On May 21 Josiah Walker, a student at the University of Michigan, filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the university of violating his constitutional rights in 2024 and 2025 because of his activities protesting the Israeli war in Gaza. The suit alleges that the university hired undercover private investigators and conspired to intimidate, terrorize, and retaliate against him. The suit details how the university and the investigators falsified police reports, manipulated police documents, stalked and assaulted Walker, seized his property and committed “malicious prosecutions” against him. Walker has evidence of surveillance by at least 30 different undercover agents, including a video that he took of an encounter at a university parking lot where an agent accelerated his car to charge at Walker, requiring Walker to leap out of the way to avoid being hit by the vehicle. For Walker the surveillance often started early in the morning when Walker went to a nearby off-campus convenience store for a cup of coffee and found an undercover agent waiting for him in a parked car at the store. Walker said that in July 2024 he approached one of the undercover agents who quickly pretended to be a disabled person and loudly began to scream that Walker was making fun of disabled people. According to the suit, this was a “targeted and relentless” crusade which caused Walker “psychological trauma.” The suit was filed by Walker and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of Michigan.
EIR News documented many of these charges in June 2025 when the story broke that an $800,000 payment was made by the University of Michigan to a Detroit-based “rent-a-cop” business called City Shield, which has leaders including Joe Piersante who is a graduate of both the FBI National Academy and the FBI’s Police Executive Development School. At the time, this payment was enthusiastically supported by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D-MI) and the university’s Board of Regents member, Jordan B. Acker. While City Shield had a campus presence since at least June 2023, the undercover surveillance increased after the FBI raided the homes of several U-M students in late April, 2025. These raids involved federal, state, and local law enforcement over charges of graffiti on campus from the previous year. This law enforcement overkill had nothing to do with the alleged graffiti, but rather was used to seize phones and computers of the students.
