The University of Michigan’s Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs met in the Alexander G. Ruthven Building Monday afternoon to discuss the University’s discipline of student protesters through the Office of Student Conflict Resolution and new surveillance cameras on campus.
The meeting began with SACUA Chair Derek Peterson giving Assembly members updates on the progress of the different motions the Faculty Senate adopted Nov. 3.
Peterson also discussed Faculty Senate’s Political Speech in the Public Square series, with the first event held for Nov. 18 on the Diag. The event is part of a larger series organized by the Faculty Senate with the aim of promoting dialogue on a variety of issues including surveillance, artificial intelligence and free speech. This installment will focus on surveillance, which Peterson said is timely given recent changes on campus.
“We will be under the eye of two new security cameras that have been installed right outside the (Graduate) Library,” Peterson said. “They’ll be peering down upon us, I’m sure, and whoever’s watching those cameras will be watching with great anticipation as we say things that go against their rulebook in whatever way they have defined it, so that will be basically an exercise in First Amendment anti-surveillance activism.”
Next, Marita Inglehart, professor of dentistry and chair of the Student Relations Advisory Committee, spoke on recent University discipline of student protesters through OSCR. Inglehart is a member of the appeals board for OSCR. In July, the University charged 11 student protesters for their activity at pro-Palestine protests.
Inglehart said she believes the charges against the students should be dropped because they violate provisions of the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities from before it was changed in September 2025.
“First of all, in the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibility from before July 2024 — and this is mostly about things that happened before — there is a clear statement that these complaints against students should be brought six months after,” Inglehart said. “Now they are bringing these 14 months, 15 months, after the actual things happened. The second thing is that under the 2024 SSRR, they have the right for a student panel. Last winter, they told them there was no student panel.”
Inglehart argued the way the investigations are conducted is unfair to students. The intake interview, typically conducted by the resolution coordinator to explain the process to the student, is instead conducted by Donovan Golich. Golich was recently hired by the University as the program manager for the Formal Conflict Resolution process at OSCR. However, Golich is also the complainant in these cases.
“When a complaint is brought against the respondent, the respondent has an intake interview, and that should be with Erik Wessel, who is the resolution coordinator,” Inglehart said. “Donovan Golich is the complainant in most of these cases. So here he does the intake interview, gets to know the students, gets information from them and what they think about the whole thing. Then he is in his second role, the investigator for this new office called (the Office of Student Accountability) and then he is the complainant.”
Peterson said SACUA has been asked by both Central Student Government and the Rackham Student Government to sign a resolution regarding the hearings, with an emphasis on the need for student panelists. They also plan to bring this issue up to the Senate Assembly.
“We’ve been asked by the undergraduate student government — by CSG — and Rackham Student Government, to sign on to a resolution that both bodies passed a few weeks ago,” Peterson said. “This asks the University effectively to postpone further hearings through the OSCR process until there are enough student panelists to make up student resolution panels.”
Susan Najita, professor of American culture and English language and literature, suggested a joint committee between the Senate Assembly and CSG regarding issues with OSCR.
“I think that this is a chance for CSG and the Senate Assembly to be together, because their student governance is also being undermined by not allowing the student panels to convene, or to not make it possible for them to easily do their work,” Najita said. “Faculty governance is being undermined. We should all be together on this and speak as one voice.”
SACUA next discussed new changes to the U-M Standard Practice Guide regarding the use of surveillance technologies. Peterson said he was not aware of the changes to the guidelines, which he believes have decreased protections to academic freedom. The guidelines also previously excluded teaching and residential spaces from surveillance, which has changed in the new policy.
“The old policy barred audio recording, the new policy does not,” Peterson said. “And most importantly, the old policy directed that records would be kept for 30 days and then destroyed. The new policy makes no such provision for the length of retention of surveillance records.”
Peterson said this is part of a larger issue of other universities limiting free speech and restricting university faculty and student rights, providing Texas A&M as an example.
“Last week, Texas A&M forbade faculty at their university from talking about gender or racial inequality without permission from the president,” Peterson said. “We’re in an increasing environment where certain subjects seem to be unsayable, and they’re creating — ‘they’ being upper administration — are creating technologies now that allow them to keep an eye on exactly what we’re saying and doing in university spaces. That is profoundly alarming for an institution that’s supposed to be about free learning.”
Peterson said the committee plans to follow up with Rick Arnold, interim chief of the Division of Public Safety and Security about the possibility of him coming to speak to SACUA in an open or closed session. The meeting then moved into a private executive session on grievance procedures before adjourning.
Daily Staff Reporter Maddyn Shapiro can be reached at maddyns@umich.edu.
