The University of Michigan reported that members of its board of regents woke up to body bags, fake corpses and toys covered in fake blood strewn across their front lawns and at their doors on Wednesday, May 15. Pro-Palestinian student groups claimed responsibility for the displays.
The University of Michigan attributed responsibility to several groups, including the Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Allied Freedom and Equality, and the Transparency, Accountability, Humanity, Reparations, Investment, Resistance Coalition.
The acts of protest prompted the university to issue a warning, calling the act a “dangerous escalation” of students protests on campus. Meanwhile, Michigan’s secretary of state called the protest “horrific and unacceptable.”
The University of Michigan said that around 30 student protesters, some with face coverings, staged a protest at the home of regent Sarah Hubbard.
“This morning at 5:54 a.m. a group of approximately 30 individuals representing protesters from the University of Michigan’s campus entered my property, erected three tents and left behind a variety of toys, sheets and other items,” Hubbard wrote on X.
Protesters posted video to Instagram that appears to backup Hubbard’s account that student protesters “hand-delivered their demands” and were “holding Regent Hubbard accountable for the 35,000+ Palestinians martyrs whose death [she] funded and profited from.”
Responding to the protesters’ demand for the university to divest its endowment from Israel, Hubbard asserted that the university’s board of regents had made it clear in March that they would not divest. Hubbard added that the actions of the protesters “will not move their case forward in a satisfactory manner.”
Another regent, Jordan Acker, recounted his experience on X. Acker said the protesters had a list of demands that included defunding the police.
Protesters reportedly scattered as police arrived. So far there have been no reports of any arrests.
The protests were held on May 15, a day recognized by Palestinians as “the mass displacement” in 1948 of more than 700,000 Palestinians as Israel was formed.
The latest incidents come more than a week after pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted Michigan’s commencement ceremony and as encampments across American college campuses are dismantled following weeks of protests.
