University of Michigan denounced for using private investigators to surveil student protesters

Yahoo

4 hours ago

Pro-Palestinian protest on the UM campus on February 20, 2025 | Photo by Erick Diaz Veliz
Josiah Walker has one year left until he graduates from the University of Michigan. However, since last summer, his college life had undergone an abrupt change when he realized he was being followed and recorded by several people while going about his daily activities on campus and around Ann Arbor.
As it turns out, he wasn't the only one.
According to The Guardian, they all shared the same pattern: the pro-Palestinian movement on campus.
On Friday, The Guardian published a report in which a group of students accused the University of Michigan of hiring private undercover investigators from the Detroit-based firm City Shield to conduct covert surveillance both on and off campus of student pro-Palestinian activist groups.
Walker is among the five U of M students who were interviewed in the report. They declared that they were trailed, eavesdropped on, recorded, and verbally harassed by what they considered intimidation tactics from the university. They said they recognized dozens of investigators, often working in teams, who were behind their steps around campus and Ann Arbor, sometimes sitting at nearby tables at cafes and bars.
'The same people and vehicles kept popping up everywhere I went on and even off campus. Each individual would execute some combination of recording and following me,' Walker told the Advance.
The Guardian investigation determined that the private investigators are employees of City Shield. According to university spending records from June 16, 2023, through September 15, 2024, the university paid at least $850,000 to City Shield's parent company, Ameri-Shield.
'The university had used a lot of its own resources to uplift my previous involvements and accomplishments. Now, I'm on the other side where the university is using those same resources to try to destroy my future and, quite frankly, seriously injure or kill me,' Walker told the Advance.
These students started to record, identify, and confront the undercover investigators by themselves, resulting in tense interactions recorded on video.
Katarina Keating, also one of the students interviewed by The Guardian, is a PhD candidate and a member of the Graduate Employees' Organization. She recounted to the Advance that she noticed she was being followed in early November last year. She said she started seeing the same person following her after protests or events, and even weekly in the last months.
Walker said he began to feel watched last year when he noticed that many people were continuously recording and following him; therefore, he started to record them in return.
He shared the videos of those encounters with the Advance, also posted in the report, of himself recognizing and confronting those The Guardian reported are undercover investigators, including an interaction in which the alleged investigator, who is white, appears to falsely accuse Walker, who is Black, of trying to steal his wallet.
During another of those interactions, he says a car from where he was being recorded almost hit him, making him fear for his life since then.
'The threat has already presented itself. This is what City Shield employees or university contractors were willing to do on camera when it was very obvious that I was recording them as I was holding my phone at chest level. There's no telling what they're willing to do off-camera,' Walker said to the Advance.
Another video Walker shared with the Advance shows the same man sitting inside his parked vehicle and initially pretending to be hearing impaired, including speaking in an impeded manner, before switching to a normal voice.
Michigan Advance requested an interview with a university spokesperson, but instead were directed to a public email from the interim university President, Domenico Grasso, regarding the investigation.
'At the University of Michigan, simultaneously keeping our campus safe and welcoming is a top priority,' Grasso said. 'We recently learned that an employee of one of our security contractors has acted in ways that go against our values and directives. What happened was disturbing, unacceptable, and unethical, and we will not tolerate it.'
Additionally, Grasso said the university was terminating all contracts with vendors to provide plainclothes security on campus.
The university also provided a campus security statement issued Sunday, saying that 'recent media reports have mischaracterized the role of contract security personnel who were engaged solely to support campus safety efforts,' and denying that the university had requested the services of private investigators to monitor U of M students on or off campus.
Both statements explained that as part of a 'security strategy' during 2024, the university augmented contracts with outside firms of plainclothes security personnel in order to 'provide discreet awareness of potential illegal activities without escalating tensions,' said the updated statement.
Grasso recommended reporting any inappropriate behavior by contractors or employees to campus police or the Equity, Civil Rights, and Title IX Office.
'It's certainly not 'safe and welcoming' for the dozens of students and community members who have been banned from campus for participating in protests. Grasso should reverse these campus bans next,' said Keating to the Advance in response to the statements.
Walker declared to the Advance that, as of the time of publication of this report, U of M has not reached him to offer support or in response to the investigation by The Guardian, and so far, he believes he is still being monitored.
'It's really unfortunate. There's no doubt that if City Shield operatives or university police see me, they're going to continue to monitor me. They'll probably just try to be more discreet about it,' said Walker.
The student accusations come as part of a series of rifts in the already strained relationship between the university administration and pro-Palestinian groups, including accusations of vandalism against individuals in the groups, and alleged selective targeting by authorities.
Walker was among a group of students charged in September 2024 with trespassing and/or resisting university police during the raid on the pro-Palestinian encampment at the Ann Arbor campus' Diag in May 2024. The trespassing charges were later dismissed.
In April, the pro-Palestinian activist group, TAHRIR coalition, alleged that some of their members were targeted in raids by the FBI at the houses where they live, authorized by Attorney General Dana Nessel. The raids were carried out in Ypsilanti, Canton, and Ann Arbor by unmarked vehicles accompanied by the Michigan State Police and local police officers.
Pro-Palestinian activists were also accused by the university police earlier this month of damaging and vandalizing hundreds of flowers at the university's famed peony gardens after they found papers signed with pro-Palestinian slogans.
'The university has 100% selectively prioritized rights such as freedom of expression and movement. If a cause has even a remotely favorable view of Palestine or Palestinians, one can expect fierce university opposition,' Walker told the Advance.
Despite the actions of the university and its contractors being publicized, Walker doesn't feel completely at ease because he worries the university could still take various measures against him.
'On one hand, it feels liberating to be able to raise awareness about what's been happening,' Walker told the Advance. 'On the other hand, I can't help but know that the university police department and City Shield are probably looking for ways to retaliate against me.'
Both Walker and Keating say college life is no longer the same and that they no longer socialize freely, to the point that Walker warns his close friends to be careful around him so they don't endanger themselves, while Keating is always watching people around her.
'My life has changed in that I'm on high alert any time I am walking around campus, which is essentially every workday. I'm always looking around to see if someone is watching or following me,' Keating said.
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