While a university monitoring social media for critical posts isn’t out of the ordinary and is "constitutionally permissible,” First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh said alerting police to general negative commentary, particularly without any perceived threat or potential criminal activity, can create a chilling effect on free speech.
“I wouldn't, just as a categorical matter, convey all critical posts to the police,” Volokh, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, told Raw Story.
“That can create an environment where people are discouraged from speaking out, where the university should be an institution that encourages people to speak.”
Crivello, who graduated FGCU in 2018, called the alert “weird” and “interesting,” expressing concern it might “negatively impact” him if he were to apply for graduate school or employment at the university.
“What would the police need to know about me saying that I disagree with their connections with immigration enforcement and deportation?” said Crivello, who ended up deleting the comment.
“I was like, ‘What's a comment on a Facebook post really going to do in the grand scheme of things?’ I figured they actually weren't listening. That was the funny thing. I was like, ‘They're not even going to read this.’ Little did I know, they were going to flag it, actually.”
The alert came from Fullintel, a private firm that conducts “AI-powered media monitoring” across platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Reddit and Discord, which FGCU has worked with since April 2023 and pays $124,000 per year as part of a five-year contract, records obtained by Raw Story show.
In addition to FGCU’s communications team, the school’s general counsel, Title IX office and campus police officials, including Chief James Kowalski, received alerts flagging more than two dozen comments and posts critical of the ICE agreement, which was signed following a February directive from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordering all state law enforcement agencies, including campus police at public universities, to enter into 287(g) agreements.
Such agreements grant campus officers the authority to perform duties typically reserved for federal immigration agents, including questioning individuals about immigration status, making arrests and preparing charges related to immigration violations on university grounds.
Few details have been revealed about the execution of 287(g) agreements, prompting Raw Story to conduct investigations.
As of August 8, 319 law enforcement agencies in Florida including 13 university police departments had signed 287(g) agreements, according to ICE records.
FGCU has yet to receive paperwork or training information from ICE, and the school hasn’t taken any immigration enforcement actions since signing the agreement on March 28, Pam McCabe, director of university communications and media relations, told Raw Story.
McCabe said the school uses Fullintel for “24-7, 365-day-a year” monitoring of web and social media posts related to “campus safety, security, compliance and reputational concerns.”
Fullintel uses an automated system to scan “public content for specific phrases related to safety risks or harm,” and its “curation team” reviews anything flagged “to ensure it’s relevant, providing the necessary context for our clients to respond appropriately,” Angus Nguyen, director of marketing for Fullintel, told Raw Story.
“Alerts from Fullintel include untargeted negative commentary, hate speech, hazing, targeted harassment, sexual violence, suicidal ideation, targeted threats and threats to public safety,” McCabe said.
Fullintel works with a small number of colleges, with FGCU its only Florida university client, and the firm does not work with police departments, Nguyen said.
“Our alerts are designed to help campus authorities and respond quickly to potential safety threats or compliance issues,” Nguyen said. “We focus on public content related to safety, not personal opinions or political speech.”
The alerts obtained by Raw Story all involved personal opinions about the 287(g) agreement, with no apparent threats of crimes or plans for protests.
‘Not a good idea’
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, an expert on police surveillance and a director of the Brennan Center for Justice, called FGCU’s monitoring practices “very problematic,” particularly when tied to immigration enforcement.
“This opens up a huge area of risk in terms of social media monitoring,” Levinson-Waldman said.
Levinson-Waldman said a First Amendment legal challenge would require someone to show concrete harm, such as being referred for discipline, denied housing or being prosecuted on the basis of speech.
Zach Greenberg, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), said FGCU’s monitoring could create a “chilling effect” on student speech.
“It suggests that the university is monitoring the speech for potential discipline and for retaliating against students for engaging in controversial political speech, especially with regards to issues like ICE, immigration and Trump,” Greenberg said.
McCabe said she was unaware of disciplinary action against any student based on political social media posts.
“FGCU encourages constructive and informed discussions on campus in a peaceful manner, even when we disagree or find an individual’s expression offensive or controversial,” McCabe said.
Volokh said campus police might want to monitor the web for “possible criminal intentions” or protests where expanded police presence is required.
But, “You might say it's not a good idea for the university to be generally reporting to the police all criticism because that's going to create a climate at school which discourages kind of open debate and open discussion,” Volokh said.
“That's not something I'd be wild about when it comes to the university.”
The Brennan Center has long warned about the dangers of law enforcement use of social media surveillance.
While law enforcement agencies often claim such surveillance is used for legitimate public safety purposes, U.S. government agencies have a well-documented history of surveilling activist groups, particularly those advocating for racial justice and immigrant rights.
From 2017 to 2020, ICE and other DHS agencies tracked social media activity and compiled dossiers on U.S.-based activists, lawyers and journalists who opposed family separation policies or participated in protests labeled “anti-Trump.”
“The [Trump] administration obviously has made no bones about the fact that they're looking to do extensive detention and deportation efforts, and particularly based on the content of what people are saying online,” Levinson-Waldman said.
Recently, that’s exactly what has happened.
In March, Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University, and Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University and a pro-Palestinian activist, were detained by ICE over views expressed in public forums.
The same month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said 300 student visas had been revoked as part of a crackdown against students who protested against the war in Gaza.
NAFSA: Association of International Educators has been tracking reports of visa revocations and terminations. As of May 7— the most recent update — more than 1,600 cases had been reported.
‘Creates fear’
FGCU received close to a dozen emails from concerned alumni and community members expressing “outrage” at the ICE partnership, accusing the school of "hypocrisy," “selling out its students” and promoting “surveillance and compliance with a racist agenda.”
One flagged post came from Unidos Immokalee, a Southwest Florida advocacy group, which expressed alarm over how the agreement “creates fear and increased likelihood of profiling” for international students and families with mixed immigration status.
The social media post, urging people to sign a petition opposing the 287(g) agreement, was flagged by FGCU’s third-party media monitoring system and shared with campus police and administrators.
“That’s extremely concerning,” Maria P., a volunteer with Unidos Immokalee, told Raw Story. “They say they want to create an inclusive and safe environment for people, but this really makes people fear they’ll be retaliated against — whether in school, in classrooms, or even as alumni.”
Maria, an FGCU alumna who declined to use her last name due to privacy and safety concerns, said her organization also emailed FGCU “really just to support the current students and prospective students as well. It’s very scary for students who are vulnerable, maybe away from families, as well as any visitors on campus.”
Immokalee, a predominantly immigrant farmworker community, is in Collier County, where the sheriff’s department has had its own 287(g) agreement since 2020 and has “seen a lot of racial profiling,” Maria said.
About a quarter of FGCU students identify as Hispanic, and 2 percent are international.
Unidos emailed university president Aysegul Timur, urging FGCU to withdraw from its agreement and seeking details of the university’s partnership with ICE — such as when officers would be trained, whether student data would be shared with law enforcement, and how the program might affect immigrant students and families.
Internal emails obtained by Raw Story show FGCU officials were reluctant to respond.
Lisa Jones, interim vice president and general counsel, advised against answering questions in detail.
“I am concerned about continuing to respond to questions on this topic as it is rapidly evolving,” Jones wrote to Timur and McCabe. “If we answer these questions, we can expect more. If there is new information and these answers change, I am concerned they will bring this email up to argue we were not truthful or transparent.”
Maria said: “There’s such a lack of transparency. It’s extremely disappointing that they chose to not be transparent. The concern is not only for those who may have mixed statuses — there are many other people who are affected within the school.”
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