Singled Out for Speaking Up: How UCSC Seized My Digital Life After I Joined a Lawsuit Against Them

When I was a little girl, my family visited the Santa Cruz boardwalk and nearby beach. It felt familiar and safe to return here for college.

My freshman year at UCSC was great. I joined woodshop, made friends, hiked, and worked at a children’s museum. I maintained good grades while working towards a double major in environmental studies and biology. I was just a regular, happy college student.

Everything changed once the genocide in Gaza started, however. I couldn’t look away from what was happening. I joined fellow students in protesting, I attended UC Regents meetings, and I organized. I was hoping to see action from the school in solidarity with Palestine. Or, at the very least, I wanted the school to acknowledge what I and my fellow students were saying about the war.

But numerous students, including myself, faced harsh punishment for this protest activity and were banned from campus for up to two weeks at the end of the quarter, when finals were happening. Following these events, I joined a civil rights lawsuit challenging the University’s treatment of protesters.

Just 15 days after joining the lawsuit, campus police seized my phone during an early morning fire drill in my building. I was outside, still in my pajamas, when two UCSC officers approached me. They asked for my name and to confirm that I was a Resident Assistant. Then, they stated that they had a warrant for my phone. I asked to see the warrant, but they refused, demanding I hand over my phone first. I gave them my phone, and they showed me the warrant.

Right up front, the warrant had a screenshot of me doing an interview with a local TV station about my lawsuit against UCSC for how they treated me and other protesting students last spring. This was startling because the school has my student ID and could have used that picture instead.

A few other RAs checked on me after the police left. I borrowed a phone and called my sister, who contacted a friend, who reached out to my professor, who told my lawyers what had happened.

I never imagined campus police could seize a student’s phone—accessing photos, internet searches, messages, and personal data dating back many years. But after the pro-Palestine protests last spring, people were being punished and kicked off campus. There was this looming question in the organizing community: Who’s next?

The timing between when I filed the lawsuit against UCSC, naming the UCSC Chief of Police as a defendant, and when the UCSC police seized my phone makes me feel like the two events are connected. It was just over two weeks. And the fact that the police’s warrant included that picture of me giving the interview about the civil rights case feels like the school was motivated to punish me for having spoken up.  It’s also troubling because the search warrant gives the UCSC police access to my privileged communications with my lawyers in my civil rights case against UCSC.

The weeks after the UCSC police confiscated my phone were extremely challenging and it was hard to keep up with my studies and work. The phone had been a gift from my father, and I couldn’t afford to replace it. It was a beautiful blue color, brand new, and I loved it so much.

The feeling of violation continues to feel overwhelming—strangers now have access to everything, from my random casual conversations to incredibly intimate family exchanges. I thought I could get back to my studies after the challenges of last spring when I was excluded from campus after the protests. But having my phone seized right at the start of the year has really set me back. Now, I’m just trying to hold on, and it’s hard.