A UCLA computer science doctoral student who spent nearly two years fighting campus discipline over pro-Palestinian protests has filed a civil lawsuit against the University of California, saying he was punished for his beliefs rather than any proven misconduct. Dylan Kupsh, 27, is asking a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to release his withheld master's degree and reverse a two-quarter suspension that bars him from classes, teaching duties, and pay through December 11.
Kupsh's suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, names the University of California Board of Regents, UCLA student conduct administrators, and a UCLA police captain as defendants, and it alleges viewpoint discrimination and due process violations, according to the Los Angeles Times. He is represented by Los Angeles-area civil rights lawyers and attorneys from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and he is seeking unspecified damages, attorney fees, and punitive damages against two administrators and the police captain named in the case.
The case traces back to demonstrations that occurred between June 2024 and May 2025, stemming from smaller protests held after UCLA's spring 2024 encampment. Kupsh was arrested at a June 2024 demonstration but was never criminally charged for it — a pattern that held across nearly all of the roughly 350 people arrested at UCLA and USC pro-Palestinian protests that spring, since city and county prosecutors declined to file charges against all but two of them, per the same Los Angeles Times report. That left UCLA's internal conduct system, which decides cases using a lower more-likely-than-not standard rather than the criminal burden of proof, as the primary venue for penalizing activists.
Fourteen Citations, Two Findings of Responsibility
Kupsh originally faced 14 campus citations tied to five demonstrations, with the charges issued between August 2024 and June 2025 and amended twice, most recently in April 2026. The allegations ranged from blocking pathways and disrupting campus to defying orders, disorderly conduct, and failure to follow orders. New citations alleging obstruction were filed the same day Kupsh's interim suspension took effect, the Los Angeles Times reported.
UCLA panels — composed of faculty, staff, and students — heard Kupsh's cases across five hearings between June 2025 and May 2026. The panels found Kupsh was present at most demonstrations and ultimately found him responsible for violations at two separate protests, but they dismissed all but two of his citations. Notably, the panels did not find that Kupsh blocked access, gave orders, or organized the demonstrations. UCLA maintained that he violated a rule requiring him to show his student ID to authorities and a rule requiring him to move out of a walking student's path. Kupsh has denied being a ringleader, denied blocking people from campus walkways, denied refusing orders, though he acknowledged attending most of the demonstrations.
Emails Named Him as a Public Face of a Banned Group
According to the lawsuit as described by the Los Angeles Times, an email from Jeff Chobanian urged firm and immediate action against Kupsh, describing him as a known organizer and public face of the suspended Students for Justice in Palestine. That email was sent to Steve Lurie, who forwarded it to two student conduct administrators; Lurie also considered an interim suspension for Kupsh, which UCLA ultimately issued in June 2025, barring him from campus for 291 days. The interim suspension was lifted in March 2026, though he was allowed on campus Monday afternoons for lab meetings during that stretch. His appeal of the underlying discipline was denied on July 31, 2026.
Attorney Thomas B. Harvey alleged that Kupsh was disciplined for his beliefs rather than his actions, and the lawsuit alleges that Kupsh lacked meaningful notice of the cases against him. A UCLA spokesperson said the university will respond to the lawsuit in court, and UCLA is barred from discussing individual discipline cases or internal deliberations under federal privacy law, the Los Angeles Times noted.
A Degree Held for Over 600 Days
Kupsh's master's degree was submitted for conferral in December 2024 but remains unawarded more than 600 days later. His doctorate, seven years in the making and reportedly two quarters from completion, is now on hold; he must apply for readmission to resume it once his suspension ends. The two-quarter suspension has also cost him more than $17,000 in lost pay, according to the lawsuit. “I sued because I had run out of options,” Kupsh told the Los Angeles Times, saying he wants to attain a PhD.
Kupsh's fight against UCLA has run on more than one legal track. In August 2025, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered UC Regent Jay Sures to pay $150,624 in legal fees to Kupsh after granting his anti-SLAPP motion to strike a restraining order petition, according to the Daily Bruin. Sures had sought the order after a February 2025 protest outside his Brentwood home, calling Kupsh a ringleader, but the court found Kupsh was engaged in constitutionally protected speech. Kupsh was also an active petitioner in a June 2025 California Public Records Act lawsuit demanding disclosure of internal reports and the names of UCLA Student Conduct Committee members, the Daily Bruin reported separately.
Discipline as the Battlefield Amid Federal Pressure
UCLA's reliance on internal discipline unfolded against enormous outside pressure. The university faced a $584-million federal funding freeze, which a federal judge later lifted, and it refused a $1.2-billion settlement demand, per the Los Angeles Times. In May 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed federal court documents citing systemic civil rights violations at UCLA under Title VI for failing to protect students from hostile environments during the demonstrations. UCLA had separately agreed in July 2025 to pay $6.13 million to settle Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, after a federal court found Jewish students were unlawfully excluded from campus areas during the 2024 encampments, according to Becket Law.
UCLA's Office of Student Conduct had also recommended indefinitely revoking Students for Justice in Palestine's status and suspending Graduate SJP for four years, sanctions that stripped both groups of official recognition, the Daily Bruin reported in March 2025. Systemwide, student conduct proceedings unfold behind closed doors, and UC reported more than 400 protest-related internal discipline cases stemming from spring 2024, with 131 interim suspensions issued systemwide. UC campuses issued 14,231 sanctions in the 2023-24 year, and warnings, probation, counseling, and workshops made up 93% of them, while suspensions accounted for just 3%, per the Los Angeles Times. A systemwide review found cases that reached a hearing took 225 days on average — three times as long as cases settled without one — and the longest UCLA case ran 361 days.
Kupsh's suit joins a broader wave of litigation over UCLA's handling of the protests. As previously reported by Hoodline, nine of 33 pro-Palestinian protesters suing the UC Regents over the university's handling of spring 2024 demonstrations asked a judge in July for permission to proceed under pseudonyms, citing fears of harassment and retaliation. University conduct violations are not crimes, but for Kupsh, the closed-door process has carried consequences he says have already stretched on far longer than any criminal case would have.
