“It Doesn’t Matter How Peaceful You Are”: Report on Repression at the University of Michigan

Report on violent police repression of recent rally in support of Palestine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

At the University of Michigan, a coalition of organizers from campus and the community, held one of the first actions of the new academic year to draw attention to the ongoing genocide in Palestine and to demand the university divest from Israel. The action was a die-in on the “Diag,” a large public square on campus in front of the library that is a popular spot for all manner of events. The university responded with vindictive police violence. One of the four people arrested at the action shares the following reportback.

People love to talk about respectability politics, with “protest marshals” (aka peace police) trying – sometimes violently, as we saw at the Chicago DNC protests – to prevent us from organizing and defending ourselves. But what happened at the Diag (and at countless other protests) shows clearly that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how peaceful and “non-violent” we are. We weren’t blocking traffic. We weren’t arguing with people or getting in fights. We were literally just standing in a public, open space, with signs about dead children being murdered in Palestine, and that was enough to trigger retaliation from the police in the name of “keeping the campus safe.”

At the action, I met up with a friend and we chatted briefly about how deeply unpleasant it was that the University sent out so many cops just for a small, peaceful “die-in” – a type of public action focused more around media and optics than tactical disruption. Die-ins at U of M have been historically implemented many times by a variety of student campaigns throughout history, always with DPSS (UM cops) remaining fairly hands-off and never arresting anyone. We wondered if this was a sign that the University was planning further repression, and decided we wouldn’t stick around long; we did not want to risk arrest for such a small, tactically insignificant action.

It felt extremely surreal as we lay on the ground holding signs with images of dead Palestinians while a UM admin walked over our bodies telling us that we need to do this at a more convenient time, and that she would be happy to work with us at a date that would work better for the University. (I couldn’t help yelling back, “Are you really asking us to SCHEDULE A PROTEST at a convenient date? Should we be asking Israel and the US to reschedule the fucking genocide at a more convenient time, too?” She ignored me.) Eventually everyone else seemed to collectively decide that they’d pissed off University admin enough to leave without risking arrest. The cops announced that we were blocking traffic (not true – the Diag is large and open, people were walking around us with no problem) and needed to leave, so everyone deposited their signs and banners back in the wagon as folks continued chanting while leaving the Diag.

I’ve been to plenty of die-ins before and they had always ended peacefully. And this action was also very calm and solemn, aside from some fashy counter-protesters who were jeering and laughing and trying to start fights. I was not connected with the organizers at all aside from mutual friends, but having organized on campus for years and therefore being very familiar with tactics that work and don’t work against the University, I figured they were probably trying to start things off somewhat calmly in the hopes of preventing immediate escalation. Unfortunately, the University decided otherwise.

Seemingly out of nowhere, as we all tried to leave, the cops moved in. In an act of spectacular cowardice, they went for (presumably) the first target they felt they could take – a 16 year old who weighed maybe 90 pounds on a good day. I heard everyone yelling, and I didn’t see what happened after they grabbed the kid, because what felt like four or five cops grabbed me, shoved me to the ground, and handcuffed me.

Getting arrested is never fun, but the process was not too bad for me, in large part because I am white. I was not even properly cuffed, the cuffs were so loose I could have slipped out. (This might have just been incompetence on their part, because another cop stopped them and made them fix my cuffs.) One of the officers read me my rights, went through all of my belongings in front of me so I could see them, and informed me of why I was arrested.

In contrast, the two Black arrestees with me were handcuffed properly, left in the paddy wagon without AC for fifteen minutes until they put me (a white person) in the wagon, whereupon they immediately switched on the AC. The other Black arrestee who was with me did not have their rights read to them, was not told why they were arrested (we eventually figured it was for the classic crime of “flyering while Black”), and was left in the paddy wagon with no AC until I was placed in with them. Neither of them were ever told why they were arrested, to my knowledge.

This is just another example of how Palestine solidarity actions are incredibly racialized. UM is incredibly focused on its public image and they almost never arrest students (or people they think are students). I’ve been organizing here for almost a decade on and off campus and in my whole time here I (and other fellow longtime campus organizers) have only seen DPSS arrest students one time, and it was a group of mostly white climate strikers who, despite swarming the admin building and occupying in for eight hours, received ample clear and calm warnings, no violent take downs, and were not even booked into jail after being trespassed.

In contrast, Palestine solidarity actions on campus have been relentlessly repressed, with dozens being arrested and injured in the process, and several students, staff, and faculty being repeatedly targeted, followed, and surveilled by the University (check out @safeumich, @umflintsjp, and @jvpumich on Instagram for video proof/examples of this).

The police do not “keep us safe.” They exist to protect powerful people. In UM’s case, they exist to protect the real University – i.e., a dozen millionaire real estate investors in a trench-coat (painted over with a college football franchise). If you threaten them, the University, or their power, they will slam you to the ground, concuss you, raid your house, hurt you, follow you, surveil you, intimidate you, and do everything they can to prevent you from organizing against them.

A few days after the arrests, UM admin sent an email decrying “outside agitators.” As a friend pointed out – the myth of “outside agitators” at this action is not only a dumb concept, it’s not even true! I grew up in Ann Arbor. I was cutting class in high school to read at Borders on Liberty before most UM freshmen were even born. But why would the University care? They are concerned only with the well-being of the President and his eight vassal lords, I mean regents, and care not for the rest of us serfs. They’re fucking terrified of people organizing outside of the U, because the idea of us existing without them is fundamentally destructive to their very way of being.

For those not familiar with UM, it is an incredibly wealthy institution built on Anishinaabe land. It has an $18 billion endowment (skyrocketing from a mere $12 billion in 2019, and the median (not average!) household income of a UM undergraduate is $154,000 as of 2022 (according to The Michigan Daily). However, because I am not a student, staff, or faculty, I am not making the University any money right now, in fact, I’m costing them money given how many cops it took to arrest me! Therefore, I am considered an “outside agitator.”

More importantly, the narrative of “outside agitators” is always bullshit. Even if NONE of the four of us arrested on the Diag were from around here, we’re still hugely impacted by U of M! They have a stranglehold on not just Ann Arbor but southeast Michigan as a whole; it’s one of the largest employers, and contributes hugely to gentrification, rising rents, climate change, and other things that affect people across the state and the country. Our struggles are interconnected! The same pipeline companies that destroyed sacred land to build the Keystone XL are doing the exact same thing with Line 3 and Bayou Bridge. The same officials racing to build Cop City in Atlanta have encouraged other cities and states to build their own Cop Cities. Destroy the myth of the “outside agitator,” instead, recognize that our struggles have drawn in a wide variety of people wanting to be in solidarity with you.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how peaceful you are, or how approachable and appealing your language is, the moment that powerful people perceive you as a real threat, they will retaliate. This can feel scary, but once you accept that a fight is inevitable, there’s power in that. You don’t have to play by their rules. Be loud, be weird, be queer, be angry, and have each others’ backs. The four of us arrested on Wednesday would be so much worse if we didn’t have our friends (and strangers) ready to fight for us.

All we have is each other, and that’s all we need.

photo: Screenshot via BG on the Scene on Twitter