The University of Michigan has canceled its contract for undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, following outcry after a Guardian story revealed the private investigators had been trailing and recording students for months, and published damning video of one investigator’s interaction with a student.
“We recently learned that an employee of one of our security contractors has acted in ways that go against our values and directives,” the U-M president, Domenico Grasso, wrote in an email to students and faculty on Sunday night. “Going forward, we are terminating all contracts with external vendors to provide plainclothes security on campus.”
The investigators appeared to work for City Shield, a private security group based in Detroit, and some of their evidence was used by Michigan prosecutors to charge and jail students. The university, which has taken a particularly heavy-handed approach to suppressing student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, paid at least $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024 to City Shield’s parent company, Ameri-Shield. The contract was part of at least $3m in spending on higher education consultants and security in response to the protests.
The Guardian’s reporting found that dozens of investigators were following student protesters on and off campus, and in some instances were confrontational, cursed at students, threatened them, and in one case drove a car at a student who had to jump out of the way, according to student accounts and video footage shared with the Guardian.
The students detailed bizarre interactions with the investigators. In an incident captured by a student on video, a man who had been following him faked disabilities and accused a student of attempting to rob him when he was confronted.
The same investigator, who pretended to be deaf and mute, appears to have insulted a student recording him, calling him a “special needs student”.
“What happened was disturbing, unacceptable, and unethical, and we will not tolerate it,” Grasso wrote in an apparent reference to the conduct in the video.
The story drew broad outrage on social media, and from current and former U-M students and faculty.
In the email, Grasso said the investigators “were intended to help us keep watch over our campus and enable us to respond quickly to emergencies. However, we are clear: no individual or group should ever be targeted for their beliefs or affiliations.”
Katarina Keating, a PhD student who was being followed, said she welcomed the news and called it a “step in the right direction”, but added that it was “insulting” for the university to say pro-Palestinian groups were not targeted for their beliefs or affiliations. There is no evidence that the investigators surveilled anyone aside from pro-Palestinian activists.
She called on the university to also eliminate security it hired that is not undercover, and lift campus bans in place for “dozens” students involved with demonstrations.
Some evidence collected by the investigators was used by the Michigan attorney general, Dana Nessel, to charge students with violating the terms of bonds from previous arrests for allegedly trespassing and resisting arrest. One student was jailed for four days.
Nessel dropped the rest of the charges. City Shield did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Keating questioned the university’s focus, in the president’s email, on one investigator’s conduct.
“It would be bad even if [the investigators] were competent and followed all the rules,” Keating said. “It’s still bad and scary to be putting private security contractors after your students.”
