A University of Michigan student is taking legal action against the school and private investigators, alleging they orchestrated an elaborate undercover campaign to silence his pro-Palestinian activism through intimidation, false arrests, and constitutional violations.
Josiah Walker, a leader in the campus group Students Allied For Freedom and Equality, filed suit in federal court Thursday with support from the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Michigan. The lawsuit accuses the university and private investigators of falsifying police documents, illegally stalking Walker, seizing his property, and orchestrating what amounts to retaliation for his protected speech.
The suit emerged after reporting revealed that the University of Michigan had deployed dozens of undercover investigators to monitor pro-Palestinian students. Some of those investigators engaged in deeply troubling conduct, including one who drove a vehicle directly at Walker, forcing him to jump out of harm's way. Video footage captured two separate instances where the same investigator faked disabilities and made false accusations of robbery against Walker.
Amy Doukoure, a legal representative with CAIR-MI, described the psychological toll on Walker. "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," she said. "He modified his entire way of life because of this."
The lawsuit alleges violations of Walker's First Amendment right to free speech, as well as Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizure. It contends that Michigan law does not permit private investigators to conduct undercover surveillance operations, making the entire enterprise illegal from its inception.
A critical element of the case involves trespassing charges brought against Walker in 2024. According to the suit, the charges rest on a falsified police report. The incident began when Walker approached campus police seeking help retrieving religious items, including prayer mats, that had been seized during a university raid on a Gaza encampment in May 2024.
Police allegedly assured Walker he would face no consequences for attempting to recover his property. But during a station visit, a U-M officer abruptly issued him a trespass warning. The university refused to provide Walker with a copy of the report, which the lawsuit claims was fabricated to justify prosecution.
Bodycam footage referenced in the suit reveals officers discussing plans to arrest Walker at a September campus festival regardless of whether he committed any offense. When he appeared at the event, officers tackled and beat him before taking him into custody on resisting arrest and trespassing charges. Walker spent the night in county jail.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel eventually dropped the trespassing charges after the Guardian exposed her close ties to university leadership and following calls from defense attorneys for an inquiry into potential bias in the prosecution. The lawsuit characterizes the dismissal as vindication, stating it "confirmed what had always been apparent: the case lacked legal merit, was driven by political retaliation, and could not withstand judicial scrutiny."
In 2025, when Walker recorded an investigator trailing him through Ann Arbor at night, the investigator claimed the camera flash constituted assault that damaged his eyes. The suit alleges this fabricated accusation was designed to manufacture probable cause for warrants to access Walker's Google account and email, which contained sensitive personal, religious, academic, and political materials along with attorney-client communications. Walker was never charged with assault.
The lawsuit argues that the university has never deployed comparable surveillance tactics against other protest movements, whether opposing the Vietnam War, supporting reproductive justice, or advocating for Israel. Body-camera footage cited in the suit shows police acknowledging that pro-Israel protesters violated campus rules and law, yet only pro-Palestinian counterprotesters faced arrest and dispersal.
Walker's case is one of several nationwide in which students have sued universities over alleged civil rights violations during Gaza protest crackdowns. The University of Maryland and University of California regents have already paid damages in similar cases, and Columbia University was ordered to reverse disciplinary actions.
"We want the university and City Shield to know they can't undertake these measures simply because they don't like the speech being made," Doukoure said, referring to the private investigation firm the university terminated and apologized to in June 2025.
Author James Rodriguez: "This case exposes how surveillance infrastructure, once normalized on campus, becomes a tool for silencing disfavored speech rather than protecting community safety."
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