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Students and staffers at the University of Michigan are pushing back against the school’s new policy regarding surveillance cameras on campus during an age of protest.
They say the policy removes critical accountability and oversight functions that were at least mentioned in the old policy.
The new policy pertains to all campuses and it:
- Eliminated required student and staff input.
- Deleted a section that considered some policy violations to be misconduct punishable by firing.
- Removed a section governing access to and retention of video, including a requirement to delete videos after 30 days unless they are needed in an investigation.
Formally known as a Standard Practice Guide, it was posted to a university website Oct. 27, with a story in the University Record, explaining that the policy “underscores U-M’s commitment to privacy, transparency, and responsible technology use.”
People who had raised concerns with the old policy said they were never consulted.
“I certainly didn’t know about this new camera policy,” said Derek Peterson, a history professor who chairs the Faculty Senate. “We have adopted a view about this in July that makes it clear that we want to have proper regulatory oversight over the use and deployment of these cameras.”
Peterson said the Faculty Senate first weighed in on the old policy in a July letter that stressed that the university ought not “share information or data that would allow ICE to identify, locate, or apprehend University of Michigan students, faculty, or staff.”
School officials declined an interview request to discuss the new policy but said it is sound.
“The University of Michigan has legal, contractual, and ethical obligations to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its systems and data,” spokeswoman Kay Jarvis said in an email to the Free Press.
Jarvis said that all the data is protected and any outside law enforcement agency seeking access to the would have to submit warrants or subpoenas.
“The use of security cameras is in full compliance with federal, state, and local laws,” Jarvis wrote. “They do not impinge on privacy or civil liberties.”
Others on campus aren’t so sure. Law students and professors say one large camera installed on the law quad can pan 360 degrees and has zoom capabilities that can reach across the quad to the Lawyers Club, an apartment complex for law students.
“They have zoom capability and night vision so that they can look into dormitories,” said Lily Chavez, a second-year law student who serves as co-president of the Law School’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter. “How can you have privacy in your own home when you’re being constantly surveilled?”
Chavez said 21 law student organizations have formed an Anti-Surveillance Coalition to oppose the school’s policies. Earlier this month, 70 people attended a luncheon to discuss the topic. The group reached out to U-M interim President Domenico Grasso, who has agreed to meet with them, Chavez said.
The old policy had specific language that gave an executive vice president of the school and the school’s chief financial officer authority over the policy. The new policy vests that authority with the executive director of the Department of Public Safety and Security, with assistance from the school’s vice president and the chief financial officer.
Vesting authority over the cameras in the department of public safety worries some activists, who note that the school has been named in lawsuits filed by pro-Palestinian protesters who claim campus police have violated their civil rights.
The department outlines the use of the cameras in a Q&A on its website. It says the cameras are typically not monitored in real time. Only trained personnel can access them and footage is stored for only 30 days unless it’s needed in an investigation. But those caveats aren’t in the policy itself.
The old policy mandated an annual meeting of an oversight committee that included representatives from the faculty, staff and students.
The new policy says school officials shall “solicit campus feedback and input, when necessary, regarding aspects of this policy.”
It doesn’t mention seeking input from students or faculty.
U-M law professor Michael Steinberg said he’d heard at the beginning of the semester that the university was going to create a committee to advise the school on these policies but he never heard that it was consulted before the changes were made.
“It’s part of a trend of cutting out any shared governance at the university,” Steinberg said. “It is distressing about how this policy was adopted without there being an oversight board without any apparent input from the student government or the Faculty Senate.”
The concern about cameras has taken on increased importance in the past two years as the U-M campus has been the location of frequent protests over the Israel-Hamas War.
The new policy says that the cameras and other technology cannot be used “with the intent to chill, compel, prevent, or punish speech or association.”
But critics say that language creates a large loophole.
“It seems like if the university says it’s school safety, it can still record protests or student gatherings,” Chavez said. “Under the old policy, surveillance that had the effect of restraining expression was not allowed. So it seems like there’s a shift from outcomes to intent, which really guts this accountability piece of it.”
The Free Press reported in August that universities across the state, including U-M, are spending millions on upgrading their security cameras. At that time, the Free Press asked all 15 state universities in Michigan whether they had received federal subpoenas seeking access to their surveillance camera data. All 15 said they had not.
While other schools willingly disclosed the number of cameras they have on campus, U-M refused. It denied a Free Press request under the Freedom of Information Act for details on its cameras, citing an exemption in the FOIA law.
That provision allows a public body to withhold “records of a public body’s security measures, including security plans, security codes and combinations, passwords, passes, keys, and security procedures, to the extent that the records relate to the ongoing security of the public body.”
Contact John Wisely: jwisely@freepress.com. On X: @jwisely
