A judge has ruled that three of 35 plaintiffs — who wish to use pseudonyms in their pleadings as their lawsuit proceeds toward a trial of their allegations that UCLA violated the civil rights of those taking part in 2024 campus protests — can do so.
Nine of the 35 had asked to remain anonymous in the pleadings, but on Tuesday, Judge Samantha Jessner granted permission to just three.
Attorneys for the UC Regents, on UCLA’s behalf, opposed any of the plaintiffs using anything but their true names.
“Under plaintiffs’ logic, any person who has engaged in pro-Palestine activism should be permitted to claim anonymity in court proceedings,” the regents’ attorneys stated in their court papers. “The law does not countenance that result.”
The regents and UCLA will not retaliate against any plaintiffs based on their decisions to sue, according to the regents’ attorneys’ pleadings.
The demonstrators consisted of students, faculty and community members unhappy with what they said was an ongoing genocide in Gaza. The protesters also targeted UCLA’s investment in companies that allegedly profited from the strife. Thistle Boosinger, Faraaz Qureshi and Jakob Johnson are among the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in March 2025, alleging constitutional rights violations as well as assault and battery.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys previously filed court papers asking that the nine plaintiffs who wished to remain anonymous be cleared to proceed as “Roes.” The judge’s ruling allowed plaintiffs Roe 1, Roe 11 and plaintiff Mahmoud Alnaouq to use pseudonyms.
“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, doxing, retaliatory violence and deportation,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued in their pleadings.
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 said she was hit hard in one hand by a metal rod.
The plaintiffs as a whole are current and former students and faculty at UCLA, legal observers, journalists and concerned members of the public 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 a “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.”
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.”
A status conference is scheduled for Oct. 16.