By University of California, Los Angeles

Pursuant to this investigation’s findings and conclusions, the following describes a number of measures that UCLA should adopt and implement to address shortcomings, performance failures, systems breakdown, and campus safety issues that emerged from the campus events of April and May 2024. These recommendations are designed to ensure that UCLA’s response to acts of civil disobedience aligns with its commitments to freedom of expression and the protection of the health, safety, and well-being of the UCLA community. In addition to resulting in a more effective response to acts of civil disobedience, implementation of these recommendations will support a more effective response to a wide range of low-frequency, high-impact emergencies events on campus, including potential natural disasters or acts of mass violence. Finally, implementing these measures will better enable UCLA to deliver a range of public safety services in a manner that is effective, that aligns with changing conceptions of the meaning of public safety, and that reflects the UCLA community’s values and priorities. As described below, in the long-term, UCLA will need to address the possibility of making fundamental, structural changes to its public safety ecosystem, including by engaging in a community-driven process to define public safety objectives and goals and by making expanded resources available beyond law enforcement to support those goals. In the short-term, however, UCLA must make immediate changes and develop plans to effectively respond to campus disruptions using existing resources. We are encouraged that UCLA already has begun work to implement these immediate changes. 

Los Angeles: UCLA, 2024. 18p.

By Michael German and Emmanuel Mauleón

On April 27, 2019, a white supremacist armed with a high-powered rifle walked into a San Diego synagogue and shot four people, one fatally, before fleeing and finally surrendering to police. A letter the gunman allegedly posted online shortly before the shooting claimed credit for a previous arson attack on an Escondido mosque, spewed racist “white genocide” conspiracy theories, cited earlier white supremacist attacks against a synagogue in Pittsburgh and mosques in New Zealand, and urged like-minded white Christians to commit further acts of violence.

 Was this crime an act of terrorism, a hate crime, or just another homicide? Under current Justice Department policies, how far-right violence targeting people based on race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability gets categorized is often arbitrary. But it has significant consequences for how federal officials label these crimes in public statements, how they prioritize and track them, and whether they will investigate and prosecute them. As a result, the Justice Department doesn’t know how many people far-right militants attack each year in the United States, which leaves intelligence analysts and policy makers in the dark about the impact this violence inflicts on our society and how to best address it. More importantly, the failure to properly label and respond to far-right violence deprives victimized communities of basic human dignity and equal protection of the law.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice. 2019, 51pg