The Guardian learned that the University of Michigan is using private secret investigators to monitor pro-Pallestein campus groups, including falling behind on and off campus, secretly recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations.
Surveillance seems to be largely a threatening tactic, with five students who are being followed, recorded or eavesdropped. According to student accounts and video clips shared with guardians, secret investigators cursed students, threatened them, in one case, in a student who had to jump out of the way.
Students said they often identify secret investigators and face to face with them. In two strange interactions captured by two students in the video, a person who delays the student’s fake disability, noisy-error-accuses a student of trying to rob him.
According to police records, the law found collecting university spending records and videos, Michigan prosecutors used some evidence from secret investigators appearing in Detroit’s city shield, a private security organization, Michigan prosecutors to charge and prison students. Most of the charges were later dropped. Public spending records from the UM board of directors, the school’s governing body, show that the university paid at least $800,000 between City Shield’s parent company Ameri-Shield from June 2023 to September 2024.
Among those who say they often follow it is Katrina Keating, who is part of Freedom and Equality (Security), a local chapter for Justice of Palestinian students. Keating said surveillance made her feel "on the edge" and she has been looking at her shoulders frequently since November.
"But, on another level, sometimes it feels comedy because it's so crazy that they spend millions of dollars hiring some fools to follow campus activists," Keating added. "It's just a waste of money and time."
Students who spoke with The Guardian followed dozens of investigators who followed them on campus and around Ann Arbor, often worked on teams and in some cases sitting at tables near nearby cafes and bars, eavesdropping on conversations. Their allegations were supported by videos reviewed by The Guardian – some were taken away by students following them along with footage from police cameras, or confirmed by multiple students who were surveillance.
The students said surveillance has been increasing after a recent raid on FBI-authorized students by Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Donald Trump.
The University of Michigan said in a statement that it received no complaints about investigators. It does not deny surveillance. "All safety measures are focused only on maintaining a safe campus environment and are never targeted at individuals or groups based on their beliefs or branches," a spokesperson said in an email.
City Shield did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the Regent and outspoken critic Jordan Acker.
The university has established opposition relations with the pro-Palestine campus group, which has been organizing protests to demand the university's evacuation from Israeli companies and to establish a camp in 2024. This took the unusual recruitment of Nessel to sue Nessel for prosecutions alleging that students are not allowed to local protests during the 2024 protests, rather than allowing local protesters to handle cases in order to handle cases, and take typical cases as words. The Guardian previously detailed the intimate, financial and political relationship between the Regent and Nessel.
Regent documents and media reports show that college security spending is at least $3 million — undercover rather than — as well as higher education consultants to deal with students’ activities on campus.
Evidence from secret investigators has also been used by university administration at internal discipline hearings. According to four lawyers and students who have gone through the process, the government cannot bring cases against students – only other students or employees can – so it spent $1.5 million to two consultants hired to initiate internal disciplinary action.
Lindsie Rank, director of Campus Rights Advocacy for the Campus Rights and Expression Foundation, said the use of undercover private security could be unprecedented. She said the University of North Carolina police carried out a secret secret during the 2018 Silen Sam protest that led students to overturn the Confederate statue, and she questioned why UM did not use its own police.
"It's certainly the best thing for a free speech culture on campus, because it does cause chilling effects," Rank said.
Last summer, Josiah Walker, a member of Black and Muslim security, knew he was getting attention. He kept grabbing people who recorded him on his phone, so after several encounters he said he was "captivated".
In the college parking lot, Walker began recording several people in recording his car. A car accelerated towards Walker and he had to go out to avoid being hit.
"I thought to myself, 'If this is my way out, it's the way I go out, but it's really unfortunate that this group caught me." Later he learned that they were not a random group, but a secret investigator.
Students say Walker has been one of the worst surveillance for unknown reasons. He counted 30 people following him before he stopped keeping track last year and said they now regularly parked it at his often regular off-campus convenience store.
In a July 2024 incident, Walker took pictures of several men he suspected of being following him. During the protests against the incident in Bangladesh, a man began to travel in the outdoor campus gathering area. Walker said the man screamed that Walker was teasing the disabled and accused him of planning to post the video to YouTube. Walker told The Guardian that he wasn't sure the man was delaying him, so he was frustrated with the charges.
In early August, Walker captured the video and shared with the Guardian showing Walker approaching another person who was recording from the car. It turns out that this is the same person in the protests in Bangladesh. The video shows the man acting deaf and mute, pretending to use sign language and speaking in an obstructive way. He then began speaking in a normal voice and apparently tried to insult Walker, which showed that Walker was a student with special educational needs.
A spokesperson said in an email that the university “is not tolerant or tolerate employees or contractors who devalue individuals or communities, including people with disabilities. The comments quoted in the video do not reflect the university’s values or expectations for respectful behavior.”
A few minutes later, Walker walked around behind the man and heard him telling another investigator Walker to figure out who he was. The white investigator began to scream, and the black Walker was trying to attack him. "He wants my wallet!" the investigator screamed. Walker also captured the incident through video and shared it with his guardian.
Walker said he knew the man was an investigator because he followed Walker like dozens of other cameras. His suspicion will be confirmed.
Walker was charged by Nessel for being trespassed by misdemeanor in 2024. During the legal discovery, Walker was given a footage of the UM Police Department videotape (who shared with the Guardian)—which showed an official watching a phone call and appeared to chat with a team of undercover investigators called "UM Intel." It included a text showing Walker's video on campus area, where police claimed that Walker would not allow it.
A City Shield employee on the figure shown in the video declined to comment when the Guardian contacted and said reporters should call his boss at the City Shield's "Central Office."
The charges against Walker were later dropped.
Walker said surveillance is a "very dangerous situation" because investigators were lied, using suspicious strategies, and collecting prosecutors used to charge students.
He was also confused: "It's amazing how much all these entities are willing to aim at me. Guys, that makes no sense. What are you doing? Leave me alone."
In late March, Nessel claimed that another security member, Henry Mackeen-Shapiro, violated the terms of the bond agreement proposed by previous intrusion charges that prohibited him from attending classes on campus.
Nessel said the charges justified the 10-day prison sentence. According to police reports obtained by students, she appears to rely on the accounts of City Shield investigators, claiming that Mackeen-Shapiro has been posted by videos from the campus’s flyers. Mackeen-Shapiro rejected the account. The judge finally sentenced him to four days.
Nessel and the FBI raided the homes of several protesters in late April. Several students said they have noticed an increase in the number of people they were procrastinating since the raid. In some cases, they harass and threaten the students they face. In one example, someone follows a group from a student meeting to a bar, sitting at an adjacent table, starting to eavesdrop and record.
"Through the proliferation of ordinary clothing police and security cameras, the university is responding to students' activism in a massively expanded way, which is very shocking," Mackeen-Shapiro said.