The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is under fire for trying to protect the identity of left-wing extremist students.
When Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attorney James Percival appeared at the school on April 21 to speak at a Federalist Society event, left-wing extremist students repeatedly interrupted him.
“Yesterday, DHS General Counsel James Percival came to UCLA School of Law for a good-faith academic discussion and was met with personal attacks, repeated interruptions, and organized disruption that prevented him from speaking,” UCLA Federalist Society chapter President Matthew Weinberg told Fox News at the time.
Truly abhorrent and unimaginable behavior today at the @FedSocUCLA event that hosted a @DHSgov lawyer. Leftist students repeatedly disrupted the event, yelled profanities, shouted, made their phones ping incessantly, and eventually stormed out to a rally that violated all time,… pic.twitter.com/DxqubGVleB
— YitzyFrankel (@YitZionist) April 21, 2026
A day after the event, UCLA’s assistant dean for student affairs, Bayrex Marti, sent Weinberg an email warning him against publicly identifying the extremists.
“I have … seen requests online to identify students in the audience who are visible in video recordings,” he wrote. “I would strongly encourage you and other organizers to not disclose those details.”
He added that if this information was shared and the extremists subsequently faced any sort of harassment, the Federalist Society would pay a steep price.
“If that information is shared despite the tenor of some online commentary, and an implicated student reports behavior from anyone that falls under prohibited behavior per the Student Code of Conduct, the student organization and/or individual students could be connected to it (the allegation being that the outcome was reasonably predictable when the names were disclosed) and subjected to campus processes,” he wrote.
The email did not please the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which has since sent the school a letter demanding it retract its threat against the Federalist Society’s UCLA chapter.
“As painful as online criticism may be at times, UCLA may not restrict protected speech merely to shield student protesters from the consequences of their actions,” FIRE wrote.
FIRE also accused the school of practicing a double standard, noting that while UCLA officials were in a rush to protect left-wing extremists, they had no qualms about Federalist Society chapter members being identified and mocked online.
The school has, for its part, chosen to defend its behavior.
“UCLA Law is committed to free speech and academic freedom, including perspectives that may be controversial or deeply contested,” the school said in a statement. “This student-organized event, which proceeded to its conclusion, was one instance of those principles in practice.”
“The law school worked with the Office of Campus and Community Safety in advance to support the event and uphold the university’s commitment to the free exchange of ideas,” the statement continued.
What happened at @UCLA_law undermines a university’s basic function.
Students have every right to object, question, and peacefully protest invited speakers. But sustained disruption preventing others from hearing a speaker has no place at a university committed to free inquiry.… pic.twitter.com/0i4ZbxB1tl
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) April 22, 2026
Speaking on Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show” after his UCLA appearance, Percival said the experience was “not pleasant.”
“I might get death threats when I go on a college campus, but the people I work with at DHS get death threats just for showing up to work every day,” he added. “I really felt like I had an obligation to the people I work with not to back down, to show up and take some abuse.”
The behavior of the extremist students was so bad that the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board called them out.
“If you thought the heyday of cancel culture and infantile behavior on campus had passed, welcome to the University of California, Los Angeles Law School,” the board wrote in a recent opinion piece.
“UCLA’s Administrative Policies and Procedures note that UCLA ‘respects freedom-of-speech, including the lawful freedom-to-protest,’ but that ‘protests may not be so disruptive as to silence the invited speaker from communicating with a willing audience.’ If those words mean anything, the school will identify the students who disrupted the event and hand them more than a slap on the wrist,” the board added.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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