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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
This e-mail has been sent to rg23x698@gmail.com, click here to unsubscribe.
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 …
www.npr.orgSpeaker Mike Is Planning To Steal The House From Hakeem Jeffries, Here's How
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www.youtube.comLabor Report From New Orleans On The Fight In The Unions & Against Racism & Jim Crow2
https://youtu.be/dmhrWfZU9kU
The attack on Black workers and unions is growing and now combined with the racist attack on Black representation in the South is escalating the attacks. At a labor …forum in New Orleans during the Teamsters National Black Caucus on August 13th reports were made on the fight against systemic racist discrimination and attacks on unions.
Speakers included:
Valerie Jefferson – ATU 1560 President, fired by company for defending rank & file, NAACP Labor
Industrial Committee Louisiana Chair
CC Cambell-Rock – Independent Black Journalist New Orleans Activist
Richard Bell, NAACP District A VP Louisiana Veteran's Chair
Additional Media:
Labor, Unions & The Fight For Black Representation, Against Redistricting, Slavery & Fascism In NOL
https://youtu.be/dSAFeh1wLm8
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https://youtu.be/szzZnbuCAew
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
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www.labormedia.netNurses Have Had Enough! In Palo Alto Action NNU CNA Nurses Demand That Palantir Be Terminated
https://youtu.be/wNfmmzYT7Lg
As part of a national day action by the NNU CNA on August 27, 2026, nurses throughout the country
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the role of Palantir in ICE round-ups and also the role of the company in the genocide in Gaza, war in Lebanon and Iran.
Additional Media:
"Purge Palantir" NNU-CNA Demands Stop Destroying Healthcare, Funding ICE & Supporting Wars & Genocide
https://youtu.be/NAsfQV05VCo
Palantir Out NOW! NNU Organizes National Protest Actions Against Fascist Palantir In Healthcare
https://youtu.be/KOHdJzn4fEs
Billionaire Peter Thiel's Palantir Protested In Palo Alto "Stop Profiting From Genocide & ICE Raids Say Marchers
https://youtu.be/TADIld2hgeA
The World Of Palantir & Alex Carp
Silicon Valley mastermind – Who’s behind Palantir's "Gotham" surveillance software?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN-mEGLF_6w
AI, Robotics, Worker Rights, Techno Fascists & The Future With Adrienne Williams
https://youtu.be/qdhsF9usPUE
CWA AWU Google & Amazon Tech Workers & Community Demand No Tech For Apartheid! Cancel Project Nimbus
https://youtu.be/GUg9UglBlzY
Google Employees Speak out about Project Nimbus and Google's Culture of Silencing Diverse Voices
https://youtu.be/wNfmmzYT7Lg
Google and Amazon Want More Defense Contracts, Despite Worker Protests
https://www.wired.com/story/google-and-amazon-want-more-defense-contracts-despite-worker-protests/
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https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2022/09/01/google-contract-project-nimbus
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https://theintercept.com/2020/10/21/google-cbp-border-contract-anduril/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter
Google’s New Union Is a Historic Moment for Labor
https://www.leftvoice.org/googles-new-union-is-a-historic-moment-for-labor/
Tech Workers Unite & Fight! Lanetix CWA Workers Fight Union Busting In SF
https://youtu.be/bRVoJN2TWuY
CWA Labor Officials Censored Report Criticizing Microsoft's Military Contracts
https://theintercept.com/2022/09/07/microsoft-military-union-cwa/?fbclid=IwAR1Rs36PW1ljEum1wylOEm__JCobCLWL-qjuEPgwJEQle5f_iP4U-LBlXd
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Fight & Win: Minneapolis Teamsters Strike, 1934
https://hardballpress.squarespace.com/store/p/fight-win-minneapolis-teamsters-strike-1934?inventory-product-preview=true%3Finventory-product-preview%3Dtrue
In the depths of the Depression, with hungry, desperate man begging for jobs, a …Teamsters Local with 175 members decided to take on the Minneapolis business community’s rabid anti-union Association.
Growing rapidly to a militant force of committed workers 5,000 strong, they battled the cops, the hired thugs and the union-busting politicians. Some battles were bloody, all of them were fraught with danger.
Never backing down, IBT Local 574 eventually broke the grip of the business community, making Minneapolis a union town and inspiring union organizing across the Midwest.
Author John Hanson recalls the stories his father told him about those heroic men and women and the fight to establish a democratic union. His is a poignant, personal story that speaks a universal language of courage and justice.
In the depths of the Depression, with hungry, desperate man begging for jobs, a Teamsters Local with 175 members decided to take on the Minneapolis…
hardballpress.squarespace.comFight & Win: Minneapolis Teamsters Strike, 1934
https://hardballpress.squarespace.com/store/p/fight-win-minneapolis-teamsters-strike-1934?inventory-product-preview=true%3Finventory-product-preview%3Dtrue
In the depths of the Depression, with hungry, desperate man begging for jobs, a …Teamsters Local with 175 members decided to take on the Minneapolis business community’s rabid anti-union Association.
Growing rapidly to a militant force of committed workers 5,000 strong, they battled the cops, the hired thugs and the union-busting politicians. Some battles were bloody, all of them were fraught with danger.
Never backing down, IBT Local 574 eventually broke the grip of the business community, making Minneapolis a union town and inspiring union organizing across the Midwest.
Author John Hanson recalls the stories his father told him about those heroic men and women and the fight to establish a democratic union. His is a poignant, personal story that speaks a universal language of courage and justice.
In the depths of the Depression, with hungry, desperate man begging for jobs, a Teamsters Local with 175 members decided to take on the Minneapolis…
hardballpress.squarespace.comMayor Mamdani, DSA Leaders, and Business Unionist Labor Leaders Are Selling Out New York Public Sector Unions
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/28/mayor-mamdani-dsa-leaders-and-business-unionist-labor-leaders-are-selling-out-new-york-public-sector-unions/
KSHAMA SAWANT
AUGUST 28, …2026
In the latest chapter of the “Democratic Socialism in Office” saga in New York, the City Council recently unanimously passed sorely-needed one-time $10,000 bonuses to public school teaching assistants, through the RESPECT Check Act, and democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is working hard to overturn it.
The teaching assistants, who work with students with disabilities, are grossly underpaid and overexploited, with annual salaries starting at under $34,000 and topping out at under $57,000 after about 15 years of work. This is in a city where the minimum individual pay to get by is around $80,000. Not surprisingly, over 1,800 teaching assistant positions, also known as paraprofessionals, remain unfilled. The City Council’s legislation is strongly supported by the United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents over 200,000 workers in NYC’s public school system.
Despite the dire conditions faced by the paraprofessional public school workers, and himself having acknowledged that a NYC family needs an annual income of over $300,000 to be able to afford childcare, Mayor Mamdani opposes the $10,000 bonuses. Mamdani, currently the most prominent leader of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has announced that he will be suing the City in order to repeal the bonuses.
Mamdani’s Pro-Union Claims vs. Reality
How could Mamdani possibly justify this while calling himself “pro-union”?
Mamdani claims his opposition to the bonuses is meant to uphold the sanctity of collective bargaining, where unions organize for wages, benefits, and other workplace rights. In his public statement, Mamdani waxes eloquent about collective bargaining being “how working people make their voices heard and win the wages, benefits and protections they deserve. It’s a fundamental pillar of a fair economy.”
Mamdani adds that the legislation granting the bonuses to workers “sets a dangerous precedent: allowing politicians to bypass workers and their unions and dictate the terms of employment themselves.” He claims that his lawsuit against the City Council’s bill to give these essential bonuses is supposedly meant to “protect the right of every union to negotiate on behalf of its members, to fight for the workplace they deserve and ensure that workers–not politicians–determine their own futures.”
Bosses routinely walk all over legal precedents as they attack workers to maximize their profits. A socialist in office should not join the bosses and use legalistic excuses to act against workers’ interests. Mamdani’s remarks constitute political gaslighting, where he is presenting what is a straight-up anti-union and anti-worker action as if it is intended to protect unions.
It was the organized anger among rank-and-file workers that forced the City Council to pass this even one-time $10,000 bonus (although the original RESPECT demand was permanently closing the gaping wage differential for the paraprofessionals). Any elected person who calls himself a socialist has an obligation to strenuously support the bonuses, not fight against it. It is horrific that Mamdani has taken the extraordinary measure of actually filing a lawsuit against the bonuses.
First of all, Mamdani and the City of New York are the bosses of public-sector unions like UFT. By opposing the bonuses, Mamdani is playing the role of a ruthless boss who is denying a small measure of justice for some of the city’s poorest public-sector workers!
Mamdani is also doing the bidding of the NYC elite, who are not only undoubtedly incensed at UFT members getting these bonuses but also loath to allow such a precedent to be set for tens of thousands of underpaid rank-and-file members of other public-sector unions. This is the real “precedent” at issue here, not the allegedly pro-union whitewash offered up by Mamdani.
Contrary to his claims of wanting to protect unions, Mamdani’s threat of lawsuit instead comes from the fact that he wants to be in compliance with the Taylor law. He has said publicly that the legislation is in “direct violation” of the Taylor Law.
The breathtakingly anti-union Taylor Law, which includes a strike ban on public sector unions and other draconian measures, was passed in 1967 in retaliation for strike actions by New York state’s public employees, particularly the 1966 strike by NYC transit workers. Strikes by NYC public-sector workers were already banned by the 1947 Condon-Wadlin Act, but the forces of the capitalist state found this law practically unenforceable because it required firing all striking workers. The Taylor Law, by lowering the penalties for striking, made it easier for the capitalist state to enforce the no-strike clause (although public-sector workers have nonetheless broken the law and gone on strike).
However, because it was written specifically to undermine the labor movement, the Taylor Law also prohibits authorizing payments like bonuses outside the collective bargaining process.
All of this put together means that NYC’s public-sector unions are not legally allowed to win concessions in the form of City legislation according to the letter of this viciously anti-union law and at the same time, the “collective bargaining rights” included in the law are extremely limited because strikes are illegal (of course, union leaders need to be willing to organize strikes regardless of the law).
Overturning this odious Taylor Law should be a top priority of Mamdani and other “democratic socialists,” not to enforce it against some of the city’s poorest-paid workers.
In 2018, rather than repeal the Taylor Law, both NYC Mayor de Blasio (whom Mamdani has celebrated as the best NYC Mayor in his lifetime) and NY state Governor Cuomo together upheld it. According to even the DSA-linked magazine Jacobin, the Taylor Law’s strike ban “makes red-state anti-strike laws look like pieces of fluff.” Yet “progressive” Democrat de Blasio and Cuomo fought to protect it in response to the revolt by public school teachers that year, which was sparked by the historic strike by the West Virginia teachers. The Jacobin article also says, “The next time a Republican governor works up the nerve to enforce anti-strike laws against public workers, they’ll have the satisfaction of piggybacking on those Democratic friends of labor, Cuomo and de Blasio.” It’s notable that Mamdani does not even have the excuse of having to deal with a Republican in the Governor’s mansion, and is doing this on his own steam.
Workers Need to Fight Against the Bosses AND their State
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of Mamdani’s cover story is denying basic relief for workers on the basis that it represents unwanted interference from politicians, while in reality, allowing politicians to directly attack workers and unions.
We have, of course, seen this ploy repeatedly from both Democratic Party politicians and many labor leaders tied to them. That is no accident, because the Democratic Party isn’t a workers’ party, it’s a party owned lock, stock, and barrel by the capitalist class. To work within the framework of the Democratic Party is to work with the bosses to represent their interests. Workers can have no illusion that any rights will be granted to us by legislation from either the Democratic or Republican parties, both of which represent the billionaires, unless it is wrested from their hands through the power of class struggle by workers.
Capitalism is a system in which the daily status quo is the billionaires and multimillionaires carrying out a brutal class war on billions of working people. If we play by their rules, we get more of the same. The only way workers can win anything is to go to class war back against the bosses. Especially by going on strike and shutting down the profit machine. This is the most far-reaching leverage we have as workers and why the defense of a law that bans strike action is so completely unconscionable for someone calling himself a “democratic socialist.”
Tragically, the overwhelming majority of the labor leadership for decades has been “business unionist.” Meaning, they have made peace with capitalism and its institutions like the Democratic Party. Instead of fighting for workers, business unionist leaders prioritize cordial relations with the bosses and their political parties. The dominance of business unionism has led to a precipitous decline in the American labor movement and undermined the militancy that underpinned earlier historic victories. The business unionist leadership has been the single biggest obstacle to rebuilding a fighting labor movement for decades, as living standards have plummeted and attacks on unions have escalated, both under the Democrats and now under the Trump administration. A staggering 94 percent of union contracts contain no-strike clauses, with business unionist leaders agreeing again and again to sign away this principal avenue of worker fightback.
The alternative to business unionism is class struggle unionism, based on the recognition that capitalism is a zero-sum game and that the only way for workers to win anything is to wrench it from the hands of the bosses. Like it or not, under capitalism there is no peace between workers and capitalists, and the “peace” constructed by business unionists has led only to decades of defeats for workers. The only question under the bankrupt system of capitalism is who wins in the class war at a given moment, bosses or workers.
Business unionism has meant that the institutions of the capitalist state, in the form of local, state, and federal Democratic and Republican administrations, have carried out endless attacks against unions. Three of the most stunning recent examples are Trump’s firing of 300,000 federal public-sector workers, the 2022 blocking of the railroad workers’ strike led by Democratic President Biden and supported by the Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress, and the giant 2013 sellout of Boeing workers by the Democrat-controlled Washington State government on behalf of the Boeing executives and wealthy shareholders.
Democratic Party politicians and labor leaders have criticized Trump’s attacks on unions, but neither has attempted to build any real fightback. Rather than lead strike actions during the historic protests against ICE killings in Minnesota in January of this year, key union leaders warned union members against striking by reminding them of the no-strike clauses in their contracts.
Under Biden, all House and Senate Democrats except Rashida Tlaib voted to break the railroad workers’ strike. Progressives and DSA electeds like AOC astonishingly tried to claim it was somehow in the interests of the railroad workers, when in reality, it was an act in defense of the billionaires. It helped the railroad bosses and capitalists as a whole avoid a huge disruption to profits and their system had these workers successfully shut down freight transportation.
Not a single Democratic politician or labor leader expressed any fears that their bill to break the railroad workers’ strike would set “a dangerous precedent: allowing politicians to bypass workers and their unions and dictate the terms of employment themselves.” So much for the sanctity of collective bargaining. Not even Mamdani spoke out of concern for this precedent from his position on the New York State Assembly at that time.
During the recent historic strike of New York City nurses, the hospital bosses spent upwards of $100 million in hiring out-of-state scab nurses in an attempt to undercut the strike. New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul signed, and repeatedly renewed, an executive order making it easier for the bosses to hire the scabs. Mamdani did not accuse Hochul of trying to “bypass workers and their unions and dictate the terms of employment” using her elected office. On the contrary, Mamdani endorsed Hochul for re-election during the strike.
Socialist elected representatives need to take the side of the workers, not the bosses, including when that means being at odds with Democratic politicians or even the labor leadership.
In 2021, rank-and-file Pacific Northwest union carpenters launched a strike after voting NO on four tentative contracts lauded by their business unionist leaders. Although the union leadership was forced to nominally support the strike, they did everything in their power to undermine it.
As a revolutionary socialist on a Seattle City Council chock-full of “progressive Democrats” at the time, I was the only elected representative willing to support the rank-and-file strike. The leadership of the carpenters’ union, along with most of the prominent labor leaders in the region, publicly denounced my support for the strike as “interfering” and as “outsiders coming in and agitating our members.” Nicole Grant, then Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the King County Labor Council, said she’d “never seen anything quite this serious in the course of my career, where a small faction of Marxist extremists, with the backing of an elected official, have been able to not just wreak this much havoc inside of a union but been this undermining.”
Following the heroic strike, I announced legislation to improve investigations into wage theft that is rampant in the construction industry, an ordinance requiring contractors to pay 100 percent of the parking costs for Seattle construction workers, and a bill to restore all workers’ right to strike. The business unionist leaders not only refused to support any of these demands, but instead attacked my City Council office for allegedly a lack of “collaboration.” Monty Anderson, Executive Secretary of the Seattle Building Trades Council, said: “You know, we collective bargain. We don’t need Councilwoman Sawant in the middle of our bargaining process…”
These examples show that, according to the logic of business-unionist labor leaders and DSA electeds like Mamdani, direct state intervention is okay only if it attacks workers and unions. If a legislative action happens to benefit workers, they will consider that unholy interference with their sacred process of collective bargaining.
Business Unionist Labor Leaders Need to be Swept Aside
Michael Mulgrew, the long-time UFT President, has threatened “all-out war” unless Mamdani supports the bonuses, but it appears to be nothing but bluster in the face of the pressure from rank-and-file UFT members. Mulgrew has taken no steps to organize any real struggle. He has not announced any rally or protest against Mamdani’s threat of a lawsuit. Moreover, Mulgrew’s own preference for City Council legislation to get the bonuses is no doubt meant to deflect away from what is most urgently needed: strike action.
Business unionist leaders like Mulgrew are hand in glove with the Democratic Party and have their own track record of spectacularly selling out workers. Mulgrew has had 17 years as UFT President to lead struggles for major gains for the membership. Instead, the paraprofessionals have continued languishing at poverty wages. Meanwhile, Mulgrew pays himself nearly $400,000 a year. In 2014, Mulgrew and UFT leaders made a deal with Mayor de Blasio to fund meager wage increases for UFT members. Sadly, this was robbing Peter to pay Paul, as it used a billion dollars of the union’s own $1.8-billion Healthcare Stabilization Fund, which was meant to address skyrocketing healthcare costs for the rank and file! One of the most stunning betrayals by Mulgrew and the UFT leadership was to force the Medicare privatization plan, Medicare Advantage, on the 250,000 UFT retirees. Fortunately, this was later reversed under phenomenal pressure from UFT members.
Working people and union rank and file need to recognize that neither the Mamdani and DSA strategy nor business-unionist labor leaders offer the working class any way out. Both are based on appeasing the bosses, not organizing workers to fight back. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin, whose currency is keeping the peace with the billionaires and multimillionaires.
It is clear from Mamdani’s own extensive public statements that his opposition to the bonuses legislation is in no way intended to be a challenge to the UFT leadership‘s business unionism, but meant to keep his own good relations with the NYC elite and the stability of the capitalist state by enforcing even the most blatantly anti-union laws hurting the most exploited workers. So far, NYC DSA and their four elected City Councilmembers have not raised a finger in opposition to Mamdani’s anti-worker maneuvers.
NYC DSA co-chair Grace Mauser said recently, the DSA leadership is “very serious about governing and we know that that means a working coalition and we know it means compromise.” The problem with this is that it is fundamentally unsocialist. As socialists, our job is not to maintain peaceful “coalitions” with the powerful, but to fight tooth and nail against them and their rotten system. Seeking to build alliances with the establishment has meant Mamdani endorsing not only Hochul, but also Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Jeffries is an arch Zionist who has played a leading role in the bipartisan funding of the Gaza genocide. The New York Times has reported recently about Jeffries holding a private meeting with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to see “how Democrats and the [Trump] administration could work together.” The genocide, much less the brutal occupation of Palestinian lands, is simply not going to be ended on the basis of politicians saying they support the Palestinian cause and then turning around and actively give cover to the perpetrators.
Mamdani keeping the peace with the political establishment has also meant continuing the proposed demolition and privatization of the last half a million NYC public housing units. Most importantly, building coalitions with the powerful means Mamdani, AOC, and other DSA elected officials are completely refusing to use their positions to build movements that will mobilize the hundreds of thousands working people, as I did during my decade as revolutionary socialist on the Seattle City Council.
As an elected representative, I had absolutely no intention of ever “governing” the capitalist state. My responsibility at every moment was to fight for workers, and disrupt the rotten status quo by mobilizing and organizing the working class. My task was to expose the true nature of the Democratic Party and its politicians as servants of the bosses, and of capitalism itself and the need to overthrow it. This clarity allowed me to use my lone office to build mass movements and win historic victories, such as the nation’s highest minimum wage and the Amazon Tax, that DSA-elected officials have not matched. Working people need a new party of our own that can help build militant mass movements and fight against both parties of the billionaire class.
Kshama Sawant is a revolutionary socialist and co-founder of Workers Strike Back. She was the lone socialist on the Seattle City Council for a decade and won four elections. She used her office to lead movements to win the nation’s highest minimum wageand the Amazon Tax on wealthy corporations to fund affordable housing. Kshama ran as an independent antiwar socialist in the 2026 August primary election and won the strongest ever vote for an openly Marxist candidate for the U.S. Congress.
In the latest chapter of the “Democratic Socialism in Office” saga in New York, the City Council recently unanimously passed sorely-needed…
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