Tag: Michigan

  • 3 Arrests Made at University of Michigan Protest

    3 Arrests Made at University of Michigan Protest

    The arrests were made on the campus in Ann Arbor on Wednesday evening.

    Courtesy of the University of Michigan.

    Three pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested on the University of Michigan campus Wednesday, MLive Media Group, a local news organization, reported.

    The TAHRIR Coalition, a campus student group, led the protest in response to an event held by the university’s Students Supporting Israel chapter, which featured several Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

    Melissa Overton, the university’s deputy chief of public safety and security, told MLive that the individuals arrested were not affiliated with the university. She said the protesters blocked the exit to an underground parking garage and refused to move when ordered to. 

    They were charged with resisting and obstructing police, attempting to disarm an officer, disorderly conduct, and outstanding warrants, Overton said. The case has been forwarded to a prosecutor, she noted.

    Erek Mirque, a member of TAHRIR, told MLive that the arrests came as a surprise and that he was unaware of any confrontation with officers before the arrests.

    “We did not expect the situation to escalate the way that it did,” he said.

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  • Michigan State University lays off 99 employees

    Michigan State University lays off 99 employees

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    Dive Brief:

    • Michigan State University is laying off 99 faculty, staff and executives this month amid rising costs and other budget pressures, President Kevin Guskiewicz said in a public message Wednesday. 
    • The university had cut an additional 83 employees since March because of the Trump administration’s revocation of federal research funding. Taken together, the job cuts represent 1.3% of Michigan State’s workforce.
    • Officials expect the job eliminations to save the university $50 million annually. “Today we expect the overall general fund budget to be largely on target,” Guskiewicz said.

    Dive Insight:

    In explaining the layoffs, Guskiewicz pointed to rising costs, including significant increases in employee healthcare costs. The institution’s operating expenses generally have risen as well, a sectorwide trend playing out across the country.

    Between the fiscal years 2023 and 2024, Michigan State’s operating expenses rose 10% to $3.2 billion, according to its latest financial report. They rose 17.9% between fiscal years 2020 and 2024.

    Revenue hasn’t kept pace, and the university’s operating loss widened by nearly a quarter to $840 million in fiscal 2024. However, with state funding and other outside revenue sources factored in, the university’s total net position more than tripled during the same period.

    Along with inflation, federal funding disruptions have weighed on Michigan State’s budget. 

    By Oct. 1, the Trump administration had terminated 74 federally funded projects at the university, totaling $104 million in multiyear grants and contracts, according to Guskiewicz. Those include grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    Another 86 research projects, at minimum, have been hit with stop-work orders, pauses on future funding or conditional terminations, Guskiewicz said. 

    Enrollment has been a bright spot for the university, with its fall headcount hitting 51,838 students, according to institutional data. 

    “This total is close to our predictions and will keep us on the budget path we have laid out,” Guskiewicz said. Michigan State’s undergraduate class this semester hit a record 41,415 students.

    However, he noted recent declines in international enrollment have weighed on tuition revenue. International students made up 8.2% of Michigan State’s student body in fall 2025, down from 8.5% last year. Their share of the university’s enrollment has almost halved since 2015, when they made up 15% of its students.

    Michigan State’s colleges and administrative units have been working since the summer to cut their budgets by 9%. 

    “I am proud of units achieving as many savings as possible through non-personnel actions and evaluating vacancies before filling open roles,” Guskiewicz said. “Nearly two-thirds of the reductions, in fact, were proposed across supplies, services and other non-personnel expenses.”

    But, he added, Michigan State wasn’t entirely able to avoid layoffs, hence the round of workforce cuts announced this week. 

    “These colleagues are valuable parts of our community, and their loss, for any reason, is still felt by colleges and programs,” Guskiewicz said.  

    The layoff numbers don’t include those whose employment classification changed, or faculty whose contracts were not renewed. However, Guskiewicz said it was difficult to quantify how many of those contract nonrenewals were related to the budget cuts or other factors such as enrollment levels or course demand.

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  • Will the Detroit School District’s Enrollment Efforts Pay Off? – The 74

    Will the Detroit School District’s Enrollment Efforts Pay Off? – The 74


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    Despite the summer heat, Toyia Diab came out to the Summer on the Block at Pulaski Elementary-Middle School to learn what it had to offer the four grandchildren she had in tow.

    The family made their way to about a dozen tables snaking around the lawn on the side of the school. Diab listened to staff from the Detroit school district detail all of its resources over the pulsing base of loud music.

    Diab’s family was one of many the Detroit Public Schools Community District courted this summer as part of its efforts to retain families and boost enrollment. With the loss of more than 92,000 students in the last 20 years, district officials devote some of the summer break each year to getting word out about what the city’s schools have to offer.

    This year, the district ramped up efforts. It sent 40 people to canvas communities and held 19 events to create excitement about the start of school — nearly double that of previous years. It also started new initiatives, such as putting up billboards around the city. In all, the school system budgeted around $3.5 million for marketing this year. School starts Aug. 25.

    Though the district has “done a fairly good job” of recruiting new students in previous years, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told school board members at a meeting earlier this month that the main challenge is keeping them.

    As a result, this year the school system also has focused on reenrollment rates. Those numbers have become a metric the district uses to “hold schools accountable,” Vitti said, though he didn’t share how many students the district typically loses during the school year.

    “We have emphasized … the need to improve customer service and parent engagement, so that parents feel more welcome,” he said. “And we fight harder to keep students at the schools that they’re at, rather than having more of an attitude of, ‘Well, if you don’t like it here, then you can find another school.’”

    Sharlonda Buckman, assistant superintendent of family and community engagement, told Chalkbeat the district has seen a lot of “good signs” for this school year because of the number of people her office reached in the summer.

    “It’s noticeable for me, and I’ve been at this for a long time,” she said. “We’ll see what that boils down to, in terms of enrollment.”

    This year, Buckman said nearly 5,000 people went to the Summer on the Block events, parties held at schools that both serve as a vehicle to sell families on sending their kids to the district and connect them with free resources.

    “As a parent, you have to bring your kids to school every day in order to get the education that they need,” Diab said at the Pulaski back-to-school event. “But then you’ll find some schools, they just don’t have enough resources to keep them interested to come to school, to stay in school.”

    All of the district’s summer efforts produced 532 leads on parents interested in enrolling their kids by mid-August. Around 80 of those students completed enrollment, according to the district.

    Though initial enrollment numbers are up, officials say, the full impact of the district’s efforts won’t be known until the end of the 2025-26 school year.

    Myriad factors have affected enrollment in DPSCD

    Boosting student numbers has been among the district’s top priorities for years.

    The numbers of students attending schools are crucial for districts in Michigan, where school funding is tied to enrollment.

    Now that COVID relief dollars are gone and the federal government has signaled it will not renew various other funding sources, districts are bracing to rely more on local money.

    A number of factors affected the district’s enrollment over the years, including population declines in the city, lower birthrates, the state’s emergency management of the district, and the pandemic. The district also faces competition from Detroit charter schools, where around half of kids in the city go to school.

    High student mobility rates, or the rate at which kids move to different homes, contribute to the district’s difficulty in keeping children enrolled. Chronic absenteeism rates also have a direct impact on enrollment.

    Enrollment in the district was more than 156,000 in the 2002-03 school year. Last year, it was 49,000.

    When DPSCD was created and the school system began being phased out of emergency management in the 2017-18 school year, enrollment shot up to more than 50,800 from 45,700 during the 2016-17 school year.

    The district has struggled to move the needle much since, especially after drops during pandemic-era school closures and the years that followed.

    At the beginning of this month, there were 50,890 students enrolled in the district, Vitti said at the board meeting.

    “We have about 1,400 more students than we did at the end of the year enrolled in DPSCD as of today, and about 500 more as compared to the first day of school,” he said, adding that “ “enrollment is trending in a positive direction.”

    Early enrollment numbers for the district are usually higher than official headcounts made in October. The number of students recorded on “Count Day” is used by the state to calculate funding for districts.

    Making the case for DPSCD face-to-face

    Three days before the Summer on the Block at Pulaski, more than 20 people squeezed into a sun-filled classroom at the Detroit School of Arts.

    The group was contracted by the district to canvas homes in areas where attendance is low compared to the number of school-aged children living there.

    This summer, the district sent canvassers to more than 78,000 homes to inform families about its schools and programs.

    The group at the School of Arts was gathered to get their assignments for the day. They waited to pick up hand-out materials, including fliers listing Summer on the Block dates and pamphlets highlighting programs at application schools.

    To get the energy up in the classroom before they headed out, the canvassers stood up to form a circle. Buckman, the assistant superintendent, asked them to share what they heard door-knocking.

    “We’re getting a good response in terms of some of those students coming back to the district,” said one woman.

    Others expressed residents’ hesitations to open their doors or to give their contact information for the district to follow up with them.

    Laura Gomez, who has been canvassing for three years, said through a translator that this summer has been different in southwest Detroit, which is home to many immigrant and newcomer families.

    People in the neighborhood say they have seen more community members detained and deported in recent months, including a student at Western International High School.

    “There are some people that are really happy we’re going out to the houses because that way they don’t have to leave their home because they don’t feel safe,” she said.

    After the canvassers broke out into teams, they drove to the areas they were assigned to for the day.

    Tanya Shelton and her son, David, arrived in the Crary St. Mary’s neighborhood in the northwest corner of the city.

    “We’ll ask them what school district are they in, and if they are interested in DPSCD, we give some information on it,” she said as she made her way down a long block adjacent to the Southfield Freeway.

    In her conversations with families, Shelton said the district’s free school lunches piqued their interest. Other canvassers said parents were interested in learning more about the academic interventionists available to students.

    Most of the doors Shelton knocked on that day, though, went unanswered. She left the district’s literature at dozens of houses.

    Families weigh programming, academics, and transportation in selecting schools

    At Pulaski’s Summer on the Block Alexa Franco-Garcia saw more students signing up to attend the school than she has in past years.

    “Right now, I have three enrollment packets in my hand, so that means they’ve completed enrollment,” she said during a break from talking with families.

    Another three parents left their contact information and said they would return the paperwork the next day.

    Considering it was about 30 minutes into the event, that was a strong number, said Franco-Garcia, who works in the Office of Family and Community Engagement.

    In her time working in the district, Franco-Garcia has learned what kinds of questions families ask: They want to know about the curriculum, extracurricular activities, and class sizes. They wonder whether their children will be supported in special education and if they will get a bus ride to school.

    Most of the sign-ups at the Pulaski event were for kindergartners who were new to the district, Franco-Garcia said.

    Enrolling early learners is one of the districts’ top growth strategies.

    There were 457 students enrolled in prekindergarten by the beginning of August, according to the district, up about 10 compared to the same time last year.

    Diab, the grandmother, brought four kids ages 5 to 12 out to learn more about the school. They heard about the district’s community health hubs, parent academy, and mental health resources.

    Teachers from the school gathered around a welcome table ready to answer questions as Principal Tyra R. Smith-Bell floated around talking with parents.

    The fresh produce boxes, ice cream truck, free books, and kids’ activities also enticed more than 350 people to come – many more than in previous years, Buckman said.

    Linn Flake was the first second-grader of the day to enroll at Pulaski, said Franco-Garcia. It would be his first experience at a neighborhood school, she added.

    His mom, Roxanne Flake, chose DPSCD over the charter school Linn went to last year.

    “I just wanted a different start,” she said.

    The charter school didn’t provide transportation, said Flake, which was an inconvenience because she doesn’t currently have a car. But the Detroit school district offered bus service for Linn to Pulaski, the mother said.

    Diab said she had more research to do before her family committed to Pulaski.

    “We’re gonna come here and we’re gonna figure everything out – ask questions, all of that stuff, and then if it’s the right fit for them, then we’re gonna put them in,” she said.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.


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  • Fixing Michigan’s Teacher Shortage Isn’t Just About Getting More Recruits – The 74

    Fixing Michigan’s Teacher Shortage Isn’t Just About Getting More Recruits – The 74

    The number of vacancies is likely an undercount, because this number does not include substitutes or unqualified teachers who may have been hired to fill gaps.

    Local news reports and job boards suggest that at least some Michigan districts are still struggling to fill open positions for the fall of 2025.

    The teacher shortage is a nationwide problem, but it is especially acute in Michigan, where the number of teachers leaving teaching and the overall teacher shortage both exceed the national average. This shortage is particularly severe in urban and rural communities, which have the most underresourced schools, and in specialization areas such as science, mathematics and special education.

    For more than two decades, my work at Michigan State University has centered on designing and leading effective teacher preparation programs. My research focuses on ways to attract people to teaching and keep them in the profession by helping them grow into effective classroom leaders.

    Low pay and lack of support

    Teacher shortages are the result of a combination of factors, especially low salaries, heavy workloads and a lack of ongoing professional support.

    A report released last year, for example, found that Michigan teachers and teachers nationwide make about 20% less compared to those in other careers that also require a college education.

    From my experience working with teachers and district leadership across the state, I know that beginning teachers – especially those in districts which have severe shortages – are often given the most challenging teaching loads. And in some districts, teachers have been forced to work without the benefit of any kind of planning time in their daily schedule.

    The shortage was made much worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led many educators to leave the profession. Yet another culprit is the many teachers who, in Michigan as well as nationally, were hired during the 1960s and early ’70s, when school enrollments saw a massive increase, and who in the past decade have been retiring in large numbers.

    Creating pathways to certification

    One recent strategy to address the teacher shortage in Michigan has been to create nontraditional routes to teacher certification.

    The idea is to prepare educators more quickly and inexpensively. A variety of agencies – from the Michigan Department of Education, state-level grants programs such as the Future Proud Michigan Educator program, as well as private foundations and businesses – have helped these programs along financially.

    Even some school districts, including the Detroit Public Schools Community District, have adopted this strategy in order to certify teachers and fill vacant positions.

    Other similar programs are the product of partnerships between Michigan’s intermediate school districts, community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. One example is Grand Valley State University’s Western Michigan Teacher Collaborative, which targets interested students of college age. Another is MSU’s Community Teacher Initiative, designed to attract students into teaching while they are still in high school.

    Perhaps even more visible are national programs such as Teachers of Tomorrow and Teach for America. Candidates in such programs often work as full-time teachers while completing teacher training coursework with minimal oversight or support.

    ‘Stuffing the pipeline’ is not the solution

    But simply “stuffing the pipeline” with new recruits is not enough to solve the teacher-shortage problem in Michigan.

    The loss of teachers is significantly higher among individuals in nontraditional training programs and for teachers of color. This starts while they are preparing to be certified and continues for several years after certification.

    The primary reasons for the higher attrition rates include a lack of awareness of the complexity of schools and schooling, the lack of effective mentoring during the certification period, and the absence of instructional and other professional guidance in the early years of teaching.

    How to repair the leaky faucet

    So how can teachers be encouraged to stay in the profession?

    Here are a few of the things scholars have learned to improve outcomes in traditional and nontraditional preparation programs:

    Temper expectations. Teaching is a critically important career, but leading individuals to believe that they can repair the damage done by a complex set of socioeconomic issues – including multigenerational poverty and lack of access to healthy and affordable food, housing, drinking water and health care – puts beginning teachers on a short road to early burnout and departure.

    Give student teachers strong mentors. Working in schools helps student teachers deepen their knowledge not only of teaching but also of how schools, families and communities work together. But these experiences are useful only if they are overseen and supported by an experienced and caring educator and supported by the organization’s leadership.

    Recognize the limits of online learning. Online teacher preparation programs are convenient and have their place but don’t provide student teachers with real-world experience and opportunities for guided discussion about what they see, hear and feel when working with students.

    Respect the process of “becoming.” Professional support should not end when a new teacher is officially certified. Teachers, like other professionals such as nurses, doctors and lawyers, need time to develop skills throughout their careers.

    Providing this support sends a powerful message: that teachers are valued members of the community. Knowing that helps them stay in their jobs.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • New teachers’ impact on equitable science learning

    New teachers’ impact on equitable science learning

    Key points:

    New elementary teachers who promote equity in science are proving highly effective at engaging students, no matter their background, a new University of Michigan study shows.

    U-M researchers found that new educators are pioneering paths in science education by offering opportunities for scientific conversations, innovative learning strategies and encouraging children to become active participants in scientific exploration. 

    “When teachers are equipped to foster a more equitable and just learning environment in science, it not only enhances children’s understanding of scientific concepts but also empowers them to see themselves as scientists and to use science to address real-world issues that matter in their communities,” said Elizabeth Davis, a professor at U-M’s Marsal Family School of Education.

    “Beginning teachers use a range of effective strategies to work toward more equitable science teaching. They vary in their emphasis on opportunity and access, representation and identification, expanding what counts as science and engaging children as change-makers using science to support a better world. This variation highlights the multiplicity of entry points into this challenging work and shows these teachers’ many strengths.”

    The study, published in the General Proceedings of the 5th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Learning Sciences 2025, also identified areas for growth: These teachers were less consistently likely to work to broaden what counts as science and to link science to social justice. 

    Davis and co-authors Jessica Bautista and Victoria Pérez Nifoussi said the study helps understand how different approaches to equity in science education can work together, potentially influencing future teacher training for improved K-12 science learning. 

    They emphasized the clear need for teacher educators and curriculum developers to provide more concrete examples and resources to help future teachers navigate complex, justice-oriented approaches to science.

    “All children deserve to experience the joy and wonder of the natural world, yet science is taught far less often than language arts or math in elementary schools,” Davis said. “Furthermore, many students are marginalized in science, including girls, students of color, children with learning differences and queer or gender nonconforming children.”

    Funding challenges impact long-term research

    The study is part of the U-M ASSETS research, a four-year longitudinal project that began in September 2023. Although it was intended to run for four years, the project, funded by the National Science Foundation, was terminated in its 20th month, just shy of two years from its start.

    “The termination of these NSF projects–focused on STEM education, and in particular equity in STEM education–is going to adversely affect science education and science for generations to come,” Davis said. 

    “We are seeking additional funds for this work. Regardless, we will continue to support the teachers who participate in this project and we’ll continue to collect and analyze data to the extent we’re able to do so.”

    The team is now working on characterizing the participants’ first year of teaching to assess how their approaches to equitable and just elementary science teaching align with and differ from their approaches during teacher education.

    This news release originally appeared on U-M’s news site.

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  • New Michigan Law Essay Prompt Asks Applicants to Use AI

    New Michigan Law Essay Prompt Asks Applicants to Use AI

    The prompt is one of 10 options for a supplemental essay.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Gazanfer and InspirationGP/iStock/Getty Images

    In 2023, the University of Michigan Law School made headlines for its policy banning applicants from using generative AI to write their admissions essays.

    Now, two admissions cycles later, the law school is not only allowing AI responses but actually mandating the use of AI—at least for one optional essay.

    For those applying this fall, the law school added a supplemental essay prompt that asks students about their AI usage and how they see that changing in law school—and requires them to use AI to develop their response. (Applicants may write up to two supplemental essays, selected from 10 prompt options in total.)

    “TO BE ANSWERED USING GENERATIVE AI: How much do you use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT right now? What’s your prediction for how much you will use them by the time you graduate from law school? Why?” the prompt asks.

    Sarah Zearfoss, senior assistant dean at the University of Michigan Law School, said she was inspired to include such a question after hearing frequent anecdotes over the past year about law firms using AI to craft emails or short motions.

    Indeed, in a survey released by the American Bar Association earlier this year, 30 percent of all law firms reported that they use AI tools; among law firms with over 100 employees, the share is 46 percent.

    But many have been derailed by the same well-documented hallucinations that have plagued other AI users. Judges have sanctioned numerous lawyers over the past several years because their use of AI resulted in filings riddled with imaginary cases and quotations. That makes it all the more important to evaluate whether prospective students are able to use AI tools responsibly and effectively, the law school believes.

    “That is now a skill that … probably not all legal employers, but big law firms, are looking for in their incoming associates,” Zearfoss said in an interview. “So I thought it would be interesting: If we have applicants who have that skill, let’s give them an opportunity to demonstrate it.”

    Michigan Law still disallows applicants from using AI writing tools when they compose their personal statements and for all other supplemental essay questions, which Zearfoss hopes will allow her to compare applicants’ writing with AI’s assistance to their writing without it.

    Is AI Inevitable for Lawyers?

    Frances M. Green, an attorney with Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., who specializes in AI, told Inside Higher Ed that she believes the ability to use and engage with AI will eventually become a required skill for all lawyers. That doesn’t mean just using it to write court filings but also understanding how to manage the use of AI-generated evidence—say, the notes of a physician who uses AI technology to listen to and summarize appointments, rather than old-fashioned, handwritten doctors’ notes.

    “I believe lawyers who use AI will replace lawyers who don’t,” she said. “I think that is very, very true. And judges even, in some jurisdictions, are encouraging the use of artificial intelligence tools.”

    Even so, Green noted that she doesn’t really like how Michigan’s question is phrased, because applicants may be inclined to over- or understate how much they use AI based on what they think the admissions officer is looking for.

    But Melanie Dusseau, an English professor at the University of Findlay in Ohio and a critic of AI, questioned the prompts’ utility in actually evaluating if a student is well-suited for law school.

    “A law school application is a showcase of a student’s language abilities, their passion for lively rhetoric, logic, and captivating narrative. Do reviewers want to know how well future lawyers can prompt a bot [to] turn its beige copyslop into something compelling, or how well they can write? And which would be more important in a law school application?” she wrote in an email. “Since LLMs are fawning sycophants, at least tonally, I would imagine that future lawyers would do better to polish their persuasive writing chops without automation.”

    Zearfoss is not a prolific AI user herself; once she decided she wanted to include an essay option related to AI, she recruited the help of another Michigan Law professor, Patrick Barry, who teaches a course on lawyering in the age of AI, to help compose the question itself.

    She expects the essays will reveal uses of and perspectives on AI that she never would have been exposed to otherwise.

    “I’m always excited when an essay teaches me something, but I don’t really expect that—it’s sort of a bonus, right?” she said. “But I think with this particular prompt, I assume a high percentage of the essays will be teaching me something.”

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  • Michigan district agrees to reform seclusion and restraint policies

    Michigan district agrees to reform seclusion and restraint policies

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    Dive Brief:

    • Michigan’s Montcalm Area Intermediate School District is ending the practice of secluding students, reforming its restraint policies and making other improvements to special education services, according to an agreement between the school system and the U.S. Department of Justice.
    • DOJ, in a July 3 statement, said the district “used seclusion and restraint improperly, including using emergency crisis responses as punishment for normal classroom discipline issues,” leading to a violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The district, in a June 27 statement, said it had begun taking steps to improve its restraint and seclusion practices prior to the agreement.  
    • Federal investigations into schools’ restraint and seclusion practices over the past few years have led to reforms across the country as school systems work to balance student safety with their civil rights protections.

    Dive Insight:

    Montcalm Area ISD is an educational service agency that includes seven local districts, a public school academy and one virtual school. It serves about 12,000 students collectively, including about 1,800 students with disabilities.

    DOJ’s investigation found that students with disabilities in the district were restrained or secluded more than 2,400 times between the 2020-21 and 2022-23 school years.

    Under the agreement, the district will:

    • End seclusion for addressing student behaviors.
    • Halt the use of school rooms or other facilities for seclusion purposes.
    • Appoint a district-level intervention coordinator as a liaison between school principals and the superintendent, among other duties.
    • Create classroomwide behavior management plans for all classrooms in the district’s special education program to document consistent and developmentally appropriate rules, routines and techniques.
    • Ensure that restraint is only used to protect staff and students and only after all appropriate de-escalation techniques have failed.
    • Review whether students who were restrained or secluded are eligible for compensatory services and counseling.

    “Students with disabilities should never be discriminated against by experiencing the trauma of seclusion or improper restraint,” said Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, in the July 3 statement.

    The week before, in a June 27 statement, Katie Flynn, superintendent of Montcalm Area ISD, said the district is “committed to providing a safe, nurturing, and welcoming learning environment.”

    According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection, about 105,700 public school students were physically restrained, mechanically restrained or placed in seclusion at schools across the country during the 2021-22 school year, the most recent year for which national data is available.

    Nationally, students with disabilities are disproportionally restrained and secluded in schools. Although students who qualify for special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act comprised 14% of the K-12 student enrollment in 2021-22, they represent 28% of students who were mechanically restrained, 68% of those who were secluded, and 76% who were physically restrained, according to the CRDC.

    Guidance issued in 2016 by the Education Department emphasizes that schools should never use restraint or seclusion for disciplinary purposes and that the practices should only be used if there is “imminent danger of serious physical harm to self or others.”

    The guidance also said if a student’s behavioral challenges lead to an emergency use of restraint or seclusion, it could be a sign of a disability that is interfering with the student’s progress in school, and therefore they should be evaluated to see if they qualify for special education services.

    Additional guidance issued earlier this year by the Education Department urged districts to take a more proactive approach to student behaviors by supporting students’ social, emotional, physical and mental health needs through multi-tiered systems of support that provide individualized interventions based on students’ needs for students with and without disabilities.

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  • University of Michigan has ended private surveillance contracts but the chill on free speech remains

    University of Michigan has ended private surveillance contracts but the chill on free speech remains

    Clare Rigney is a rising second-year student at American University Washington College of Law and a FIRE summer intern.

    After a news story last week that the University of Michigan was paying private investigators to spy on pro-Palestinian student protesters, the school quickly ended its contracts with the surveillance firm.

    In case anyone is unaware, the year is 2025. Not 1984.

    Now the university says this Orwellian practice has ended, but the chill on student speech will likely remain for some time.

    On June 6, The Guardian reported on the story, citing multiple videos and student accounts of investigators cursing at students and threatening them. Between June 2023 and September 2024, U-M reportedly paid about $800,000 to the Detroit-based security company City Shield to carry out this surveillance instead of using the funds to increase the size of the campus police force. 

    Several of the targeted students were members of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, the local chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine, causing critics to accuse the school of targeting pro-Palestinian speech.

    One student, Josiah Walker, said he counted 30 people following him at different times on and off-campus. (As a precaution, he started parking his car off-campus.) On one occasion, Walker believed a man at a campus protest was following him. The man seemed to have a speech impairment, so Walker felt bad about that assumption. However, he later saw the same man speaking in a completely normal manner. When Walker confronted him, the man pretended Walker was trying to rob him.

    The whole incident was caught on camera.

    On the recording, Walker said, “The degree to which all these entities are willing to go to target me is amazing. Guys, this doesn’t make sense. What are you doing? Leave me alone.”

    To serve their proper function, universities must facilitate an open and collaborative learning environment as a marketplace of ideas. U-M ostensibly knows this, saying it values “an environment where all can participate, are invited to contribute, and have a sense of belonging.” 

    University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

    Ann Arbor, MI

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    Surveillance and intimidation do not cultivate such an environment. U-M’s surveillance will make students want to look over their shoulders before seeking to use their right to free speech.

    The Supreme Court’s ruling in Healy v. James requires universities to uphold their students’ First Amendment rights. This extends even to students whose speech the university deems offensive or “antithetical” to the school’s goals. 

    In Healy, the Court emphasized the danger of an institution targeting a group of students as particularly dangerous based on their viewpoint, noting, “the precedents of this Court leave no room for the view that, because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large.”

    Indeed, an important function of college is to allow students to broaden their horizons and meet different kinds of  people. And freedom of association allows them to seek out individuals whose beliefs align with theirs so that they can work toward a common goal. 

    Unfortunately, universities have used these chilling tactics against student political protestors for years. 

    Amid protests demanding sick pay for frontline workers, the University of Miami in 2020 used facial recognition technology to identify protestors. The university then hauled these students into meetings where they were forced to review Miami’s events policies.

    “The take-home message that we got was basically, We’re watching you,” Esteban Wood, one of the student protesters, later said. 

    When colleges and universities surveil students, they chill speech and promote distrust between student activists and the police meant to protect them.

    In 2018, Campus Safety Magazine revealed that the University of Virginia had contracted with a private service called Social Sentinel. This service used an algorithm to monitor students’ social media posts and, if it deemed it necessary, report them to the police.

    That same year, FIRE reported on a similar situation at the University of North Carolina. During protests over a confederate statue, a UNC campus police officer masqueraded as an approachable civilian named “Victor” in order to gain information from protesters and track their movements. Later, when students confronted “Victor” in a police uniform, he revealed himself as Officer Hector Bridges, explaining he had pretended to be sympathetic to their cause as a part of his “work.” 

    “I”m representing the university right now,” Bridges admitted on video.

    The UNC Police Department later released a statement saying the university had a practice of sending “plain clothes” officers to patrol the statue to purportedly “maintain student and public safety.”

    Chilling student speech in the name of undisclosed and unspecified safety is nothing new. But if it is serious about change, it couldn’t hurt for U-M to start with reviewing its own policies. According to its Division of Public Safety and Security, its role is to foster “a safe and secure environment” where students learn to “challenge the present.” Furthermore, U-M’s Standard Practice Guide section on freedom of speech states that when any non-university security forces are needed, they should know and follow these policies. 

    While it’s possible to imagine a circumstance where student surveillance might be necessary, colleges should keep in mind that courts have generally disfavored such efforts. For example, in White v. Davis, the Supreme Court of California rebuked the Los Angeles Police Department’s unconstitutional surveillance of UCLA students:

    The censorship of totalitarian regimes that so often condemns developments in art, science and politics is but a step removed from the inchoate surveillance of free discussion in the university; such intrusion stifles creativity and to a large degree shackles democracy.

    When colleges and universities surveil students, they chill speech and promote distrust between student activists and the police meant to protect them. That can be dangerous for both the students and the officers. Police investigations will be more difficult if the student body does not trust them enough to cooperate when needed. Students may be less likely to contact the police for legitimate violations. 

    Colleges and universities should empower their students to boldly state their beliefs. That’s simply not possible if they are also hiring outside agencies to spy on them. While we are glad the University of Michigan ended the practice, this case should serve as a reminder that such heavy-handed surveillance tactics have no place at American universities. 

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  • University of Michigan paid firm to spy on activist students (News Nation)

    University of Michigan paid firm to spy on activist students (News Nation)

    Attorney Amir Makled joins “NewsNation Now” to discuss a report from The Guardian that the University of Michigan paid $800,000 to a private security firm to have undercover investigators surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups. Makled called the alleged conduct “really disturbing.”

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  • U Michigan Used Undercover Agents to Surveil Protesters

    U Michigan Used Undercover Agents to Surveil Protesters

    The University of Michigan hired dozens of private investigators to go undercover on campus and surveil pro-Palestinian student protesters, The Guardian reported Friday. 

    Some of the investigators, who work for a Detroit-based security firm, were caught on camera trailing, recording and harassing students; one reportedly drove a car at one student, who had to jump out of the way.

    “It’s so insane that they have spent millions of dollars to hire some goons to follow campus activists around,” one student who’d been followed by agents told The Guardian. “It’s just such a waste of money and time.”

    The agents have been gathering evidence against students for some time at the behest of the university; Michigan state prosecutors used evidence from their investigations to charge and jail student protesters in May 2024, according to The Guardian. The state attorney general dropped those charges two weeks ago. In April, police raided the homes of five pro-Palestinian student activists in Ann Arbor for alleged “acts of vandalism.”

    A spokesperson for the university did not deny hiring the investigators in responses to The Guardian’s questions and defended “security measures” as essential to “maintaining a safe and secure campus environment.”

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