UMich student government freezes funding to student orgs until university divests from Israel
Anti-Israel students at the University of Michigan who have been elected to the student government have frozen funding for student organizations until the school divests from companies connected to Israel.
The student government president has frozen funding for student groups, demanding divestment as a condition to resume normal operations.
Anti-Israel students at the University of Michigan who have been elected to the student government have frozen funding for student organizations until the school divests from companies connected to Israel.
The new student body president, Alifa Chowdhury, froze funding for student groups by vetoing the proposed budget. The University of Michigan student government has a budget of $800,000, according to the University Herald.
“The Shut it Down movement ran on a completely transparent platform,” said Chowdhury. “This is really to send a message to regents that you can’t just give us, student government leaders, a lump sum on money and expect us to stay silent with that. The point of student government is to make our voices heard.”
“There is a very easy fix to this, and that is to divest,” Chowdhury added. “We are asking them to divest, and then everything can go back to normal. They really forced our hand with this.”
Administrators are temporarily funding student organizations under the condition that the money is reimbursed, according to the New York Times.
The Shut It Down party got 24 members elected into the student government earlier this year.
“The University of Michigan is one of those institutions (whose) $6 billion of the endowment are implicated in the genocide or occupation of people of Palestine,” Shubh Agrawal, party chair for Shut It Down, said in July. “And the University of Michigan does not deserve to function as normal while it continues to do those things.”
The University of Michigan Board of Regents’ official position is that the university will not divest from Israel. One Regent said that capitulating to the anti-Israel student forces would be “absurd.”
Leadership Institute Manager of Campus Election Workshops Timothy Cleveland, who helps conservative student government candidates get elected, told Campus Reform:
”When leftist students dominate student government elections, it’s easy to think the game is over. But let’s not kid ourselves—conservative students have the power to turn the tide. The myth that student governments are forever trapped in leftist hands is just that: a myth. The real game-changer for conservatives lies in effective political technology. With the right training, conservatives can sweep student government elections and shake up the status quo. The Campus Election Workshop Program (CEW) is Leadership Institute’s premiere program created to combat leftist bias within student government. This training equips candidates and supporters with the necessary tools to run and win a student government election. Click here to request a Campus Election Workshop this Fall!,” Cleveland said.
UMich’s student government is not the first to leverage its budget to push an anti-Israel agenda.
Campus Reform reported earlier this year about the student government at the University of California, Davis which has a budget of $20 million dollars and used it to make a political statement against the state of Israel.
In February the Associated Students of UC Davis [ASUCD] passed a bill to divest from companies with ties to Israel.
“The bill that was passed prevents any of the $20 million in the ASUCD budget from being spent on companies complicit in the occupation and genocide of Palestinians, as specified by the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement,” UC Davis’ chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) posted to Instagram in February.
Campus Reform has contacted the University of Michigan for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
