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Young America’s Foundation, et al. v. UCLA

May 2024
University of California, Los Angeles (Public college or university)
Los Angeles, CA

Identity of Speakers

  • Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)
    Student
    Other

    Conservative youth educational activism organization; Plaintiff

  • Brooke Broll
    Student
    Other

    Undergraduate student at UCLA; YAF at UCLA Member and Vice Chairman for 2023-24 school year; Plaintiff

  • Macy Roepke
    Student
    Other

    Undergraduate student at UCLA; YAF at UCLA Member; Plaintiff

Resources

Additional Information

  • Incident Nature:
    Recognized student group event
    Lawsuit
  • Incident Political Orientation:
    Right wing
  • Incident Responses:
    Litigation
    Title IX or other federal statute
  • Incident Status:
    In litigation Federal District Court
    In litigation Federal Court of Appeals
  • Did not involve Speech Codes

Summary

On May 1, 2024, leaders of the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at the University of California, Los Angeles scheduled a lecture featuring commentator Robert Spencer and submitted requests for approval to university administrators. At the same time, large protests and an encampment related to the Israel-Gaza conflict were active on campus. On May 9, 2024, counsel for the student group sent a demand letter stating that the event had not been approved and warning of legal action. On the scheduled date in mid-May 2024, UCLA closed access to the reserved venue citing security concerns, and the event was relocated off campus. Around the same period, federal authorities found that UCLA had violated civil rights law in handling harassment and exclusion of Jewish and Israeli students during campus protests.

On October 3, 2024, Young America’s Foundation and two UCLA students, Brooke Broll and Macy Roepke, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against UCLA and several administrators. The complaint alleged that delays in approval, restrictions on access to campus facilities, and closure of the venue violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights and constituted viewpoint discrimination. The first cause of action alleged that UCLA directly and indirectly suppressed protected speech in violation of the First Amendment. The second cause of action alleged that UCLA’s policies governing security and event approvals were facially unconstitutional and gave administrators overly broad discretion that allowed viewpoint discrimination. The plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief and damages under federal civil rights law.

On August 11, 2025, the district court granted in part and denied in part UCLA’s motion to dismiss. The court dismissed the first cause of action with leave to amend, dismissed portions of the second cause of action seeking damages, and allowed the challenge to certain university policies to proceed. On November 3, 2025, the plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On January 14, 2026, the plaintiffs filed their opening brief in the Ninth Circuit challenging the partial dismissal and seeking reinstatement of dismissed claims.

At the time of writing, there were no independently reported news articles focused specifically on the Young America’s Foundation v. UCLA lawsuit.