University of Michigan suspends pro-Palestinian student group after protests

USA Today

31-01-2025

A pro-Palestinian group at the University of Michigan was suspended this week for two years, furthering a tumultuous relationship between university officials and activist students at the Ann Arbor campus who want the school to divest its endowment from companies it views as supporting Israel.
The university says Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, also known as SAFE, violated protocols when they protested outside the home of a university regent and demonstrated during a popular student event. But SAFE says the suspension is the latest effort by the school to stifle their message, and it won't stop its divestment push.
SAFE is one of the more outspoken pro-Palestinian groups on campus. The group is the local affiliate of the national Students for Justice in Palestine organization. In the fall, the university filed a formal complaint with a campus regulatory body suggesting the group should be suspended, according to the Michigan Daily.
The details of the alleged misconduct were not revealed at the time. But Thursday, university spokeswoman Colleen Mastony said the organization lost its recognized status, "for their actions at the residence of Regent Sarah Hubbard in May and actions at Festifall in August."
She said the university determined the organization violated standards of conduct for student groups. The group's actions at Hubbard's home "posed an obvious and serious threat or harm to a member of the university community," she said. SAFE demonstrated at the Diag during the Festifall, an annual event highlighting student groups, in violation of university policy, including one on "appropriate use of space", she said.
"Protests are welcome at U-M, so long as those protests do not infringe on the rights of others, significantly disrupt university events or operations, violate policies or threaten the safety of the community," Mastony said in a statement.
"The university has been clear that we will enforce our policies related to protests and expressive activity, and that we will hold individuals and student organizations accountable for their actions in order to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all."
The student organization disputes this characterization from the university. In a series of posts to the social media platform X on Thursday, SAFE says a student judicial panel urged the university not to suspend the group. The group said the move by the university was an attempt to, "erase Palestine from our campus."
"The university's ploy to get us to stop just because of a ban and a ceasefire will not work. When our movement is under attack, we only end up stronger," one post reads.
During the suspension, Mastony said SAFE will not have access to school funding or have the ability to reserve university spaces.
SAFE has until Thursday to appeal to a board created by the university's Center for Campus Involvement. Otherwise, Mastony said SAFE can work toward regaining recognized status in a year, "if SAFE's campus leadership engage in a series of educational conversations and demonstrate an understanding of university policies."
The fight comes at the same time the Trump administration is advocating for possible deportation of students who participated in pro-Palestinian campus rallies in recent months. Despite the tension between the university and the student group, the school is advising students, faculty and staff that they do not need to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and should call school lawyers if they see immigration officers on campus.
In 2024 at the Ann Arbor campus, SAFE and other students advocating for Palestinians marched, demonstrated and established a camp on central campus. The university eventually cleared the camp in an early morning raid, a move that garnered substantial pushback from activists and at least a few university professors.
Attorney General Dana Nessel brought charges against some students, a decision criticized by U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and others. On the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel, pro-Palestinian students and activists briefly skirmished with local police. Officers deployed chemical spray and detained several people during an at-times chaotic scene.
SAFE and supporters say pro-Palestinian groups are targeted unfairly. In a December op-ed in the Daily, the organization accused the university of using a consultant in an elaborate scheme to, "target, attack and repress the fight for Palestinian liberation rather than acknowledge the demands of their constituents."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the largest Muslim civil rights organizations in the country, filed a formal complaint against the university in the fall accusing the university of overlooking Islamaphobia on campus.
At the same time, Jewish students and organizations on campus said anti-Semitic attacks were on the rise this fall. Multiple Jewish students reported physical harm; law enforcement said one attack clearly appeared to be motivated by the fact the person assaulted was Jewish. At least two other attacks on Jewish students were reported.
It got to the point where Jewish students created a "Shmira" — a reference to the Hebrew term for guarding or watching — which eventually became a group of students to walk peers from classes or other events around campus.
Reach Dave Boucher at [e-mail] and on X @Dave_Boucher1.