UCLA Jewish Fraternity Faces Lawsuit Over Sexual Assault
UCLA Jewish Fraternity Faces Lawsuit Over Alleged Sexual Assault
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UCLA’s Alpha Rho chapter of Jewish fraternity Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) is currently facing a lawsuit by a female student who claims that one of its members sexually assaulted her and the fraternity did nothing about it.
According to the lawsuit, filed by the Foundation for Accountability in Higher Education and Keith A. Fink & Associates on August 10, the student – who wanted to keep her name anonymous – was at a party hosted by Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) on August 12, 2016. The defendant, Blake Lobato of ZBT, allegedly pressured her to consume voluminous amounts of alcohol at the party. Eventually, the student became too exhausted and left the party with a group of friends.
However, according to the lawsuit, as the student left the party, she noticed she was too intoxicated to walk properly, so she went back to the party, which she hoped “would end soon.” She encountered Lobato again on her way back to the party, who encouraged her to spend the night at the ZBT house, where he provided her with a bed to sleep alone.
The student alleges that while she was sleeping inebriated and drifting “in and out of consciousness,” Lobato “forcefully removed her shirt and pushed her body down to unfasten her shorts.” The student protested and attempted to resist Lobato’s actions to no avail, and she says Lobato forcefully penetrated her without her consent – twice.
The student says that she felt “excruciating physical pain” for days after the alleged assault happened, and that she had to see a therapist in order to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.
She went to ZBT’s president at the time, who is not named in the court documents, and described to him what Lobato allegedly did to her. The president responded by saying he believed her, but the fraternity did not investigate or reprimand Lobato. The student kept pressing the issue, resulting in Irving Chase, a lawyer and board member of ZBT, to handle the matter.
Chase allegedly disbelieved the student’s allegations against Lobato, insisting that no ZBT member would engage in such actions and he urged her not to bring the matter to UCLA. Chase eventually told the student the fraternity would investigate the matter.
The student later learned after telling her friends about Lobato’s alleged assault that he had allegedly raped another female student in 2015, who is also not identified in the court documents.
“Both women are members of the same sorority; both women were drinking at fraternity parties prior to the assaults; Lobato offered to walk both women home prior to the assaults but instead took them to his room; both assaults occurred in Lobato’s room, and in his bed; Lobato ignored them telling him ‘no’ and making comments like, ‘you know you want this’; LOBATO attempted to or did orally copulate them, without their consent, prior to penetrating them; LOBATO first penetrated them while positioned above them and then physically turned them over and penetrated them from behind, without their consent; LOBATO’s conduct was aggressive and forceful; and both women were unable to find their underwear after the encounter,” the lawsuit states.
Both women confronted ZBT’s president, but he reportedly gave them “the runaround.” The student then confronted Chase about the investigation, but he replied that he was unable to render a verdict on the matter. When ZBT installed a new president, the student told him about Lobato’s actions against them, and the president pledged to remove Lobato as a member. The fraternity never reported the assault to UCLA’s Title IX office, the lawsuit alleges.
After taking a class on Title IX, the student decided to report the alleged rape to the university’s Title IX office. The student claims that Lobato threatened to kill her and that he was frequently “lingering outside her sorority house window.”
Lobato was eventually expelled from the fraternity in January 2017 after the student filed the report, but “he continued to affiliate himself with ZBT to no objection from ZBT or its members.” He was expelled from UCLA in November 2017 and currently resides in Ohio.
In sum, ZBT faces allegations of negligence, and Lobato faces allegations of assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress in the lawsuit. SAE and UCLA’s Interfraternity Council (IFC) also face allegations of negligence, as the lawsuit argues that they’re liable for serving alcohol to minors and failing to establish proper safety measures.
UCLA’s ZBT chapter has not responded to the Journal’s request for comment. ZBT and SAE told The Daily Bruin that it was not their policy to comment on “pending or threatening litigation.”
The full court documents can be seen on The Daily Bruin.
UCLA Unsure About Hosting Anti-Zionist Conference in November
National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced on their website that UCLA’s SJP chapter will be hosting the national SJP conference in November. However, when the Jewish Journal contacted UCLA, they had not yet confirmed that the conference would be happening on campus.
Algemeiner first reported that UCLA would be hosting the conference, linking to National SJP’s announcement, which states: “Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA will be hosting the 8th annual National Students for Justice in Palestine Conference on November 16-18, 2018 in Los Angeles, CA.”
But Ricardo Vazquez, UCLA’s associate director of media relations, told the Journal in an email that UCLA had first learned about the conference in a Facebook post on August 21.
“We [are] working to verify the information in the Facebook post,” Vazquez wrote. “SJP is a student group, and most students are still away from campus until we start the fall quarter in late September. To clarify again: This would be an SJP-sponsored event that the organization plans to host on campus.”
UCLA’s SJP and National SJP decried Zionism in the announcement as “perverse in all aspects of Palestinian life and aims to destroy Palestinian existence and culture.”
“With the Nakba and the Naksa, relentless attacks on Gaza, cementing apartheid into law, and the everyday oppression of Palestinians at all levels of life, it may seem at times like all hope of seeing a free Palestine has been diminished,” SJP UCLA and National SJP wrote on the National SJP website. “And yet, Palestinians have persevered through the generations by means of their resistance and resilience.”
They also referred to Zionism as “ethnic cleansing, destruction, mass expulsion, apartheid, and death” and that it “can be destroyed” and said that they would discuss divestment campaigns as one of the ways they can be active on college campuses.
UCLA’s Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter called on UCLA to deny SJP from being allowed to host their conference on campus in light of the May 17 disruption of an SSI event.
“SJP clearly aimed for the destruction of our event, the denial of our free speech, and the negation of the academic freedoms which our university stands for, a similar pattern of action used by them on US campuses time after time,” UCLA SSI wrote on Facebook. “While for some the events of May 17th are well in the past or act as merely a reminder of the growing prevalence of anti-Semitism Zionophobia across university campuses, for us, SJP across the country serves as an organization that denies freedom of speech and uses violent methods to silence their opponents, methods that lead to bullying and violence.”
They added that the SJP conference aims “to further subject our university to their racist, hateful, and Zionophobic tactics and messages.”
“Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people that called for Jewish sovereignty and led to the establishment of the state of Israel,” UCLA’s SSI wrote. “Zionists believe in the return of an ancient and indigenous people into their homeland after a millennia, and the right of the Jewish people to finally become masters of their own destiny. Today, decades after the Jewish people have returned to their homeland to established a Jewish, indigenous, and democratic state, those who support the existence of Israel face anti-Semitism and Zionophobic attacks and disruptions against them on college campuses, and those efforts are greatly led by SJP.”
The post concluded with the call for the UCLA administration to “take the appropriate actions in not allowing a well-known hate group like SJP to host their national conference on our campus.”
“In doing so, the administration will set a national example that denial of free speech, disruption, intimidation of students, and violence will not be tolerated in the academic community,” UCLA’s SSI wrote.
UCLA professor Judea Pearl had a similar reaction.
“My students and colleagues at UCLA express revulsion and indignation at the idea that our campus will be hosting a racist Zionophobic conference aimed at the destruction of the Jewish homeland,” Pearl said in a statement sent to the Journal. “Israel is a cherished symbol of identity to thousands of students on this campus, and sponsoring a blunt Zionophobic conference at their face is telling them they are not welcome at the University of California. Zionophobic racism is still racism.”
“We plead with the Chancellor to react to this proposed conference the same way he would react to any racist conference, be it Islamophobic or white-supremacist.”
When asked about how UCLA would address concerns of pro-Israel students about the SJP conference, Vazquez responded:
“UCLA is bound by the First Amendment, which protects everyone’s right to express their ideas, even those that are controversial or unpopular. UCLA officials condemned the disruption of the ‘Indigenous Peoples Unite’ event on May 17, activating UCLA’s student conduct process and forwarding complaints filed by students to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, which is now reviewing the matter. UCLA remains committed to protecting all of our students, regardless of their religious or ethnic identities or political beliefs. We will hold everyone to the same standards and continue to work to foster an environment where everyone’s rights are protected. Today we are proud that UCLA has many intellectual and cultural links to Jewish and Israeli institutions. Many UCLA schools, departments, and institutes have active student and faculty exchange programs with Israel and we have study abroad programs at the Hebrew University, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Technion.”
As of publication time, neither UCLA’s SJP nor National SJP had responded to the Journal’s request for comment.
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