Law360 (May 21, 2026, 8:10 PM EDT) -- A University of Michigan student alleged in federal court Thursday he was harassed and stalked by school officials as retaliation for participating in pro-Palestinian protests and calling for the university to sever ties with Israel.

In his complaint, Josiah Walker said university officials were offended by the content of his speech and viewpoints he expressed during on-campus protests and subjected him to a "deliberate and unlawful pattern of harassment and retaliation" because of his political leanings and his "racial and religious identities." Walker is Black and Muslim, according to the lawsuit.

"Public universities do not get to celebrate free speech when it is convenient and then unleash police, private surveillance contractors, trespass bans, criminal charges, and employment blacklists when students advocate for Palestinian human rights," Amy V. Doukoure, counsel for Walker and lead staff attorney at the Council on American-Islamic Relations Michigan chapter, told Law360.

According to Walker's complaint, the university hired a private security contractor to monitor him, seized personal and religious property without cause, and went to police with "a false narrative of criminality, which was then used to support search warrants targeting the plaintiff's private electronic communications and stored data."

"Public universities are bound by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, not by political pressure or viewpoint preference," Doukoure told Law360. "When a public university uses state power and private security operatives to surveil, punish, and intimidate a Black Muslim student because of his protected speech, that is not campus safety: that is unconstitutional retaliation."

Walker said the University of Michigan has a long history of supporting political activism, specifically referencing student demonstrations voicing opposition to the Vietnam War, supporting the Civil Rights Movement, worker rights, women's rights and preserving the environment, and expressing opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The school indicated in promotional materials given to prospective students that it supported student activism, and it reinforced this message through campus artwork, official social media posts and email communications to the U-M community, according to the suit.

Following an October 2023 demonstration in support of Palestine, student engagement in political activism stayed the same but the university's response had changed, Walker alleged.

Since then, the student said, the university has "solely targeted, discriminated against, and punished students and protesters for engaging in speech and protest activity in support of Palestine and calling for the university to divest from Israel as a means of pressuring Israel to cease human rights violations against the Palestinian people, including crimes against humanity and genocide."

During a monthlong encampment protest in April 2024, Walker said, campus police, while breaking up the protest, sprayed him directly in the face with tear gas and confiscated personal items including his prayer mat. The suit says Walker was detained by police and banned from being in the central campus public space called the Diag, short for diagonal, but never told what the charges were against him that prevented him from being in that area of the university campus.

A representative of the University of Michigan public affairs office told Law360 the university had no comment on Walker's suit.

Josiah Walker is represented by Amy V. Doukoure and Jad Salamey of the CAIR-Michigan Legal Fund, John C. Philo and Liz Jacob of the Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice, and Hasan Kaakarli and Emad R. Hamadeh of Akeel & Valentine PLC.

Counsel information for the school was unavailable.

The case is Walker v. Regents of the University of Michigan et al., case number 2:26-cv-11674, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

--Editing by Covey Son.

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