UTA vice chairman Jay Sures, who is also a UC Regent as part of the governing board of the University of California, was targeted by a pro-Palestinian activist group who staged a protest at his Brentwood home early on Wednesday that included leaving bloody handprints on his front door.
Sures told TheWrap that he thinks antisemitism was behind the attack, organized by a group called Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine.
“It’s an anti-Semitic act,” he said. “If I wasn’t Jewish, they wouldn’t do this.”
He told TheWrap that the activists “breached” his property in Brentwood and left bloody handprints on the front door. The group could not be reached for comment.
Sures described the protest as an outrageous act of intimidation. He said his wife Linda tried to leave the house in her car, but protestors surrounded her, blocking her from leaving for about 20 minutes until police arrived.
Sures told Deadline: “I’m Jewish. There are 18 Regents, and I’ve been outspoken; you can Google me about what I’ve written, what I’ve done in the world of the University of California. I’ve been pretty outspoken about the cause, about protecting our Jewish students and they don’t like it. So they do this to try to intimidate you, so you back off them. It’s all intimidation.”
Sures has been instrumental in changing policy in the UC system to bar departments from making “discretionary statements” — essentially, political statements outside the scope of the academic department — on the university administration’s website.
“The UC Board of Regents adopted the UC Regents Policy on Public and Discretionary Statements by Academic Units (“Policy”) to maintain a clear distinction between statements made on behalf of the institution and statements not made on behalf of the institution,” according to the UC Irvine website.
In a call to action for the demonstration shared to X, Sures was described as “the embodiment of how the Regents profit off genocide and police dissent on our campuses. Sures has attempted to suppress free speech and protect his financial interests.”
A more detailed anti-Sures post on Instagram stated, “He has attempted to intimidate faculty and students who spoke out against the genocide in Gaza, but we refuse to stay silent and allow his relationships with LAPD and ADL to go unexposed.”
According to The Daily Bruin out of UCLA, the protest was organized by the university’s own Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine. It involved about 50 masked protestors who left caution tape and flyers in Sures’ front yard.
“It’s one thing to peacefully protest, but to go to an administrator or a Regent’s house to violate the hundred-foot rule, which is what it is in Los Angeles, to disturb the entire neighborhood by pounding on drums, to surround my wife’s car and prevent her from free movement, and to put up signs, threatening my family and my life and vandalize the house, that is a big escalation,” Sures said.
He also said he will “definitely” press charges if the protestors can be identified. According to the LAPD, who were called in to disperse the demonstration, no arrests were made. He said he has 16 security cameras on his property.
Sures was appointed to the UC Board of Regents in January 2019 by Gov. Jerry Brown and reappointed in March 2020 by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The UTA vice chair leads the agency’s news, broadcast and television divisions, and represents a wide roster of news anchor talent, including Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon and many others.
A UC spokesperson shared the following statement with TheWrap on Thursday: “Yesterday, the private residence of UC Regent Jay Sures was vandalized, and his family and neighbors were harassed. The University is supporting local law enforcement who are investigating this incident. The University strongly supports freedom of speech and the rights of our community members to participate in nonviolent protests, and we condemn all crimes and harassment committed against members of our UC community. We will continue doing everything possible to create a safe and welcoming university community for all.”
