The ACLU of Michigan has filed a lawsuit challenging what it calls the University of Michigan’s “repressive” policies toward some pro-Palestinian protesters.
The civil rights group is suing on behalf of five people who received “trespass bans” after participating in protest activities. Most are U of M students or recent graduates.
Sophomore undergraduate Jonathan Zou was one of them. He was banned from campus for about a month last school year, after he was arrested by a campus police officer for leading chants with a megaphone last October.
“I was using the megaphone, as always. I was leading the crowd in chanting,” Zou recalled. “And during the protest, a police officer basically came and arrested me, apparently for using a megaphone or something."
“And after that, no charges have been levied against me, no formal charges in any way. To this day, I have still not heard about any charges against me. I still don't know what I am accused of doing.”
But Zou, an international student from China, said the university still totally banned him from campus, putting him in jeopardy of losing his academic scholarship.
“It was a really stressful period,” Zou said. “It was a really difficult problem for me. It really financially endangered me being at the University of Michigan at all.”
Zou appealed the ban through the university’s police department, and was eventually allowed to return to campus—but still has strict limitations on what he can do there. “I'm allowed to go to campus to attend my classes in person and to study, and for no other reason,” he said.
Trespass bans are only one example of what the ACLU calls the University of Michigan’s “draconian” punishments for some campus protesters since Israel’s war on Hamas began in late 2023. And ACLU of Michigan attorney Ramis Wadood said it’s had serious ripple effects.
“It's had a detrimental effect on free speech and dialogue on campus,” Wadood said. “And we hope that this lawsuit is one step towards the university changing course.”
Wadood said the lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction to immediately overturn the trespass bans. But he said it’s ultimately about more than that—it’s about overturning what he calls some of the university’s “unconstitutionally vague and overbroad” policies.
For example: “Over the summer, fairly quietly, the university released a policy that bans “disruptions,” period,” Wadood said. “It doesn't define what a disruption is, doesn't give examples, doesn't give anybody enough clarity on what counts as a disruption. It just says you cannot disrupt university operations on university property.”
Wadood said the lawsuit asks for that policy to be ruled unconstitutional, because “it likely covers a number of First Amendment-protected things.”
U of M Public Affairs director Kay Jarvis told Michigan Public via email that the university has not been served with the lawsuit yet, and has no comment at this time.
For plaintiff Jonathan Zou, this lawsuit is also about restoring “accountability” to the university.
U of M’s campus protest policies have “proved that the university is above all an economic institution, clinging on to its economic deals and its economic incentives,” said Zou, referring to what he and other pro-Palestinian student protesters have claimed are the university’s direct and indirect ties to institutions that support Israeli weapons manufacturers, among other things. “And it’s unrelentingly using the power of the police, its own police, [and] the legal system to try to repress anyone that tries to expose the university's ties with Israeli genocide, and all of its other economic dealings.”
Editor's note: U of M holds Michigan Public's broadcast license.
