CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The University of Michigan Wants to Kill Labor and Palestine Solidarity With One Stone

A banner with Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die” hanging on a tree in the Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Alareer, an influential Palestinian writer, teacher, and activist, was killed by Israel in Gaza in December 2023. Israel also killed Alareer’s eldest daughter and her infant child in April 2024. Photo by AHRIR Coalition.

The University and the Trump administration want to criminalize Palestine solidarity as part of their push to also crush labor organizing.

On June 10, 2026, we woke up to the news that the homes of individuals involved in Palestine solidarity activism at the University of Michigan, where we teach, had been raided by the FBI. Assisted by the University’s police, federal agents in military gear drew their guns, threw flashbangs, and deployed drones to arrest several individuals in a neighborhood in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Those arrested were taken away barefoot, made to walk on shattered glass from the house door the agents had broken through. That morning, the FBI also arrested individuals in Illinois and Wisconsin connected to Palestine activism on our campus. Several of the defendants are current or former students at the University.

The display of force was part of the US government’s effort to brand these activists, now known as the “Michigan 8,” as dangerous terrorists. The Justice Department indicted the defendants on bogus “conspiracy” charges – even though their alleged actions amount to little more than property damage, directed at local institutions and individuals complicit in the genocide in Gaza. But the defendants now potentially face decades in prison.

We are appalled by this violence against our students and community members. Sadly, these recent raids are only the latest in a repressive program that the University of Michigan, the police, and allied politicians have been developing together for years. What is happening in Michigan reflects a wider push to criminalize solidarity with Palestinians. Yet the target of the repression is not only Palestine solidarity, but workers’ solidarity........

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