Tag: activists

  • Police Raids Targeted Michigan Palestine Activists

    Police Raids Targeted Michigan Palestine Activists

    The Graduate Employees’ Organization union says pro-Palestine activists were targeted.

    Nicholas Klein/iStock/Getty Images

    Police raided five homes connected to University of Michigan pro-Palestinian activists on Wednesday, according to the university’s graduate student union. A spokesperson for the state’s attorney general told Inside Higher Ed the investigation is into “multi-jurisdictional acts of vandalism” but didn’t provide many more details.

    Danny Wimmer, press secretary for Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said the search warrants were part of an attorney general investigation “against multiple individuals in multiple jurisdictions including Ann Arbor, Canton and Ypsilanti.”

    Wimmer said many agencies were involved Wednesday, including local, state and federal authorities, but he didn’t name specific ones and didn’t say whether personal items had been confiscated. He said the searches weren’t related to campus protest activity.

    In a post on X, the attorney general’s office said the alleged vandalism was “against multiple homes, organizations, and businesses in multiple counties.”

    Lavinia Dunagan, a Ph.D. student who is a co-chair of the union’s communications committee, said at least seven people were detained but none arrested. All are students, save for one employee of Michigan Medicine, she said. She declined to name them, saying she didn’t know all of their identities and citing safety concerns for those who were targeted.

    Brian Taylor, a university spokesperson, deferred questions to the attorney general’s office.

    Dunagan said those detained were taken into officers’ cars and not allowed to leave until they provided information and allowed cheek swabs. She said the FBI, Michigan State Police and local police were involved.

    The union—the Graduate Employees’ Organization, or GEO—said in a news release that “officers detained and questioned two activists, including a member of GEO, and confiscated their electronic devices” in Ann Arbor, home of Michigan’s flagship campus. GEO also said four people were “detained and released” in Ypsilanti, and one home was “raided” in Canton.

    “The officers also confiscated personal belongings from multiple residences and at least two cars,” GEO said, adding that “at this time, all activists are safe.”

    Wimmer did say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn’t involved, and that the attorney general’s office believes all subjects of the search warrants are U.S. citizens. The union also said in its release, “We are not aware of any visa holders being affected by these raids.”

    The state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a news release that homes of “students and former students at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor who were involved in pro-Palestinian activism were raided.” The organization said, “Property damage at residences took place, and individuals were handcuffed without charges during the aggressive raids.”

    The organization said it had staff “on location at one of the raided residences” and it “continues to offer legal assistance to those impacted and is actively monitoring the situation for potential civil rights violations.”

    Dunagan said, “We are just really concerned about potentially future repression of political activity.”

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  • Some finance recommendations for activists

    Some finance recommendations for activists

    I have seen some confusions recently on twitter regarding university finances. Here are four recommendations:

    1. Avoid using sector aggregate figures to make your arguments
      The sector is very uneven both in terms of size of institutions and in financial performance, make sure you are familiar with your institution and how it fits into the sector.
    2. Avoid using figures for “reserves” when you mean cash
      In accounting terms, “reserves” does not mean cash. Cash is included in reserves but that is because reserves names the excess of assets over liabilities: that the institution owns more than it owes. If it didn’t have reserves it would be insolvent. But its assets include buildings and land, which can dominate the reserves figure.
      It is a confusion that crops up regularly and is often associated with right-wing arguments about the sector being “awash with cash”. If you want to talk about cash, use the figures for cash – but bear in mind that it is good management to hold significant levels of cash or other liquid assets to manage the day-to-day running of the organisation. Universities are large and have large outgoings!
    3. Revolving Credit Facilities (RCFs) are like overdrafts …
      If you have one, you aren’t necessarily planning to use it.
      It provides extra headroom or is there for an emergency. Universities might simply be using it in their “liquidity” calculations to assure OfS that they have sufficient resources to cover 30 days of expenditure – falling below that level is a “reportable event” – and never intend to use it.
      That your institution negotiated one, but haven’t used it, is not per se a sign of bad management.
    4. Avoid confusing one-off costs with recurrent costs
      There is a clear difference between spending £1million on a one-off purchase and an annual outgoing of £1million.
      Your management may not always present the difference between such items in a very clear way, particularly when they have a certain narrative they wish to present or when they need to hit targets or covenants.
      One to be wary of is “vacancy savings”. Are these higher because of a recruitment freeze? Are these one-offs or recurrent savings? Technically, the former; they would only become recurrent savings, if the posts are made redundant.
      A management highlighting a certain level of vacancy savings may want to convey discipline to governors or lenders, but it can mask issues of sustainability: it isn’t a way to address persistent deficits. If there is an underlying deficit of, say, £2million, you shouldn’t be confident because they covered that through a recruitment freeze this year. And that’s solely from the numbers perspective: before you consider the implications for workload …

    There are a few resources on this site for thinking about university finances. There is also a blog and recorded seminar for UCU on getting started with university accounts and “challenging the financial narrative”.

    If you want more help, please get in touch.

    I have worked with more than 40 UCU branches over the last few years to help with negotiations. Get in touch for details.

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