Overview
- UC Regent Jay Sures, speaking as an individual regent, issued a letter Friday calling the student council’s condemnation of the April 14 talk “disappointing and dangerous.”
- UCLA said it will examine how the statement was issued and noted the event proceeded peacefully with Chancellor Julio Frenk in attendance.
- Undergraduate president Diego Bollo said the letter went out without his input, passed by a slim margin, and he has launched an internal review.
- The event, held for Holocaust Remembrance Day and hosted by UCLA Hillel and the Nazarian Center, featured Omer Shem Tov, who was abducted on Oct. 7 and freed in February 2025.
- Organizers and Shem Tov’s team described the program as respectful, while the dispute plays out on a campus already shaped by 2024 encampments and high-profile legal and political scrutiny over Israel–Gaza protests.