Current and former students at the University of Michigan have filed a lawsuit against the school alleging it disproportionately disciplined pro-Palestinian protesters and violated their free speech rights.

The federal lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Detroit. The plaintiffs allege that the school violated the students’ constitutional rights to free speech, due process and equal protection under the law.

The six current and former students also allege that the University of Michigan initiated discipline proceedings against the students for speech-related conduct that other groups weren’t punished for.

The plaintiffs also alleged that students were targeted with different degrees of disciplinary proceedings based on race. They also allege they were fired from campus jobs and blacklisted for future employment.

“The egregious Constitutional violations outlined in this suit are merely a fraction of the repression the University of Michigan has subjected student activists like us to because of our assertion that the University should not financially invest in, and materially benefit from, the genocide of the Palestinian people,” graduate student and plaintiff Nora Hilgart-Griff told the Detroit News.

“That the University has departed from its longstanding allowance of student protest–even protest that may be critical of University policies or leadership–for this issue alone is evidence of the way the Palestinian people are systematically and intentionally dehumanized by the countries who fund and enable their dispossession and deaths.”

The lawsuit names the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents, its president, Santa Ono, vice president for student life, Martino Harmon, and two independent consultants, Omar Torres and Stephanie Jackson, as defendants.

Campus Protest Movement

Campus protests against Israel erupted after it launched a devastating offensive on the Gaza Strip in response to the Hamas-led 7 October attacks. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The campus protests were widespread during the 2023 school year, but have been more sporadic this year. Rights groups say there has been a crackdown on free speech by universities and the US government.

The University of Michigan lawsuit is the latest component of the campus protest movement, with current and former students alleging that their schools’ behavior violated constitutional rights, and potentially hindered their post-graduate career courses.

In September 2024, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Maryland sued their school to hold an interfaith vigil on 7 October to mourn those killed in Gaza. A federal judge ruled that the school could not block the event.

The University of Michigan case is related to a student sit-in at the university president’s office and a “die-in” at a student gathering space in August.

The lawsuit alleges that the school called in police from more than 10 jurisdictions to disperse the latter event. The police made 42 arrests and gave citations to protesters for failing to leave the building when they were told to do so.

The plaintiffs allege that the university has never taken similar action at prior sit-ins, which are common.

Twenty-five of the students given disciplinary notices requested an arbitration before a student panel, and all were found to have not violated the student code. Harmon, the vice president for student life, later rescinded the decision, according to the lawsuit.

The student protest movement was catapulted into the limelight by congressional hearings, in which a Republican majority in the House of Representatives alleged the schools had not done enough to stamp out protestors.

A Republican-led House committee accused university leaders of giving into antisemitism, with the US director of national intelligence even alleging that Iran is providing financial support to pro-Palestine activists. The debate also helped put Congresswoman Elise Stefanik on the political map.

Following her grilling of university presidents, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Stefanik as the US’ ambassador to the UN.

Source: Middle East Eye

“We’re pursuing all legal options,” said CAIR Attorney Adam Attia.

This follows the arrest of a Muslim woman and Temple alumna, Johara Shama.

Shama was part of an unapproved “Students for Justice in Palestine” protest at the Gittis Student Center during a career fair on September 26.

Video shows Shama leading protesters out of the student center after the demonstration when police appear to arrive and intervene. Shama was one of four arrested. Only one arrest was a current student. Protesters allege groping and brutality.

Shama also says Temple police yanked her hijab and Philadelphia police made her remove it during booking, a violation of deeply held religious beliefs and practices.

“This act of humiliation left me in a state of distress, feeling as though my fundamental rights had been stripped away from me,” Shama said.

On October 2, Philadelphia police released a lengthy statement in response to the accusations, saying in part that the department doesn’t currently have specific policies regarding religious garb during the booking and detainment process and their policies need to evolve to better respect and accommodate religious practices.

“No person should ever be forced to choose between their dignity, religious beliefs, and compliance with law enforcement. This is a clear violation of constitutional rights and religious freedoms, and we will not rest until justice is served. We urge all members of the community, regardless of faith, to stand in solidarity with the Muslim women who have endured this unlawful and degrading treatment,” Attia said.

For its part, Temple Public Safety disputed the claims, saying they have body cam video and building surveillance to prove it, although they did not release video when asked.

“Temple University has taken an increasingly hostile approach toward Muslim, Arab, and pro-Palestinian students,” Attia said.

In a statement last week, Temple University President Richard Englert said in part, the university “fosters an environment that is open to a diversity of thought, opinion and peaceful expression.”

“Students for Justice in Palestine” has been suspended at Temple for violating campus guidelines for their demonstration.

“To understand better what led to all of this, were those guidelines followed for this demonstration?” Action News reporter Leland Pinder asked.

“We’re not here to say whether they have the right to protest, whether they adhered to the guidelines, the policies that Temple University has. It’s how Temple responded to the arrest,” Attia responded.

Ultimately, CAIR says it’s looking for substantive and structural change so police better understand and can accommodate members of the Muslim community.

Read the full Philadelphia police statement:

“The Philadelphia Police Department is committed to respecting the religious freedoms and civil rights of all individuals. We are aware of the concerns raised by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philadelphia) regarding an incident involving a Muslim woman who was asked to remove her hijab during a booking and detainment at a PPD facility on Friday, September 27th, 2024.

Our current policy for individuals in custody does not specifically address the wearing of religious garb during the booking/detainment process. In this particular case, staff at the Police Detention Unit (PDU) made accommodations to allow the detainee to wear her hijab while in common areas that could be in the presence of individuals identifying as male. However, it was removed for her booking photograph and securely placed with her personal belongings while she was in a holding cell with other women.

A pro-Palestinian campus group at Northwestern University said the medical school scrubbed photos of Arab students, some of whom were wearing traditional headdresses, from several social media platforms.

In an Instagram post over the weekend, the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said some of the photos taken at a school event earlier this year showed medical students wearing keffiyehs, a garment widely known to symbolize solidarity with the Palestinian people. They were deleted from Flickr, an online photo-sharing platform.

The group also said officials at the university’s Feinberg School of Medicine removed photos of Arab students from its official Instagram page. In an open letter to school administrators, the club demanded a public apology and an investigation into the incident.
“After 10 months of viewing the live-streamed genocide of their people, Palestinian medical students and their families are not allowed to celebrate their achievements in public without being targeted by their own administration,” the group wrote online.

In a statement, university spokesperson Hilary Hurd Anyaso said the photos were deleted to safeguard students from doxing. The university did not immediately clarify whether the students had been doxed or endangered because of the photos. Officials made the decision, the spokesperson said, “out of an abiding concern for the safety and well-being of the students pictured.”
“Student safety is our highest priority at Feinberg and Northwestern,” Anyaso said. “We are proud of Feinberg’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

As college campuses became hotbeds for debate over the Israel-Hamas war, many Arab and Muslim students felt increasingly unsafe. Last November, three college students of Palestinian descent were shot in Burlington, Vermont, where they had gathered for a Thanksgiving celebration. One was paralyzed from the chest down. While it is unclear whether they were targeted for their ethnicities, the mother of one of the victims said she believed they had experienced a hate crime.

So-called “doxxing trucks” bearing the names and faces of pro-Palestinian student demonstrators circled campuses in the fall at several colleges. Some schools took action to protect those students, who were being accused of antisemitism.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, said it recorded the highest number of discrimination complaints in its 30-year history in 2023. Roughly one in 10 of those complaints was connected to an educational program.

Source: USA Today