UC Santa Barbara accused of allowing antisemitic harassment of student leader

A former student body president at UC Santa Barbara has sued the University of California Regents and UC Santa Barbara, alleging the school stood by as she was subjected to months of antisemitic harassment and even tacitly sided with her abusers after she publicly expressed support for Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack.

Since the attack and the war in Gaza, several UC campuses have faced accusations of permitting antisemitism and Islamophobia to escalate unchecked. UCLA paid roughly $6.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jewish students and a professor who alleged discriminatory treatment during anti-war protests. UC Berkeley separately resolved a discrimination claim by an Israeli visiting scholar through a payment and reinstatement.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights reached an agreement with the University of California system in late 2024 after investigating nine complaints alleging discrimination and harassment -- including against both Jewish and Muslim students -- at five UC campuses (UCLA, UCSB, UC San Diego, UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz).

The OCR concluded the schools did not respond promptly or effectively to antisemitic and anti-Arab/anti-Muslim harassment during Gaza-related protests, and the agreement required UC to revise complaint procedures, review past incidents, and provide additional training to campus officials and staff to better handle discrimination and harassment.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has demanded that UCLA pay $1.2 billion and make major policy concessions in part for allegedly allowing antisemitism on campus and has tied the restoration of federal research funding to the university's handling of such allegations. UCLA is still in negotiations with the administration.

The Regents of the University of California and UCSB did not respond immediately to emails seeking comment on the latest complaint.

In a 31-page complaint filed Thursday, in the Central District of California, plaintiff Tessa Veksler accuses UCSB and unidentified university officials of violating her rights under the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses via 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and of religious discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The lawsuit seeks damages and injunctive relief and demands a jury trial.

Veksler's lawyer - Eric M. George of Ellis George LLP - did not respond to a request for comment.

Veksler, the child of Ukrainian immigrants and a first-generation American, was elected UCSB's student body president in April 2023 after previously serving in student government and on basic-needs initiatives. The complaint describes her as a committed advocate of "cultural pluralism," emphasizing inclusivity and open dialogue across race, ethnicity, and religion.

According to the filing, everything changed after Veksler posted on her Instagram account on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas attacks in Israel. She condemned the massacre, noted it was the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, and wrote that she stood "with my Jewish community/neighbors" and "with the people of Israel." The complaint stresses that her post did not criticize Palestinians or residents of Gaza, and that she posted as a private individual, not in her capacity as student body president.

Nonetheless, Veksler claims that she quickly became the target of a "months-long campaign" of harassment by fellow students who branded her a "Zionist," accused her of supporting genocide and demanded she resign.

According to the complaint, anonymous Instagram accounts and campus posters labeled her a "Zionist dog," "racist Zionist," and "Ziofascist," and told her to "get the fuck out." One message allegedly warned: "You can run but you can't hide, Tessa Veksler."

By February 2024, the campaign had moved into the heart of student government space, the complaint says. Posters reading "Zionists are not welcome" and "Zionists not welcomed" were plastered around the campus Multi-Cultural Center, or MCC, where Veksler's student government office sits.

The complaint alleges that UCSB's official MCC Instagram account reposted an image of the signs with the caption, "in case we aren't clear, let us spell it out," which Veksler's counsel characterizes as university-endorsed exclusion of Jewish or Zionist-identifying students from a supposedly inclusive space.

Veksler claims she repeatedly asked administrators for help beginning in December 2023, invoking UCSB's own anti-discrimination policy, which defines religion as a protected category and obligates the university to promptly investigate harassment and take effective steps to stop it.

Instead, she alleges, the university minimized the campaign against her as "valid criticism of a political figure" and focused on removing only "unapproved" signs posted in technically prohibited locations.

The complaint further alleges that a masked UCSB representative, identified only as DOE 1, actively sided with protesters during a February 2024 confrontation at the MCC. When Veksler approached the group, the representative allegedly interrupted her, repeatedly asked protesters whether she was making them uncomfortable, and "purposefully incit[ed] the crowd's antisemitic animus," escalating the hostility.

Critics started a recall effort in the spring of 2024. An Instagram account titled @recalltessaveksler accused her of fomenting "bullying, intimidation, and harassment of students," a characterization she calls a complete inversion of reality.

A recall petition was debated at an April 10, 2024, student Senate meeting that devolved into hours of insults and accusations, according to the complaint. The recall ultimately failed, but Veksler says the process left her devastated and increasingly fearful for her safety.

The complaint also recounts episodes of "doxxing," vandalism of a campus poster that featured her image--only her photo was slashed -- and an open letter posted around campus accusing her of supporting genocide. Veksler alleges that administrators, including the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs and Dean of Student Life, were notified but responded slowly and cautiously, citing logistical issues such as needing facilities staff to remove pasted posters.

Veksler's Title VI claim relies heavily on recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which has reiterated that discrimination and harassment against Jewish students based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics can trigger federal civil rights protections.

She contends in the suit that UCSB's inaction and occasional amplification of anti-Zionist messaging created a hostile environment so severe and pervasive that she was forced to avoid significant portions of campus, take final exams online out of fear, and lose the full benefit of the education for which she paid.

The suit alleges that, by selectively failing to enforce its own anti-discrimination rules when the target was a Jewish student leader expressing support for Israel, UCSB effectively collaborated with an antisemitic campus mob. Veksler claims lasting harm including post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, educational setbacks, and ongoing emotional distress.