested at a June 2024 demonstration but never criminally charged. Campus police still urged the university to act, the suit said.
In a May 2025 email, UCLA police Capt. Jeff Chobanian told Steve Lurie, UCLA’s chief safety officer, that Kupsh was “a known organizer and public face” of the suspended Students for Justice in Palestine, and urged “firm and immediate action,” the suit said. Within half an hour, Lurie forwarded the email to two student conduct administrators, saying, “perhaps Jeff’s narrative can help us make a determination on an interim suspension.”
Chobanian and Lurie declined to comment about the suit to The Times. Bryan Murotake, a defendant and former UCLA assistant dean of students who signed charging notices against Kupsh, did not respond to a request for comment.
The university issued an interim suspension in June 2025, barring Kupsh from campus for 291 days as the disciplinary process proceeded, the lawsuit said. The ban lifted in March 2026.
Beyond emails included in the suit, the court documents do not show how UCLA weighed its decision.
The lawsuit alleges Kupsh was not told what evidence the university had against him before it imposed interim suspension. Under university policy, a student can be barred from campus once a conduct case is open, without any finding that the student broke the rules.
On the day the interim suspension took effect, UCLA filed new citations from a May 2025 protest alleging obstruction, disorderly conduct and failure to follow orders, the suit said. Kupsh, who taught a class online, was allowed on campus Monday afternoons for lab meetings.
“I felt like half my life was basically ripped off,” Kupsh told The Times. “I was not even able to visit my next-door neighbor, who lives on university property.”
Student conduct proceedings unfold behind closed doors, and college campuses typically decide cases on a “more likely than not” standard — a far lower bar than criminal proceedings. Three-member UCLA panels of faculty, staff and students heard Kupsh’s cases.
Over five hearings between June 2025 and May 2026, panels dismissed all but two of the citations, the suit said. UCLA had shown Kupsh was present at most of the demonstrations, they ruled, but not that he organized them, gave orders or blocked access.
The university did find him responsible for violations at two separate protests, one for not showing his student ID to authorities and another for failing to move out of a walking student’s path. An appeal of a June finding was denied July 31.
A pro-Israel demonstrator at UCLA in 2024.
In the lawsuit, Kupsh acknowledges attending most of the demonstrations but denies being a ringleader, blocking anyone from campus walkways or refusing orders.
“He was disciplined for what he believes, not what he did,” Thomas B. Harvey, one of the lawyers representing Kupsh, alleged in an interview with The Times.
The two-quarter suspension runs through Dec. 11, 2026, barring him from classes, teaching duties and pay, the suit said. His master’s degree in computer science, submitted for conferral in December 2024, remains unawarded.
Under UCLA policy, he cannot resume his doctorate when the suspension lifts. Kupsh must apply for readmission.
The suit alleges his punishment threatens a doctorate seven years in the making and two quarters from completion. It values his lost pay at more than $17,000. He is seeking unspecified damages, including punitive damages against two administrators and the police captain, and attorney fees.
Campus discipline by the numbers
Last year, city and county prosecutors declined to charge all but two of the nearly 350 people arrested at UCLA and USC pro-Palestinian protests. UC reported more than 400 protest-related internal discipline cases from spring 2024 alone.
A May 2025 UC systemwide review of hundreds of spring 2024 cases found those reaching a hearing took 225 days on average — three times as long as those settled without one. The longest, at UCLA, ran 361 days.
Overall, UC campuses issued 14,231 sanctions in 2023-24 — most unrelated to protests. Suspensions accounted for 3%. They were reserved, the review said, for the most serious cases such as violence and repeated drug offenses. Interim suspensions, imposed before any hearing, numbered 131 systemwide.
Most students received milder penalties — warnings, probation or requirements to attend counseling or workshops, which together made up 93% of sanctions.
Two years later, the demonstrations have largely disappeared from UC amid strict enforcement of campus protest rules.
Protest-related pressure continues
UCLA has faced some of the Trump administration’s toughest sanctions on any university: a $584-million funding freeze a federal judge later lifted, a $1.2-billion settlement demand the university refused and multiple Justice Departmentantisemitism investigations and lawsuits growing out of the protests.
Some faculty have praised the university for not settling. Others say it has cracked down on free speech to fend off further federal action.
Several Jewish community or faculty groups say UCLA has not gone far enough to discourage anti-Israel protests. The AMCHA Initiative argues that UC campuses, including UCLA, have been too lenient with pro-Palestinian activists. The nonprofit tracks anti-Jewish bias on college campuses. Kupsh and pro-Palestinian activists have rejected the antisemitism charge.
Judge dismisses suit over alleged Harvard antisemitism. What it could mean for UC cases
The UCLA Jewish Faculty Resilience Group has complained that the university has unevenly enforced rules, such as those against masking and blocking walkways, and must “hold those that break them accountable.”
Members of the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Racism and Faculty for Justice in Palestine accuse leaders of using the discipline process to quash pro-Palestinian voices. This year, 148 Jewish faculty signed an open letter critical of “insinuation and misdirection” that painted student activists as antisemitic. The professors expressed fear of UC responding to government actions over protests with “draconian limits on academic freedom and free speech.”
Kupsh said he sued because he had run out of options.
“I do want to attain a PhD, and UCLA is trying to take that away from me,” he said.
UCLA PhD student Dylan Kupsh, who was a pro-Palestinian campus protester, is suing UC over its student discipline process. The lawsuit alleges…
www.latimes.comUCLA disciplined a pro-Palestinian protester behind closed doors. Now he’s suing
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-31/ucla-pro-palestinian-protest-discipline-lawsuit
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the UCLA campus on May 1, 2024.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the UCLA …campus on May 1, 2024. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Jaweed Kaleem staff headshot at LA Times Photo Studio in El Segundo, CA on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
By Jaweed Kaleem
Staff Writer
Aug. 31, 2026 3 AM PT
A UCLA student is suing the UC system after a nearly two-year disciplinary process over pro-Palestinian protests in which he was suspended and his degree was withheld.
Nearly all his conduct charges were dismissed, the suit says, even as the student faced a lengthy campus ban.
The lawsuit offers a rare window into campus discipline at UCLA.
In a prolonged case that offers a rare look into the fiercely private student discipline process, a UCLA computer science doctoral student is suing the University of California, asking a judge to reverse his two-quarter suspension and release a master’s degree withheld for more than 600 days.
The case centers on one of the most volatile chapters in UCLA history — the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests that racked the university, culminating in a violent spring attack at a campus encampment. The demonstrations helped fuel a relentless Trump administration campaign against UCLA and other elite universities over their handling of antisemitism allegations.
The campus turmoil divided UCLA and the nation. Protesters demanded UC divest from companies tied to the Israeli military’s war in Gaza. Some Jewish students and faculty called the demonstrations antisemitic, though others joined them.
Dylan Kupsh, 27, emerged as a vocal UCLA protester and an outlier in the campus movement. He did not mask his identity at rallies and has gone public about the discipline against him, while hundreds of others in similar proceedings have stayed anonymous.
He filed the civil lawsuit last week in Los Angeles Superior Court against the UC Board of Regents, two UCLA student conduct administrators and a UCLA police captain. Los Angeles-area civil rights lawyers and attorneys from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee represent him.
The suit alleges viewpoint discrimination and due process violations, including a lack of meaningful notice of cases against him.
A UCLA spokesperson said the university “will respond to this lawsuit as appropriate in court.”
The university, like campuses nationwide, is barred by federal privacy law from discussing individual discipline cases or internal deliberations, even when a student goes public.
A person poses in front of a brick building.
Dylan Kupsh, 27, is suing the University of California over a student conduct discipline process at UCLA. He is shown at Royce Hall on campus. (Gary Coronado / For The Times)
How the case unfolded
Kupsh’s case grew out of the protests that followed UCLA’s spring 2024 encampment — which some pro-Israel Jewish students alleged blocked them from part of the campus. That claim was cited in a civil rights case that cost UC $6.45 million in a settlement and set the stage for a Justice Department lawsuit. Kupsh’s charges stem not from the encampment itself but from a year of smaller protests that came after it.
He originally faced 14 campus citations — issued between August 2024 and June 2025 — for blocking pathways, disrupting campus and defying orders at five demonstrations from June 2024 to May 2025, the suit said. The charges were later amended twice, most recently in April 2026.
The allegations are university conduct violations, not crimes. Kupsh was arrested at a June 2024 demonstration but never criminally charged. Campus police still urged the university to act, the suit said.
In a May 2025 email, UCLA police Capt. Jeff Chobanian told Steve Lurie, UCLA’s chief safety officer, that Kupsh was “a known organizer and public face” of the suspended Students for Justice in Palestine, and urged “firm and immediate action,” the suit said. Within half an hour, Lurie forwarded the email to two student conduct administrators, saying, “perhaps Jeff’s narrative can help us make a determination on an interim suspension.”
Chobanian and Lurie declined to comment about the suit to The Times. Bryan Murotake, a defendant and former UCLA assistant dean of students who signed charging notices against Kupsh, did not respond to a request for comment.
The university issued an interim suspension in June 2025, barring Kupsh from campus for 291 days as the disciplinary process proceeded, the lawsuit said. The ban lifted in March 2026.
Beyond emails included in the suit, the court documents do not show how UCLA weighed its decision.
The lawsuit alleges Kupsh was not told what evidence the university had against him before it imposed interim suspension. Under university policy, a student can be barred from campus once a conduct case is open, without any finding that the student broke the rules.
On the day the interim suspension took effect, UCLA filed new citations from a May 2025 protest alleging obstruction, disorderly conduct and failure to follow orders, the suit said. Kupsh, who taught a class online, was allowed on campus Monday afternoons for lab meetings.
“I felt like half my life was basically ripped off,” Kupsh told The Times. “I was not even able to visit my next-door neighbor, who lives on university property.”
Student conduct proceedings unfold behind closed doors, and college campuses typically decide cases on a “more likely than not” standard — a far lower bar than criminal proceedings. Three-member UCLA panels of faculty, staff and students heard Kupsh’s cases.
Over five hearings between June 2025 and May 2026, panels dismissed all but two of the citations, the suit said. UCLA had shown Kupsh was present at most of the demonstrations, they ruled, but not that he organized them, gave orders or blocked access.
The university did find him responsible for violations at two separate protests, one for not showing his student ID to authorities and another for failing to move out of a walking student’s path. An appeal of a June finding was denied July 31.
A pro-Israel demonstrator at UCLA in 2024.
In the lawsuit, Kupsh acknowledges attending most of the demonstrations but denies being a ringleader, blocking anyone from campus walkways or refusing orders.
“He was disciplined for what he believes, not what he did,” Thomas B. Harvey, one of the lawyers representing Kupsh, alleged in an interview with The Times.
The two-quarter suspension runs through Dec. 11, 2026, barring him from classes, teaching duties and pay, the suit said. His master’s degree in computer science, submitted for conferral in December 2024, remains unawarded.
Under UCLA policy, he cannot resume his doctorate when the suspension lifts. Kupsh must apply for readmission.
The suit alleges his punishment threatens a doctorate seven years in the making and two quarters from completion. It values his lost pay at more than $17,000. He is seeking unspecified damages, including punitive damages against two administrators and the police captain, and attorney fees.
Campus discipline by the numbers
Last year, city and county prosecutors declined to charge all but two of the nearly 350 people arrested at UCLA and USC pro-Palestinian protests. UC reported more than 400 protest-related internal discipline cases from spring 2024 alone.
A May 2025 UC systemwide review of hundreds of spring 2024 cases found those reaching a hearing took 225 days on average — three times as long as those settled without one. The longest, at UCLA, ran 361 days.
Overall, UC campuses issued 14,231 sanctions in 2023-24 — most unrelated to protests. Suspensions accounted for 3%. They were reserved, the review said, for the most serious cases such as violence and repeated drug offenses. Interim suspensions, imposed before any hearing, numbered 131 systemwide.
Most students received milder penalties — warnings, probation or requirements to attend counseling or workshops, which together made up 93% of sanctions.
Two years later, the demonstrations have largely disappeared from UC amid strict enforcement of campus protest rules.
Protest-related pressure continues
UCLA has faced some of the Trump administration’s toughest sanctions on any university: a $584-million funding freeze a federal judge later lifted, a $1.2-billion settlement demand the university refused and multiple Justice Departmentantisemitism investigations and lawsuits growing out of the protests.
Some faculty have praised the university for not settling. Others say it has cracked down on free speech to fend off further federal action.
Several Jewish community or faculty groups say UCLA has not gone far enough to discourage anti-Israel protests. The AMCHA Initiative argues that UC campuses, including UCLA, have been too lenient with pro-Palestinian activists. The nonprofit tracks anti-Jewish bias on college campuses. Kupsh and pro-Palestinian activists have rejected the antisemitism charge.
Judge dismisses suit over alleged Harvard antisemitism. What it could mean for UC cases
The UCLA Jewish Faculty Resilience Group has complained that the university has unevenly enforced rules, such as those against masking and blocking walkways, and must “hold those that break them accountable.”
Members of the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Racism and Faculty for Justice in Palestine accuse leaders of using the discipline process to quash pro-Palestinian voices. This year, 148 Jewish faculty signed an open letter critical of “insinuation and misdirection” that painted student activists as antisemitic. The professors expressed fear of UC responding to government actions over protests with “draconian limits on academic freedom and free speech.”
Kupsh said he sued because he had run out of options.
“I do want to attain a PhD, and UCLA is trying to take that away from me,” he said.
UCLA PhD student Dylan Kupsh, who was a pro-Palestinian campus protester, is suing UC over its student discipline process. The lawsuit alleges…
www.latimes.comThe Immigrant Workers Who Keep New York’s Restaurants Running
Food books by chefs and celebrities arrive by the landslide. “Voices From the Kitchen” highlights workers who get far less attention.
…https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/books/review/voices-from-the-kitchen-marc-meyer.html?searchResultPosition=1
A photograph of a restaurant interior, with people seated at tables in a space with low, red ceilings.
Credit…Janice Chung for The New York Times
By Dwight Garner
Aug. 3, 2026
VOICES FROM THE KITCHEN: Personal Narratives From New York’s Immigrant Restaurant Workers, edited by Marc Meyer
This is a slim and modest book, a volume of oral histories in the vein of Studs Terkel’s “Working” (1974), but everyone who eats out regularly should know about it. Its title is “Voices From the Kitchen: Personal Narratives From New York’s Immigrant Restaurant Workers.” Its editor is Marc Meyer, a chef and a co-owner of the Manhattan restaurants Shuka, Cookshop, Vic’s, Shukette and Rosie’s.
Meyer’s methodology is straightforward. He sat down with 27 of his employees, many of whom have worked in his restaurants for decades, and recorded their stories on his iPhone. He transcribed the interviews and poured them with minimal editing into narratives.
Voices From the Kitchen: Personal Narratives From New York’s Immigrant Restaurant Workers.jpeg
Voices From the Kitchen: Personal Narratives From New York’s Immigrant Restaurant Workers
These men and women came from all over the globe — Ecuador, Bangladesh, Peru, Egypt, Mexico, the Ivory Coast, Bosnia, the Dominican Republic, Gambia — and their accounts of getting here, and scratching out lives in New York City, are plucky, harrowing, moving and often very funny. They’ve lately become anonymous political targets, and “Voices From the Kitchen” gives them back their human faces.
It’s possible to be cynical about Meyer’s project, and he’s aware of that. An obvious power dynamic is at play: No one is going to tell the entire gnarly truth about their lives, and especially about their jobs, to their employer. And Meyer is aware of whatever “white savior” vibe might cling to such a project.
It’s possible to hold those things in mind and admire “Voices From the Kitchen.” (All proceeds go to the narrators, and they’ve retained legal ownership over their stories.) Food titles arrive by the landslide in bookstores, yet so few dig into the lives of the immigrants who work in the back of the house as dishwashers, bussers and prep cooks, and increasingly in the front as servers and captains. More than a few by now are head chefs and managers.
Stories like these haven’t gone entirely uncollected. The Southern Foodways Alliance, the American Folklife Center and other organizations have assiduously compiled food-related oral histories you can find online. But it’s good to have these accounts between hard covers. “Voices From the Kitchen” is intrepid and timely enough to make you optimistic that someone will compile a more expansive book in this vein, not limited to the workers in one restaurant group.
Most of the men and women here came from small towns. Many had absent or abusive fathers, and no access to real educations. They fled to America to help support their families back home, to escape gang violence and corrupt governments, and to attempt to seize a part of what can only be called the American dream. Many had relatives who’d already come to New York.
The arrival stories are intense: days in the desert with little food or water, thieving coyotes (human smugglers), random gunmen, terrifying river crossings and long trips while packed “like cookies” into heavy trucks meant for hauling liquids, with few air vents. Many felt they would not survive. One rode to New York from Los Angeles in the back of a watermelon truck.
Editors’ Picks
All started at, or near, the very bottom: cleaning bathrooms, bussing tables, working coat checks. All rose — first to a bit of prep work, then to a salad station, and so on — through hard work, thrift and perseverance. These are what we used to call, long before America’s descent into the ICE age, Horatio Alger stories.
Part of the pleasure of this book is following these men and women as they move between restaurants, assiduously climbing the ladder. There’s a built-in nostalgia factor in clocking the names of these places, some long gone and some standing: Big Kahuna, Ocean Grill, Red Gravy, Le Zoo, Clyde Frazier’s, Jean Georges, Mercer Kitchen, Momofuku Ssam Bar, Ernie’s, Lil’ Frankies, Bayamo, Poiret, Brown Betty, Avanti, Danji, Seventh Avenue Donuts, Charlie Bird, Calle Doa, Veranda, Fraunces Tavern, Sequoia, Maestro’s Steakhouse, Upland, Danube, A Voce Columbus, Aqualis Grill, Bayamo.
Not so long ago, most restaurant work was considered menial labor. Thanks in large part to Anthony Bourdain, it has become admired and cool (if still brutal) work. People want to look and be like chefs: raffish, tattooed, blunt, forearm scorch marks on display. The job offers intense camaraderie. It is a backdoor gateway to all manner of culture, in a way that most other blue-collar professions are not, should one wish to step through that gate.
A not-untypical story here is that of Vico (Meyer uses first names only, and sometimes pseudonyms), who arrived from a small village in Mexico in 1986 and started in restaurants as a porter. He’s now married and has been a United States citizen for eight years. He runs his own well-regarded restaurant, La Flor, in Queens, and oversees more than 20 restaurants in the Bowery restaurant group.
Vico’s daughter graduated from Amherst College. Another interviewee, Angel, also from a small town in Mexico (his father was a truck driver), is now a chef who has a son at Phillips Exeter Academy.
The book cover of "Voices From the Kitchen: Personal Narratives From New York's Immigrant Restaurant Workers."
The women in this book express feeling pressure to prove themselves in a male-dominated profession. They feel as squeezed as tubes of tomato paste between work and family. Some have been sexually abused. But more than a few have risen to the top. Carlha, whose father was a fisherman in the Dominican Republic, came here at age 6. She’s a chef and manager at Shuka.
Not all of these stories are happy. Some interviewees are depressed or have other health problems. “This city can give you economic stability, but it cannot give you emotional stability,” one says. Some merely want to go home to places that don’t quite exist any longer. “Why didn’t I stay?” another asks, about his hometown in Mexico. “I think I lost something from the past, and it’s gone forever. I can’t get it back.”
These interviews come most alive when narrators break the harmonious aura, when you sense someone scraping away at the pith. One woman admits that waiting tables too long can burn you out and make you snippy. Another remarks that working in diners sucks because so many are owned by big Greek families. Everyone in the family has an opinion, so you get it coming and going.
Rare comments like these remind you of the limitations of “Voices From the Kitchen.” Because these narrators are speaking to their boss, the underside of kitchen work is rarely on display — the rude customers, billing mistakes, racism, restroom hookups and cleanups, blood blisters on your feet, ego collisions, having to “push” menu items, trips and falls, the flameouts of co-workers, mandatory last-minute shifts, clearing away gross, half-eaten meals, tipping agonistes, cuts and punctures, dealing with celebrities and V.I.P.’s, cramped and noisy environments — everything that goes on below the deceptively smooth front-of-house choreography.
There is a more honest and encompassing oral history project out there, waiting to be compiled. Editors, start your engines.
I know about this book because I had lunch at Cookshop a few months ago, and copies were on the host’s table. It was a good find. Some of these stories are so tangled and involving they could be made into films.
This is not an explicitly political book. It has nothing concrete to say about immigration policy. It does not argue for wide-open borders. But it complicates easy narratives and asks that we see people not merely for what they are but for what they might become.
“They read my name and saw my face and pointed to the dishes,” says the job-seeking narrator of one of the stories in Bryan Washington’s collection, “Lot” (2019). This is surely happening daily in New York City restaurants. “Voices From the Kitchen” is an optimistic book — it reminds you that if many restaurant careers begin that way, they don’t have to end there.
Food books by chefs and celebrities arrive by the landslide. “Voices From the Kitchen” highlights workers who get far less attention.
www.nytimes.comUnion Thugs nullify UAL Rank and File Negotiators No Vote
Teamsters Union Thugs Push Concessions during record
Profits at United Airlines
United Rank and File Negotiators Vote No to Company Concessions 11 out of 8 vote not to sell out United Airlines Aircraft …Technicians
Teamsters International President Sean Obrien brings in Appointed Union Business Agents (thugs) to nullify United negotiators NO Vote.
One brave person voted against Sean Obrien's Company proposal and was then fired from his union appointed position.
United Airlines technicians are controlled by a labor organization that has accepted undisclosed payments from United Airlines.
United Airlines technicians are controlled by a labor organization whose leadership has recently been indicted for fraud and embezzlement against United Airlines Technicians.
When a Labor Organization is controlled by leaders who accept undisclosed payments, who threaten union officers to accept company concessions and make fraudulent misrepresentations to union members to push concessions, it is considered a form of Labor Union Racketeering.
The United Rank and File Negotiators were lied to by their own union leadership and now you are forced to vote on more concessions during record profits at United Airlines.
The same thing happened in 2016 and 2011, its part of an established pattern by the Teamsters International and their Airline Division and it is called Honest Services Fraud another form of Labor Union Racketeering.
This Teamsters labor union racketeering at United Airlines affects all aircraft technician labor rates and benefits across the entire industry driving skilled workers wages and benefits down.
The long and established pattern of Teamsters labor union racketeering at United Airlines affects interstate commerce, and has had an adverse impact on every other airline in the United States.
VOTE NO to Sean Obrien's forced concessions at United Airlines.
In 2022 Sean Obrien appointed a Former United Airlines Executive Vice President Joseph Ferreira who had no union experience as the Director of the Airline Division to lead United Airlines technicians negotiations.
Mr. Joseph Ferreira endorsed a contract that eliminated United technicians aircraft maintenance outsourcing protections. The CBA language Mr. Ferreira removed allowed over 700 narrowbody aircraft to be outsourced overseas causing the loss of thousands of American jobs.
After securing more concessions for United Airlines the former United Airlines VP voluntarily left his $250,000.00 appointed position after the ratification of another concessionary Teamsters contract at United Airlines.
In 2024 Sean Obrien appointed Chris Griswold as the Airline Division Director. Mr. Obrien also appointed Clacy Griswold as Chairman of the 2025 United Technicians IBT negotiating committee.
Clacy Griswold has a long track record of pushing for concessions at United Airlines. He also has a record of committing fraudulent concealment and a pattern of making fraudulent misrepresentations to push United Airlines concessions.
In 2026 Chris Griswold was indicted in a 150 page investigation for labor union fraud and embezzlement against United Airlines technicians.
Chris Griswold was quietly removed from office by Sean Obrien without explanation to the United Airlines technicians.
Shortly after Chris Griswold's indictment for labor union fraud and embezzlement his brother Clacy Griswold suddenly without explanation disappeared as chairman from the United Technicians negotiations committee.
These two individuals are responsible for 18 years of Teamsters aircraft technician concessions at United Airline and were involved in a pattern of Pension and Wage Fraud against thousands of United aircraft technicians and their families.
What Sean Obrien recently did to override the rank and file negotiators vote in 2026 is just part of a long established pattern for the Teamsters union at United Airlines.
The Teamsters International union which has accepted over a million dollars in undisclosed payments and other things of value from United Airlines use their appointed union thugs who are given their positions to push United Airlines concessions on United Technicians.
From Pension Fraud and Wage Fraud to threating the officers or union members who stand against more United Airlines concessions, this is the established pattern of labor union racketeering committed by the Teamsters union at United Airlines.
Read this email from an IBT UAL Negotiator in 2011 the same pattern repeats itself.
Pay to Play and Vote for concessions.
Here is a statement from a courageous United Airlines Rank and File Teamsters negotiator who called the Teamsters Airline Division union leadership Clacy Griswold and his appointed company lapdogs out for pushing United Airlines concessions.
He described them perfectly as a "Company Union" and if you look at all the undisclosed payments and other financial transactions received by the Teamsters International Union in their government reporting LM2 reports the Company Union pattern becomes clear.
ITS YOUR CHOICE TO STAND AGAINST TEAMSTERS CONCESSIONS AND SEAN OBRIENS APPOINTED UNION THUGS.
THE APPOINTED THUGS VOTED FOR THESE CONCESSIONS AFTER BEING THREATENED WITH LOSING THEIR JOBS.
content.jpeg
With United Airlines making record profits in 2026 why accept any concessions?
Right now the Teamsters Airline Division is under investigation for Fraud and Embezzlement against United Airlines Technicians.
Right now there are several federal court cases involving Teamsters Wage Fraud at United Airlines.
Voting NO to Sean Obrien's Teamster concessions is the right choice.
In 1996 we VOTED NO and turned down the Union offer of 3% and 3% and WE received 5% and 5% for all United Technicians and FOR 14,000 Ramp personnel. That is the power we have.
In 2002 we VOTED NO and turned down Two Tentative Agreements, the NMB and the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) in less than two years, and we received a 40% raise with the highest pay in the Industry and Full retro.
VOTE NO and Demand Full Retro Pay.
Next issue
* 2027 Wage Scales for American, Delta and SWA
* The 2026 Industry Reset
* Honest Services Fraud, Bribery and Money Laundering.
Stand Strong and Stand United
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Public Bank Campaign Launches In San Francisco
https://youtu.be/6g_DJ8qYep4
A ballot initiative for a public bank was launched in San
Francisco on 8/30/26 and supporters spoke out about
why they support a public bank..
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
A ballot initiative for a public bank was launched in San Francisco…
youtu.beCentral Louisiana Community Demands England Authority Cancel Contracts for New ICE Facility in Alexandria
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, August 28, 2026
CONTACT: Jesse Vad, ACLU of Louisiana: 415-686-4078; media@laaclu.org
Alexandria, LA – Communities across Louisiana strongly… oppose the opening of a family and child ICE detention facility at the England Airpark adjacent to the Alexandria International Airport, which is already notorious as ICE’s busiest mass deportation hub. Despite overwhelming community resistance, numerous testimony, and an open letter to the board members at the company’s board meeting in July, the England Authority continues to silence community opposition to the facility, which is expected to open at the end of September. The Authority is refusing to allow public comment or provide responses to questions regarding environmental and public health risks at the site, as well as concerns about length of stay of children and families at this detention center.
For decades unaccompanied immigrant children in government custody have been held under the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency better equipped to address the special needs and vulnerabilities of kids. Now in a marked shift, the Trump Administration is ending this practice to instead detain kids in the very same deadly, cruel and unaccountable ICE detention system as immigrant adults.
The proposed detention center in Alexandria sits on one of the country’s most Pfas-contaminated sites with ‘forever chemicals’ levels “at least 575,000 times higher” than the federal drinking water limit, posing an immense health and safety risk for the families, and especially the children, detained there. It will be run by LaSalle Family Foundation – a group with direct ties to LaSalle Corrections, a private prison company notorious for abuse, retaliation, and neglect in its ICE facilities, including conducting invasive, nonconsensual gynecological procedures.
Yesterday, Central Louisiana community members joined local residents, faith leaders, and immigrant justice advocates at the England Authority Board of Commissioners meeting to oppose the England Airpark’s agreement with ICE for a family detention center and an accompanying ordinance that will restrict the right to protest in the area. In addition to raising serious concerns about the Alexandria Child Detention Center, community members pushed back against the ordinance, which will implement a permitting process for any protests at the Airpark.
Despite the importance and relevance of these concerns, the Chair of the Board of Commissioners repeatedly interrupted community members during public comment, limiting their ability to be heard. Still, residents continued to demand transparency, accountability, and meaningful public input on decisions that will have lasting impacts on communities across the state and the country.
Additionally, several board members announced a signed letter to schedule a special meeting to specifically address the Alexandria Child Detention Center. This meeting, set to take place on September 8th, 4PM CT, represents an important opportunity for the board to listen to the serious concerns and devastating consequences should the child detention center open.
While all immigrant detention is inhumane and unnecessary, it is particularly traumatizing for children, with lasting harms that persist long after release, including developmental delays, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal ideation.
Advocates are sounding the alarm and putting pressure on the England Authority to cancel the contracts for a new detention facility, and instead prioritize investments that strengthen and support the people who call Central Louisiana home.
National and local advocates and community members from Central Louisiana issued the following statements:
Trudy Taylor Smith, Senior Administrator of Policy and Advocacy, Children’s Defense Fund-Texas, said: “Since last January, the Trump administration has systematically dismantled basic protections for children in government custody and cut off access to lawyers for immigrant children and families. Now, the planned opening of this private prison for parents and children on a contaminated site demonstrates even more clearly the naked cruelty of an administration willing to poison children and families with harmful chemicals, imprison them under inhumane conditions, and send children to dangerous places where they face risks of serious harm, including trafficking and abuse. Our elected leaders have a responsibility to protect children by preventing this dangerous detention camp from opening, restoring access to independent legal counsel for every unaccompanied child, and ending cruel policies such as family detention that place immigrant children and their families in harm's way.”
Kristin Kumpf, National Coordinator for Free Families: The National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention, said: “The Trump administration’s plans to open this new prison in Louisiana to detain families and children is a cruel escalation of its mass detention and deportation agenda. Families and children should not be detained in ICE facilities for any length of time. ICE has always been an inherently violent agency jeopardizing families and community safety. Families and children should be able to navigate their cases in community with support services provided and facilitated by local community based groups – never ICE, an agency that is plagued by a culture of violence and secrecy and a track record of detaining people in egregiously poor conditions.”
Nery Lopez, Organizing Manager at Detention Watch Network, said: “As the outcry over ICE abuse and violence grows, we continue to demand an end to child and family detention. Childhood is a fleeting period of time that has a tremendous impact on the foundation for a person’s lifelong well-being – it must be protected. Jailing kids and stripping parents of their fundamental right to keep them safe is unconscionable. No one is safe in ICE custody, especially children. We must continue to unite across the country to demand no more money for ICE, no more abuse and death at the hands of ICE, no more child and family detention.”
Diego De La Torre, Refugee and Migrant Rights Fellow, Amnesty International USA, said: "The England Authority still has time to change course. Approving this ICE detention center that will be used to detain families and children who have been ripped away from their families would make the Commissioners active participants in the lasting trauma of children and the Trump administration’s cruel attacks on our immigrant friends, families, and neighbors. This unprecedented move by ICE to detain unaccompanied children is an expansion of an inhumane system that needlessly incarcerates children, separates families, and violates human rights. The board should reject this facility, cancel the contracts, and choose compassion, community, family unity, and dignity over detention and deportation.”
Sarah Whittington, Advocacy Director, ACLU of Louisiana said: “Louisianans have made it clear they do not want this. Instead of investing in the community and building something to uplift Alexandria, officials chose a prison for children in our backyard. ICE and the board members can dress this up however they want, but it is clear this is a detention center that will be run by one of the most infamous, dangerous private prison companies in the country. But there is still time for the board to make this right and change course. Instead of cementing Alexandria as a hub for the systematic imprisonment of children, the board can cancel this agreement and work with the community instead.”
Tania Wolf, Southeast Advocacy Manager, National Immigration Project, said: “We'd be fighting this facility even if the land were uncontaminated. Children and families don't belong in detention, period. The England Authority has not answered one question about the health risks that potential exposure to poison in that ground would have on children, families, and future workers at this facility. The Board has publicly stated their ‘fiduciary responsibility’ as justification for the decision they made that allows this detention center to exist. The reality is they have breached that responsibility by making an uninformed decision without due diligence. And now, the community will suffer for it. Every week that commissioners stay silent is a week closer to children living next door to some of the most chemically contaminated ground in the country. Whatever happens inside that facility, these commissioners chose it. By allowing this contract to proceed, the Board is now party to the cruel practice of family separation.”
Martha Alguera, Southeast Dignity not Detention Coalition Organizer and Matriz y Mar, Co-Director, said: “This is what moral bankruptcy looks like in practice. The fact that in Alexandria, Louisiana, the government is preparing to cage mothers and babies on land poisoned by 'forever chemicals'-PFAS, TCE, asbestos is abhorrent. These are toxins that would make any responsible parent flee their own backyard. Meanwhile, it is well-documented that children at Dilley are suffering from rotting food, freezing temperatures, and medical neglect so severe a federal judge appointed an independent monitor. Yet the England Airpark board pushes forward with this Dilley-like plan anyway, ignoring the local community saying 'no!’ When did we decide it's acceptable to warehouse children in toxic facilities to enrich private contractors? This isn't immigration enforcement, it's profiteering from trauma. A government that detains children on contaminated ground to line the pockets of wealthy, unscrupulous private businesses has no moral compass. This isn't policy, it's cruelty with a budget sheet and we as Louisianans standing with concerned citizens of Alexandria are saying NO!”
Erin Tracy of Cenla Activism said: “As community awareness grows for the family and child detention center approved by the England Authority board, the board passed an ordinance in an attempt to silence the growing opposition. If the board refuses to research and acknowledge the implications of locking up children on an industrial-zoned former-military site, we will do it for them and continue to share that to the public. Coercion is heavily involved in this sinister plot to send children and families with stability in the U.S. to countries where they may be alone with no resources. The timing with the Trump administration ending contracts for legal aid for over 25,000 unaccompanied minors is no coincidence. Central Louisiana rejects this racist, inhumane, dangerous expansion of ICE operations that will affect our most vulnerable populations."
##
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/school-technology-screens-parents-9fc7384b?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwY2xjawUBgCVwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMTQweGkzeTI2QUk2QmppeHlzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeBoBGk4BJsxk9fGQ63eV4bLqSiRZciCHUW2Fz0cKcxJQ3aA95wG2It6917ZQ_aem_mWO70jrTgcQh3GTT7ag5SA
In suburbs including Philadelphia’s Main Line, moms and dads are pleading with districts to rein in tech: “These electronics have ruined…
www.wsj.comStriking hospital employees sound alarm over workplace violence
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/19/nx-s1-5930385/nurses-strike-hospital-workplace-violence-patient-attacks
AUGUST 19, 20266:00 AM ET
FROM
By Lynn Arditi
Emergency room nurse Crystal Dhooghe speaks during a rally at the… Michigan State Capitol in Lansing on March 17. She is among hundreds of unionized employees at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital who have been on strike since Sept. 1, 2025.
Emergency room nurse Crystal Dhooghe speaks during a rally at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing on March 17. She is among hundreds of unionized employees at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital who have been on strike since Sept. 1, 2025.
Teamsters J.C.43
Nurse Crystal Dhooghe is used to dealing with blood and broken bones in the emergency room. But she didn't expect to witness so much violence against her own colleagues.
"I've seen nurses get shoved, pushed, scratched. The biggest one is bitten," said Dhooghe, who works at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, Mich.
The prevalence of workplace violence in healthcare has fueled strikes in states such as Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Michigan, where Dhooghe and many of her co-workers have been on the picket line since Labor Day of last year.
"People will question me and be like, 'Why are you still working in a place if you're treated like this?'" said Dhooghe, who gets by on strike benefits and working extra shifts at another hospital. The problem, she said, is that other hospitals aren't any better. "It's the same everywhere I go."
In a statement, Henry Ford spokesperson Dana Jay acknowledged violence against healthcare workers is a "national epidemic" and said the health system's efforts to address the problem include metal detectors, armed security officers trained to make "misdemeanor arrests" and de-escalation training.
"We have zero tolerance for violence of any kind," said Jay, asserting the strike is not about safety but is instead "simply an economic strike."
Nationwide, hospital workers are seven times as likely to be injured on the job due to violent acts as members of the general working population, according to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The outcry over workplace violence in healthcare is pitting workers' demands for better compensation and staffing against hospital operators pressured to cut costs.
When ERs feel like "a powder keg"
Violent outbursts are so common that they've been dramatized on the popular medical TV series The Pitt.
"Emergency rooms right now are like a powder keg," said Rachel Odes, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing.
In hospitals, a combative or violent patient is known as a "code gray." Outbursts can be spontaneous and unpredictable, making some almost impossible to prevent.
But research shows the risk of violence increases when hospitals are understaffed or employees are insufficiently trained or experienced.
Mental health worker Andrew Kimball-Mirzaie said he got hurt in February 2024 at Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I.
He'd been working at the private psychiatric hospital for about six weeks and said he hadn't yet worked in the ER.
He said he was sent there to "monitor" a man in his 20s who was waiting for an inpatient bed.
The patient was alone in a back room watching a Knicks basketball game on TV, he recalled. Kimball-Mirzaie said he got the patient a drink and a snack.
They were watching the game when, suddenly, he said, the patient stood up and punched him in the face.
Andrew Kimball-Mirzaie, a mental health worker at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, says he was assaulted by a patient. He participated in a three-month strike that began this spring. Lynn Arditi
Andrew Kimball-Mirzaie, a mental health worker at Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I., says he was assaulted by a patient. He participated in a three-month strike that began this spring.
Lynn Arditi
He said the assault left him with a concussion and broken nose. His injuries were documented in the hospital's incident log.
"I understand that there is an inherent danger with the job," Kimball-Mirzaie said.
He doesn't blame the patient, who was very ill at the time. "We should have had at least another staff member with us," he said, "and I should have been adequately trained on the unit."
The attack emboldened Kimball-Mirzaie to join some 700 other unionized Butler workers last spring and summer in a months-long strike, which forced the hospital to close nearly half of its beds.
Service Employees International Union 1199 New England declared the strike a win.
Employees received wage increases that union leaders said would enable the hospital to attract and retain more staff.
The hospital also agreed to provide financial support for workers violently injured on the job. And the hospital and union agreed to jointly fund a "time bank" to supplement workers' compensation for injured workers who need more time to recover.
But five months later, a nurse supervisor at Butler had to call 911 because an unarmed patient in the hospital's ER was assaulting staff. According to the police report, by the time police arrested the patient, he'd injured two nurses, a security guard and a police officer.
"Butler recognizes the importance of being proactive in protecting those who provide care," Mary Marran, Butler's president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. She added that hospital leadership meets regularly with staff to review safety measures and "identify opportunities to strengthen protection for everyone."
The patient was charged with four counts of felony assault, including against the two nurses.
The American Hospital Association has said punishment is key to preventing violence. It has been lobbying Congress to make assaulting healthcare workers a federal crime that would carry up to 10 years in prison.
At least 45 states, including Michigan and Rhode Island, have enacted similar laws.
But workplace safety experts say there is no evidence that such laws have reduced the incidence of violence against healthcare workers.
Calls for "safe staffing"
Striking healthcare workers around the country often have demanded "safe staffing" instead of stronger punishments for patients who cause injuries.
The rise in violence against healthcare workers has caught the attention of the Joint Commission, the accreditation organization for more than 80% of U.S. hospitals and health systems.
The commission released national performance goals that took effect in January and require hospitals to be properly staffed and that staff be trained "to provide safe, quality care."
Catherine Maynard, a nurse at Butler Hospital, speaks at a union rally at the State House in Providence, Rhode Island, on May 23.
Catherine Maynard, a nurse at Butler Hospital, speaks at a union rally at the State House in Providence, R.I., on May 23.
Steve Ahlquist
But no federal law limits the number of patients in a nurse's care across healthcare settings. The nation's largest nurses union, National Nurses United, having pressed for a national standard since 2018.
Hospitals must "safely staff all units" to enable nurses to "provide the care that patients need before they get agitated or disoriented," said Jane Thomason, lead industrial hygienist for National Nurses United.
Some states have passed their own staffing laws. Only California has enacted broad mandatory nurse staffing ratios, which research shows were associated with lower mortality rates and likely higher retention. Oregon enacted a staffing law, with exceptions.
Legislators in Massachusetts and New Jersey have introduced similar bills, but they have failed to advance to floor votes.
The American Hospital Association opposes mandatory minimum nurse staffing ratios in hospitals, saying they would "remove real-time clinical judgment and flexibility," compound staffing shortages, and potentially force some hospitals to turn away patients or delay care, spokesperson Colleen Kincaid said.
Kincaid also pointed to California, whose new emergency nurse staffing ratiosfor psychiatric hospitals reportedly forced bed closures in at least four counties.
"There are a lot of other things you can do to prevent workplace violence than just increasing staffing levels," said Jordan Barab, who was a deputy assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during the Obama administration and helped develop OSHA's 2016 guidelinesfor healthcare and social service workers.
Barab said hospitals can, for example, train employees in de-escalation, install metal detectors, or have specially trained security guards on-site so staff members don't have to wait for police to arrive when an incident happens.
The health provisions in President Trump's signature tax-and-spending law will squeeze hospitals' finances in the next few years, said Debbie Berkowitz, a worker safety and health policy expert at Georgetown University.
When funding dries up, she said, "protecting workers is going to be the first thing that gets cut."
In addition to pay, striking hospital workers say patient violence is an issue. Hospital workers are seven times more likely to be injured at work …
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