Over the weekend of October 5, 2024, Johns Hopkins graduate workers, members of UE Local 197-Teachers and Researchers United, were alarmed to find that five AI smart surveillance towers had been surreptitiously installed across the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) campus in Baltimore, Maryland. While TRU has an article in our contract clearly stating that changes to campus surveillance that may affect working conditions must be bargained with the union, no member of the university community (students, faculty, and workers alike) were consulted or informed about the purpose of the new surveillance technology. The university provided no information about how these cameras were going to be used, including whether community members’ biometric data was being collected and stored.

The rollout of the surveillance towers coincided with a series of attempts to repress freedom of expression on campus, including the recent formation of a private police force, an increase in disciplinary hearings for students engaged in peaceful protest, and the modification of the University Protest and Expression policies. TRU member Gabriel Kressin Palacios, who uncovered many of the changes the university covertly made to the protest policies, said, “What the administration disguised as small changes in wording made possible the major reinterpretation of the policies. This will allow the administration to declare many more protests as in violation, opening the door for arbitrary prohibiting of protests and stifling uncomfortable but important movements.”

Our members recognized this surveillance infrastructure for what it really was. From the blatant disrespect of our union contract to the suppression of student and worker organizing for Palestinian liberation, from the imposition of a private police force to the legacy of JHU’s prominent role as a weapons developer and military researcher, JHU has long been manufacturing the mechanisms to suppress popular movements, locally and abroad. These towers were no different.

In an email to our members shortly after the installation of the surveillance towers and changes to the protest policies, TRU pointed out that while these changes are purportedly made under the guise of free speech and safety, they effectively make free speech more restricted and the JHU campus less safe. For instance, under these new policies, every labor demonstration TRU did in the past year to win a historic graduate worker contract—including the over 500 member “union power” picket that won us union shop and $47,000 stipend during bargaining—would have been against Student Conduct Policies.

In response to heightened surveillance and suppression, TRU launched the petition “Stop Militarizing Campus [1]” in mid-October demanding that JHU remove all surveillance infrastructure and bargain all changes of the contractually-enshrined right-to-protest policy with the union. In the weeks following, organizers flyered in their workplaces, held phone banks, had hundreds of one-on-one conversations with workers on campus, and collected more than 500 signatures in support of removing the surveillance towers. In late November, a report covering workers’ concerns about surveillance and freedom of expression appeared in the Baltimore Banner [2].

By early December, TRU had garnered enough momentum to deliver our petition in a silent march. Our members understood that the surveillance infrastructure along with covert changes in the protest policy were glaring attempts to intimidate student and worker movements on campus, particularly movements in support of Palestinian liberation. In an act of defiance, we chose to walk directly to the towers they were watching us from. We showed the university that however they choose to respond, our ability to protest, dissent, and organize – actions that won us the contract we have –will depend only on our collective power, regardless of JHU's arbitrarily changing policies and ability to surveil or police us.

With no comment from the university, the towers were removed just a week later.