Michigan Students Vote To Oust Anti-Israel Leaders

The University of Michigan’s student judiciary group has voted to impeach and remove from office two anti-Israel student government leaders who pushed to block funding for student clubs until the university agreed to divest from companies with ties to Israel.The verdict was delivered on Monday night, nine months after the former student government president, Alifa Chowdhury, and former vice president, Elias Atkinson, were elected. Their ouster followed a weeks-long student judicial hearing spanning more than 20 hours. Ms. Chowdhury and Mr. Atkinson were ultimately ousted over charges relating to “dereliction of duty” for either routinely missing council meetings or failing to organize them. The judges rejected Ms. Chowdhury’s argument that the absences were due to a “mental health break.” The student judges write in their 40-page ruling: “We reach none of these conclusions lightly. But in the end, we have no choice but to do as the Constitution commands and as the evidence compels. We are required to convict the defendants. Today’s decision means that President Chowdhury and Vice President Atkinson are removed from office with immediate effect, and that they are barred from holding CSG office in the future.”The duo ran for office last spring, at the height of the anti-Israel campus protests, positioning themselves as the “Shut It Down Party.” That reflected their campaign pledge to yank the some $1.3 million in annual funding for some 400 student clubs until the university’s Board of Regents agreed to divest from any company that the students claimed profited from the war in Gaza, a demand the Regents had previously rejected. They won in an election that saw a turnout of less than 20 percent. The capital that they were elected to oversee comes out of the budget of the central student government, which is funded by fees collected from students each semester. The student leaders’ efforts, however, proved futile and the school circumvented their funding blockade by offering to temporarily loan the student groups money to keep them in operation. Meanwhile, the university has been taking steps to temper the political climate. It voted in October to adopt neutral positions on political or social issues not directly connected to the school. In December, the school announced that it was building an Institute for Civil Discourse to “strengthen debate and dialog across the vast spectrum of ideologies and political perspectives on campus and beyond.”The trial follows a November 12 vote that resulted in their initial impeachment, an effort that was brought by one student assembly member, Margaret Peterman. She decried the leaders’ “inability to protect student representatives, their endorsement of violence and harassment and their misuse of official platforms to spread misinformation” as being in “direct violations of their duties and unbecoming of the office of the presidency.” The five articles of impeachment — three against the president, two against her vice president — stem from a chaotic student government meeting in October during which the two student leaders reportedly urged their supporters to storm the assembly to protest the effort to overturn the funding blockade.Both were accused of inciting violence, and Ms. Chowdhury was accused of changing the password for the central student government’s Instagram account without authorization. Though the student judges determined that the student government leaders were not guilty on those charges, they were found guilty of dereliction of duty.The current speaker of the student assembly, Mario Thaqi, will take the place of the ousted president through the end of the term.

Michigan Students Vote To Oust Anti-Israel Leaders

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