A University of Michigan student has filed a civil lawsuit against the university for allegedly engaging in a “sustained campaign of retaliation, surveillance and harassment” in order to squelch his political activism on campus, a copy of the lawsuit examined by The EDU Ledger shows. The lawsuit was filed by Josiah Walker, who is identified in the lawsuit as a “Black, Muslim, politically engaged student” who spoke out in support of Palestinians in 2023-2024.
The lawsuit, which also names the University of Michigan police department, accuses the university of hiring a private security contractor to surveil Walker without reasonable suspicion that he committed a crime. It also alleges he was arrested without probable cause, subjected to false imprisonment, physically assaulted, and wrongly accused of trespassing when he went to retrieve personal property and religious items – such as prayer mats, Qur’ans, and Palestinian flags – that were seized by university police during a Pro-Palestinian encampment on campus in May 2024.
The lawsuit alleges further that Walker was subject to “exaggerated, misleading, and hyperbolic police reports to manufacture a false narrative of criminality,” which was then used to support search warrants for his private emails and stored data. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
Walker’s case is just one of several in which students or scholars who spoke out in support of Palestinian rights allege that they were targeted for their activism and political views.
The suit is also one of a “wave of legal actions” filed by students who claim universities violated their rights during crackdowns on pro-Palestinain protests that flared up on campuses nationwide after the Israel-Hamas war began in 2023, or through actions that institutions took since. The University of Maryland, for instance, was ordered to pay $100,000 in a settlement for banning a student-led vigil for Gaza.
Certain elements of Walker’s case were featured in an exposé by The Guardian on how the University of Michigan was using private, undercover investigators to “surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations.” The Guardian reported that the university cancelled its contract with the private investigators following its exposé.
