A protest in support of Palestinians at the University of Michigan in February.
Credit...Nic Antaya for The New York Times

Pro-Palestinian Activists Removed From Michigan’s Student Government

The president and vice president of the University of Michigan’s student assembly were impeached after they demanded divestment and stopped funding campus activities.

by · NY Times

Alifa Chowdhury’s successful campaign to lead the University of Michigan’s student government promised just one thing: to block financing for campus groups until the university agreed to divest from companies that Ms. Chowdhury said profited from the Israel-Hamas war.

Nine turbulent months later, Ms. Chowdhury is out, impeached and removed from office by the student assembly just before midnight on Monday.

Ms. Chowdhury’s ouster follows a lopsided impeachment vote in mid-November, which also led to the removal of Elias Atkinson, the body’s vice president and a fellow activist.

In a student judicial hearing that spanned seven days and lasted more than 20 hours, they were found guilty on a single charge of dereliction of duty — the consequence of effectively fulfilling the shutdown their campaign promised.

Like the protest encampments at universities across the country, the takeover of Michigan’s student government by pro-Palestinian activists last spring polarized the campus. The activists’ tactics drew objections from students who said their obstructionism went too far and did little to help the Palestinian cause.

The activists saw their movement as a way to shake university officials and students out of what they saw as complacency, and face the plight of Palestinians living in Gaza.

But like many student protests, the takeover made little headway — and maybe even stirred up opposition. The university, which had long said that it would not divest, adopted a policy of institutional neutrality in October, meaning that it would avoid taking stances on political or social issues that were not directly connected to the school.

The administration also agreed in August to lend money to campus groups, allowing them to pay for activities like ballroom dancing and Ultimate Frisbee. By October, the student assembly had voted to reinstate the funding.

Margaret Peterman, a sophomore member of the student assembly who started the impeachment motion, said that the president and vice president’s conduct in office and their unwillingness to aid the student body were “inexcusable.”

Many students, even some empathetic to the Palestinian cause, saw the activists’ efforts as a futile quest that blocked money meant to help needy students, while alienating allies.

“If anything, it’s only set the social image of the movement backwards, at least on campus,” said Tiya Berry, an Arab American member of the student assembly who grew up in Lebanon.

Though Ms. Berry said that she agreed with the activists’ political stance, she believed their methods unnecessarily hurt students and were a poor means to bring about change. “They look like extremists,” she said.

The impeached president and vice president, both of whom declined to comment, ran for their positions last spring as part of the Shut It Down Party, with the promise that they would withhold the roughly $1.3 million of annual funding until the university’s regents agreed to total divestment from companies that they said profited from Israel’s war in Gaza. They won their elections handily with a low voter turnout.

The impeachment motion itself set off a debate about the line between free speech and incitement. The motion, which passed overwhelmingly in an initial vote, accused the leaders of “incitement of violence” for encouraging demonstrators to attend an Oct. 8 student government meeting that was called to reinstate funding for campus groups.

During the meeting, Ms. Chowdhury joined the protesters across the room from the assembly, a move that Ms. Peterman said encouraged verbal attacks and threatening language. She said that one assembly member was spat on by a protester.

The impeachment was “abhorrent,” said Kaitlin Karmen, a member of the Shut It Down Party who resigned from the student assembly after the vote.

“Asking constituents to show up to a meeting to advocate for a cause they believe in is not inciting violence,” Ms. Karmen said. Speaking of student assembly members, she added: “Being uncomfortable doesn’t mean you’re experiencing violence.”

Danah Owaida, a Shut It Down assembly member who also stepped down after the vote, said that her tenure was marked by indifference from many of her colleagues and a decline in her mental health. “As a Palestinian, it’s a dismissal all the time,” she said.

But Ms. Peterman, the student who started the removal process, said that the impeachment, which was the first in the assembly’s history, set a precedent for the student government in helping to define what kind of speech was truly free.

“There is a line between free speech and hate speech, between engaging in your rights as a student and as an American to disagree as vehemently as you might want to, and crossing that line into threatening someone,” she said.

“That kind of speech has never been tolerated” in the student government before, she added, “and should not be tolerated in the future.”

With the assembly’s leadership ousted, the speaker of the student assembly, Mario Thaqi, will finish out the presidential term.

His job could be quite fraught.

“It doesn’t matter if you hate me or not — we’re still representatives of the entire student body,” he said. “That’s very important to me in dealing with the backlash after this impeachment vote and making sure that our campus doesn’t become more divided.”

Colleges and the War in Gaza