Story by Tom Perkins
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A judge has thrown out felony embezzlement and false pretense charges against a pro-Palestinian University of Michigan student that alleged she used university funds to illegally purchase laptops for a student club.
Organizers with the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) here say the charges, which a judge dismissed on August 7, are yet another example of U-M trying to shut down criticism of Israel over its genocide in Gaza. The student, Hiab Teshome, is also a graduate student union leader in tense contract negotiations with the school. The union has organized against university support for Israel’s genocide, and pro-Palestinian advocates told Drop Site that the case against Teshome was a “political prosecution.”
The investigation and warrant requests were led by Ryan Cavanaugh, a University of Michigan Police Department sergeant who faces allegations in two federal lawsuits that he violated a range of students’ constitutional rights throughout the school’s multiyear crackdown.
The student and a co-defendant, whose case was also dismissed, were involved with organizing a May 2024 encampment, and are organizing on behalf of the protesters that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and the Trump DOJ are targeting. GEO says Cavanaugh’s actions are part of an ongoing harassment campaign he is waging against pro-Palestinian students.
Eli Savit, a progressive Jewish prosecutor in Ann Arbor who’s running for state attorney general to replace the term-limited Nessel, brought the charges. Nessel has led the state and U-M’s legal campaign against pro-Palestinain students in recent years, and Savit beat a pro-Israel-donor-backed opponent in the Democratic nomination. He in part won because the progressive base views him as a break from Nessel and the political establishment’s unpopular prosecutions and positions on Israel.
Teshome was a co-signer on the laptop purchases for the Blue Talks medical student club, but did not actually make the purchase, and never possessed the devices. Another member of the club used the laptop and was reimbursed for it.
The prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in its case claimed the student should not have been reimbursed because, it alleged, the club was defunct, and Teshome was in part responsible because she co-signed the purchase. Organizers say the club was not defunct.
The purchase was approved by U-M, and the school’s auditors initially found a discrepancy, but did not flag any wrongdoing, advocates say. The U-M Central Student Government (CSG), which handles financial discrepancies with student clubs, also did not find wrongdoing.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation said Cavanaugh’s warrant requests were highly unusual because he bypassed administrative channels to resolve the issue.
“GEO will not stand for any attempts by the University of Michigan and its collaborators in the legal system to repress Palestine solidarity or labor organizing,” the group said in a statement.
