Pro-Palestinian activists accused of intimidation campaign against University of Michigan officials

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Wednesday against eight pro-Palestinian activists who are accused of conspiring to run a criminal intimidation campaign against University of Michigan officials while trying to force the school to cut financial ties to Israel.

The indictment also describes vandalism against some companies that operate in Michigan and against the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

“In America, we rule by law not by fear. These alleged threats and attempts to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation are anti-American. We will counter intimidation with justice,” said Jerome Gorgon Jr, a US attorney.

The document highlights several incidents that made headlines in the past few years, including fake bloody corpses that were placed on an elected university board member’s lawn and the spray-painting of anti-Israel messages at the home of the school’s president at the time, Santa Ono.

“They marked their victims with threatening symbols used by Hamas, including red inverted triangles and red handprints,” the indictment states. “They used the internet and social media to broadcast their message to ensure their threats and commitment to continuing criminal activity were heard by their victims and others who support Israel.”

Six of the eight people named in the indictment were expected to make initial appearances Wednesday in federal court in Detroit. One person was arrested in Wisconsin and another was not in custody, said Gina Balaya of the US attorney’s office.

The Associated Press couldn’t immediately reach any of the defendants or their attorneys for comment.

Since the Israel-Hamas war, pro-Palestinian protesters have demanded that the University of Michigan’s endowment stop investing in companies with ties to Israel, including by divesting from companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin that provide weapons to the Israeli military. The university has insisted it has no direct investments and less than $15m placed with funds that might include companies in Israel.

The University of Michigan and state officials have come under scrutiny for aggressive action against the student protests. In October 2024, the Guardian revealed that school officials had taken unusual steps to recruit the state attorney general, Dana Nessel, to bring felony charges against protesters. A subsequent Guardian investigation found the school had hired private investigators to surveil students involved in campus protests. One of those students sued the school last month.

The Trump administration has deployed aggressive investigations against universities, along with a detention and deportation campaign against a number of international students, in its crackdown on universities over the protests that rocked American campuses in 2023 and 2024.

But the indictment unsealed Wednesday appears to be among the more aggressive prosecutorial actions taken by the federal government against pro-Palestinian activists. While thousands of students around the country were arrested during the protests, most charges against them were brought at local and state levels and ultimately dropped.