FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: GEO Celebrates MI AG Dana Nessel Dropping Charges Against 7 of the U-M Encampment 11, Union Members
May 6, 2025
Contact – GEO Communications Co-Chairs, commchair@geo3550.org
The Graduate Employees’ Organization AFT Local 3550 celebrates the announcement that MI AG Dana Nessel has dropped her criminal prosecution of seven of the “U-M Encampment 11” yesterday morning. The Encampment 11 are a group of principled anti-genocide activists who Nessel charged with misdemeanor and felony crimes after University of Michigan police violently raided the pro-Palestine encampment on Ann Arbor campus in May of last year.
Two of the U-M 11, Rhiannon Willow and Michael Mueller, are recent GEO members and esteemed organizers in our union who played critical roles in our 2023 contract campaign. On May 21, 2024, they were victims of UMPD violence when university police, dressed in riot gear, destroyed the U-M Gaza Solidarity Encampment and sent four activists to the hospital with concussions, broken arms, and respiratory distress. Rhiannon Willow offered the following comments on her experience battling these charges:
“There’s still an ongoing genocide in Palestine. The U-M Regents are still funding it through the endowment. I’m still recovering from a nasty concussion from UMPD body slamming me and violently arresting me last year when they raided the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. I’m thankful and relieved that AG Nessel dropped the criminal charges against me and my codefendants, but this is not even close to justice. We will continue to advocate for an end to the genocide in Palestine. We refuse to give in to the intimidation tactics of U-M and state leadership.
Rhiannon Willow
I came to U-M to get a PhD, not PTSD. Yet, I am leaving here with long-term cognitive disabilities, as well as the trauma of being beaten up by cops, thrown in jail, and charged with a felony. Yet, despite how hard they’ve tried to stop our movement for peace and an end to genocide, they failed. I’m still alive, and slowly healing from my injuries. I may never have the same cognitive capacity, but I’ve still got my humanity and my morals, unlike the U-M Regents, President Ono, and AG Nessel, who abandoned those long ago. May we live to see an end to genocide.”
GEO members have been a vital part of the anti-genocide movement on campus and have repeatedly called for the University of Michigan Board of Regents to divest its holdings from weapons manufacturers and corporations implicated in Israel’s ongoing genocide and apartheid regime in Palestine. The University of Michigan Board of Regents and President Santa Ono have used every available means to silence the growing movement for Palestinian rights, from unilateral campus bans, disciplinary charges without due process, firings and blacklistings, and criminal charges through AG Dana Nessel’s office.
Yesterday, the movement won a hard-fought victory in court when MI AG Dana Nessel dismissed all charges against seven activists facing felonies. Her decision underlines what we have known since the beginning: these charges are baseless and without merit, and a weaponization of the criminal justice system to go after pro-Palestine individuals. “This development shows the power of popular pressure against state repression, as many across the state have organized to defend the Palestine solidarity movement,” said Michael Mueller. “All of us — students, workers, community members — have a moral right and obligation to act against our institutions as they undemocratically appropriate our tax dollars, labor, and tuition to sustain occupation and genocide in Palestine rather than meet people’s urgent needs.”
We applaud everyone who spoke up against Nessel’s anti-Palestinian campaign, and we affirm we have far more to do: three other activists are facing a different set of charges after UMPD attacked a “Die-In” on the Diag on August 28, 2024, and Nessel recently directed the FBI to raid activists’ homes last week, including at least one GEO member. We call on Nessel to stop collaborating with the Trump administration and to cease and desist her criminalization of the Palestine solidarity movement.
We urge the community to build upon this victory and donate to the ongoing defense campaign for pending and future charges: bit.ly/umlegalfund, and ask for organized labor to take a clear stand against the Board of Regents, AG Nessel, and the Trump administration’s increasing authoritarianism.
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