Students, alum, and one student organization allege that the University of Michigan has a pattern and practice of violating the Constitutional and civil rights of pro-Palestine protesters.
ANN ARBOR – Today, students and alumni as representatives of a class of similarly situated persons and Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (“SAFE”), a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, at the University of Michigan filed suit against the Board of Regents, President Ono, and Vice President of Student Life Martino Harmon for violating pro-Palestine student protesters’ Constitutional rights to free speech, expression, due process, and equal protection. Plaintiffs also name third-party consultants Omar Torres of Grand River Strategies and Stephanie Jackson of InCompliance aka Beyond Consulting as Defendants. The University of Michigan has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire these consultants to initiate retaliatory disciplinary proceedings against pro-Palestine student protesters and the only undergraduate organization dedicated to fighting for Palestinian liberation for over 20 years.
For decades, members of the University of Michigan community have raised their voices and advocated, on campus, at demonstrations, rallies, teach-ins, marches, strikes, sit-ins, pickets, and educational events for many important social and political issues. Dating back to the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War era, the University maintained a consistent policy of not imposing disciplinary proceedings or suspensions on students and student groups who engage in peaceful protest.
While the manner of expressing speech has not changed, the University’s response to pro-Palestine speech has dramatically changed. The University of Michigan has departed from its own celebration of on-campus protest to instead attack, repress, and punish student protesters expressing their support for Palestinian human rights and calling on the University to divest over $6 Billion implicated in apartheid and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Plaintiffs allege that the University is taking unprecedented action to selectively target students and the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter with disciplinary procedures to punish protesters for their advocacy in a naked attempt to undermine the student movement for Palestine by creating a culture of fear, repression, and silence on campus.
“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,” said Nora Hilgart-Griff, a Graduate Student in the University of Michigan School of Social Work. “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.”
“In the last 400 days of relentless genocide, we have witnessed massacre after massacre – and in response, globally, the people have united in support of the struggle for Palestinian liberation. SAFE is one small part of this international mass movement, but is nowhere near the entire movement demanding divestment” said Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, an SJP chapter that has existed on the University’s campus for 22 years. “As long as the struggle continues in Gaza, it will continue globally, on our campus, and in our streets. Our movement has only grown stronger in the face of repression and targeted attacks – the demand for divestment and accountability is larger than an organization or a small group of students, it is a people’s movement made up of students, staff, faculty, and our community members – and we will be victorious. In standing up for our collective right to free speech, protest, and due process, we are ensuring that the fight for Palestine will continue until liberation and return.”
“For the past year the University of Michigan has overreached to specifically target students who advocate for divestment and the human rights of Palestinian people. The University is breaking from its own long-standing traditions of honoring student protest and is violating the United States Constitution by weaponizing student and student organization disciplinary processes to punish pro-Palestine protesters into silence and to chill, and repress speech in support of Palestinian causes on campus,” said John Philo, Executive and Legal Director of the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice. “The University of Michigan’s actions against pro-Palestine protesters have put a very real asterisk on the free speech and due process rights of students at the University. It is long past time for the University to stop their relentless attacks on speech in support of Palestine. We are committed to defend student’s rights to free speech and protest on the full range of issues arising from the invasion of Gaza and the atrocities that are being witnessed.”
“Since October 7, 2023, students and student organizations advocating for an end to the genocide in Gaza and calling for University of Michigan to divest from companies complicit in the funding of the genocide have faced an unprecedent effort by the University to suppress their speech and punish them for their political viewpoint.” Said Council on American-Islamic Relations Michigan Staff Attorney, Amy V. Doukoure. “This lawsuit is aimed at forcing University of Michigan to live up to their purported commitment to free speech as a ‘bedrock principle of the university.’ In the lawsuit we are asking that the court hold accountable the University, President Ono, and all others who acted to silence political speech based on its viewpoint in violation of the Constitutional protections afforded to all students and student organizations.”
“The plaintiffs in this case were peacefully protesting just as thousands of students before them have since the 1960’s. Yet, unlike those before them, the plaintiffs here have been systematically targeted and are being punished for alleged acts of “violence,” not for engaging in anything that could remotely be defined as violent, but because of their advocacy for the rights of Palestinian people and against the genocidal practices of the State of Israel with financial support from the United States,” said Julie Hurwitz, Attorney on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild, and partner in Goodman, Hurwitz & James, “The essence of any society that purports to believe in democracy must, at a minimum, live up to the fundamental right to “peaceably … assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” [1st Amend.] The University defendants must be held accountable for their unconstitutional assault not just on the plaintiffs in this case but on our democratic principles.”
The Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys John Philo, Liz Jacob, and Tony Paris from the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice; Amy Doukoure from theCouncil on American-Islamic Relations-Michigan, the Detroit-Michigan National Lawyers Guild as represented by Julie Hurwitz, Dayja Tillman, and Matthew Erard from Goodman, Hurwitz & James P.C.; Holland Locklear from the Law Offices of Holland Locklear PLLC, and attorneys Stacie McNulty, Huwaida Arraf, Sara Dagher, and Ezra Ritchin.