Outcry after report that private investigators had been trailing and recording pro-Palestinian protesters for months
The University of Michigan has canceled its contract for undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestininan 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.
