Nine of 33 plaintiffs are asking to use pseudonyms in their pleadings as their lawsuit proceeds toward trial against the UC Regents, in which they allege UCLA violated the civil rights of students, faculty and community members during 2024 campus protests of what they said was an ongoing genocide in Palestine.
The plaintiffs also targeted UCLA’s investment in companies that allegedly profited from the killings. Thistle Boosinger, Faraaz Qureshi and Jakob Johnson are among the named plaintiffs in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed in March 2025, alleging constitutional rights violations as well as assault and battery.
The plaintiffs maintain UCLA police and private security companies failed to protect them from attacks from people they say were members of far-right extremist groups who attacked their pro-Palestinian solidarity encampment. Boosinger says she was hit hard in one hand by a metal rod.
On Friday, the plaintiffs’ attorneys filed court papers with Judge Samantha Jessner in advance of a Sept. 11 hearing asking that the nine plaintiffs who wish to remain anonymous and proceed as “Roes” be allowed to do so.
“Plaintiffs seek leave of court to proceed under pseudonyms because public disclosure of their identities through the court’s publicly searchable docket would expose them and their families to a substantial risk of harassment, doxxing, retaliatory violence and deportation,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers argue in their pleadings.
The plaintiffs in their entirety are current and former students and faculty at UCLA, legal observers, journalists and concerned citizens who were on the UCLA campus between April 30 and May 2, 2024, or June 10, 2024, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers accuse the Trump Administration in their court papers of leading “coordinated, targeted effort to suppress political activism,” noting that in September 2025, Trump signed an executive order declaring that those who oppose “far-right extremists, white supremacy and neo-Nazis are members of antifa and designated antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.”
According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers, Roe 2 is currently working toward a nursing degree and may need to attend UCLA to complete it, but he is concerned about retaliation from an institution with substantial reach in the Los Angeles medical community as well as about prospective employers learning of his political views and activism.
“He no longer believes he can rely on the First Amendment to protect his political expression,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers state in their pleadings.
Roe 5 is an untenured faculty member whose professional standing is precarious after a student wrote in course evaluations that Roe 5 should be *”fired, not allowed to teach anywhere and investigated” after photographing pro-Palestinian materials displayed in the professor’s office, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers, which further state that a senior colleague sent Roe 5 an “intimidating email” accusing the professor of antisemitism.
Roe 7 worries that both her student visa and her scholarship will be revoked if her participation in the litigation is revealed, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers. In addition, UCLA also earlier placed a wrongful hold on Roe 7’s graduation, requiring her to attend a disciplinary meeting and sign an agreement with the university before she was entitled to attended commencement exercises, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ court papers.
In their previous court papers, attorneys for the UC Regents stated that when violence broke out between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters, UCLA made the “reasoned decision” to ask law enforcement to clear the encampment immediately “for the safety of the campus community.”