U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib sharply criticized Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for filing charges against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan on Thursday, saying her harsh actions could ruin the lives of bright, young students and set a dangerous precedent for peaceful protests.
Tlaib, who was born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrants and is the only Palestinian American member of Congress, condemned the charges as an unjust and heavy-handed response to peaceful civil disobedience.
“This is a move that’s going to set a precedent, and it’s unfortunate that a Democrat made that move,” Tlaib said in an exclusive interview with Metro Times on Friday. “You would expect that from a Republican, but not a Democrat, and it’s really unfortunate.”
A student protest encampment, which was established in April, grew to include about 60 tents and was intended to draw attention to Israel’s ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The attacks started after Oct. 7, when Hamas in Gaza killed more than 1,000 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostages. Israel’s U.S.-backed retaliation has killed more than 40,000 people, many of them women and children.
The students called for a ceasefire truce and also demanded the university divest from corporations linked to Israel. Despite multiple meetings between student liaisons and the university, the encampment remained in place, leading to police action on May 21.
Most of those charged are alumni and students who refused to vacate the encampment after police ordered them to leave.
Two people were charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail, for refusing to leave the encampment after repeated orders to vacate. An additional seven were charged with trespassing and resisting or obstructing a police officer, a felony punishable by up to two years in prison. These charges are reserved for those who allegedly made physical contact with officers or obstructed arrests, Nessel said.
In addition, two people, including a U-M alumnus, have been charged for separate incidents during a counter-protest on April 25. One is charged with disturbing the peace and attempted ethnic intimidation, while the other faces charges of malicious destruction of personal property for allegedly breaking and discarding protestors’ flags.
Tlaib recalled her visit to the encampment and described the atmosphere as peaceful and welcoming.
“It was very inclusive. It was diverse, very loving,” Tlaib, a Detroit Democrat, says. “When I visited, I remember they were talking about the Armenian genocide, and what we learned from that — it was very powerful. I wish [University of Michigan] President [Santa] Ono could see his students as people that just want to save lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity.”
Tlaib also criticized Nessel, who is the first Jewish person elected Attorney General of Michigan, for what she believes is a biased approach to the protest.
“We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest,” Tlaib says. “We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”
In a statement announcing the charges, Nessel said the protesters should be held accountable.
“Conviction in your ideals is not an excuse for violations of the law,” Nessel said. “A campus should not be lawless; what is a crime anywhere else in the city remains a crime on university property.”
The charges are likely to have a devastating impact on the lives of the young protesters, Tlaib says.
“It’s devastating because I just hope people don’t forget these are young folks,” she says. “Many of them remind me of my own self who wanted to free our world from oppression. I just know that her action is going to ruin their lives. That’s all I can think of. They’re so young, and they have such a tremendous future.”
Tlaib accused Nessel of caving to demands to prosecute from university authorities, including Ono and members of the Board of Regents, pointing out that Washtenaw County prosecutors could have filed charges but didn’t. In May, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit brought charges against four people for allegedly resisting, obstructing, and assaulting police during a protest at the U-M Ruthven Administration Building on Nov. 17. But no other charges have been filed on the county level since then.
“I think people at the University of Michigan put pressure on her to do this, and she fell for it,” Tlaib says. “I think President Ono and Board of Regent members were very much heavy-handed in this. It had to come from somewhere.”
The congresswoman lamented the long-term impact of the university’s actions.
“In 10 years, the University of Michigan itself is going to teach about this movement and say how wonderful it was, or how it moved our country toward a direction that it needed to, following international law and human rights laws and our own U.S. laws,” Tlaib says. “Yet people are going to write about how the University of Michigan decided to prosecute, criminalize, and vilify their students when they just did everything that they were taught to do.”
Tlaib’s remarks highlight the ongoing tension between university administration, law enforcement, and student activists, as well as the broader implications for free speech and the right to protest in the United States.
“Shame on President Ono and the University of Michigan leadership for enabling this,” Tlaib said. “True leadership, especially in positions of public service, is bringing communities together and having a dialogue. Instead, they’re using their political positions to divide the student population and really make everyone feel unsafe on campus and feel unseen and unheard.”
