Student sues University of Michigan over alleged surveillance tied to Gaza protests

Lawsuit says university and private investigators conspired to intimidate, terrorize and retaliate against Josiah Walker

A University of Michigan (U-M) student has sued the school, accusing it of violating his constitutional rights when it waged a vast undercover surveillance operation against him in response to his protest of Israel’s war in Gaza .

The lawsuit , filed on Thursday in federal court by Cair-MI and University of Michigan student Josiah Walker, claims the university and individual private investigators conspired to intimidate, terrorize and retaliate against Walker in 2024 and 2025.

According to the suit, the university and private investigators falsified police reports, manipulated police documents, illegally stalked and assaulted Walker, illegally seized his property and executed “malicious prosecutions” against him. The “targeted and relentless” campaign caused Walker “psychological trauma”, says the suit, which was shared in advance with the Guardian.

“He modified his entire way of life because of this,” Cair-MI Amy Doukoure told the Guardian. “He was always in a heightened state of anxiety, and always hyper-vigilant and alert in a way that no college student should be when just going to class or work.”

Walker is a leader with Students Allied For Freedom and Equality (Safe), a group affiliated with Student for Justice in Palestine, and a volunteer with the campus Muslim chaplaincy.

The Guardian in June 2025 revealed that University of Michigan had hired dozens of undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian students, trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations. The investigators sometimes threatened students, and one drove a car at Walker who had to jump out of the way, video Walker captured shows.

In two bizarre interactions also captured on video, an undercover investigator who had been trailing Walker faked disabilities, and loudly and falsely accused Walker of attempting to rob him. Three days after the Guardian story ran, the university fired a private investigation firm and apologized for some of the investigators’ actions.

The suit alleges that the defendants violated Walker’s right to free speech under the first amendment. It also claims his privacy rights under the fourth and 14th amendments were repeatedly violated, including by police “manipulating and exaggerating” reports to gain access to his Google drive and email. It claims none of the private investigators are permitted under Michigan law to conduct undercover surveillance, rendering the entire operation illegal.

In 2024, the Michigan attorney general, Dana Nessel, brought a case against Walker involving two trespassing charges that, the lawsuit alleges, relied on a falsified trespassing report. According to the lawsuit, Walker was falsely imprisoned over the trespass allegations in violation of his right to due process.

The charges stem from an incident following a May 2024 raid on a Gaza encampment at University of Michigan in which Walker participated, when Walker contacted university police about retrieving seized religious items, like prayer mats.

The suit claims Walker was repeatedly assured by police that he would not face consequences for retrieving the items. But at the station, a U-M officer “abruptly stormed in” and wrote Walker a trespass warning, according to the suit. The university ignored Walker’s requests for a copy of the trespassing report, which the lawsuit alleges was falsified.

The complaint also details an incident in which body-cam footage allegedly reveals officers plotting to arrest Walker for trespassing at a September 2024 campus festival, even if he was doing nothing wrong.

At the festival, officers tackled, beat and arrested Walker, video shows. They charged Walker with resisting arrest and trespassing.

“[This] demonstrates a deliberate conspiracy to violate his constitutional rights, punish him for protected speech, and assert state power over student dissent,” the lawsuit states.

Walker spent the night in county jail, and the suit alleges the arrest represents one of several instances of false imprisonment. Nessel did not file the resisting charge, and dropped the trespassing charges after the Guardian exposed her connections to U-M leadership who encouraged her to prosecute students, and defense attorneys called for a hearing into potential pro-Israel bias in her investigation.

Nessel’s dismissal “confirmed what had always been apparent: the case lacked legal merit, was driven by political retaliation, and could not withstand judicial scrutiny”, the lawsuit states.

The suit is one in a wave of legal actions filed by students around the US who allege that their civil rights were violated during universities’ crackdown on campus Gaza protests after 7 October 2023. The University of Maryland and University of California regent have paid damages in two of the cases, while Columbia University was ordered to reverse punishments.

Walker’s suit also alleges the university fabricated accusations to gain access to his email after, in 2025, Walker video-recorded an investigator who was tailing him around Ann Arbor at night. The investigator allegedly claimed Walker had “assaulted” him with the camera flash and damaged his eyes.

The suit says assault and injury claims were made “to manufacture probable cause” for warrants to access Walker’s Google account, which contained sensitive personal, religious, academic and political materials, as well as privileged attorney-client information. Walker was not ultimately charged with assault.

The lawsuit contends that University of Michigan has never used the same tactics against other protest movements, like those against the Vietnam war, or in support of reproductive justice or Israel. Only those advocating for Palestinian rights have been surveilled.

In one instance, the suit claims, body-camera footage shows U-M police acknowledging pro-Israel protesters were violating the law and school rules. But police only dispersed and arrested pro-Palestinian counterprotesters, the suit alleges.

The lawsuit asks for monetary damages and punitive measures for the university and private investigators.

“We want the university and City Shield [the private investigators] to know they can’t undertake these measures simply because they don’t like the speech being made,” Doukoure said.