Student government voted to impeach its president and vice president following their disruptive anti-Israel divestment campaign
The University of Michigan student government impeached its anti-Israel president and vice president Wednesday in a 30 to 7 vote.
The Articles of Impeachment list “incitement to violence,” “cyber theft,” and “dereliction of duty” as the reasons behind voting out President Alifa Chowdhury and Vice President Elias Atkinson.
Further, student government member Margaret Peterman said the leaders “openly degraded representatives for disagreeing with the mechanisms by which they govern,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
“After repeated calls for their resignation from over 40 current and former members of CSG and repeated refusals to do so, this assembly is left with no choice but to impeach,” Peterman said.
Chowdhury and Atkinson were elected as part of an initiative called “Shut it Down,” which aimed to force the school to divest from Israeli-linked companies, The College Fix previously reported.
As president, Chowdhury blocked funding to campus groups in the summer and the fall as a way of demanding divestment.
This prompted University President Santa Ono and other administrators to get student clubs money through “alternative” means.
In another attempt to advance their pro-Palestinian cause, the student government leaders tried to “pass a plan to redirect all of the money to rebuild a university in Gaza,” but it failed, Hot Air reported.
In reaction to the reinstatement of campus activity funding and the decision against allocating student fees to universities in Gaza, Vice President Atkinson rallied anti-Israel activists to “pack CSG” and “welcome this fight” at an Oct. 8 meeting, the Washington Examiner reported.
The Articles of Impeachment state that this “encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless action” at the meeting.
Anti-Israel protesters “began shouting and amassing on the floor of the Assembly, menaced Members of the Assembly and CSG personnel, and engaged in other violent and destructive acts.”
Atkinson “acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law,” the motion states.
Regarding the “cyber theft” charge, the motion states that “Chowdhury changed the password to the Central Student Government Instagram account, without authorization, in order to deny other duly authorized users of the account access to it.”
Finally, the motion accuses both Atkinson and Chowdhury of neglecting their duties. They failed to submit reports, hold necessary meetings, address the UM Board of Regents, and complete trainings, among other things.
Atkinson has failed to “perform any meaningful work whatsoever,” the motion argues.
Following demands for their resignation and before the impeachment vote, the Shut It Down group stated that it sought to “dismantle” and not “maintain” the student government, National Review reported.
“Respectability politics and dialogue with individuals or institutions that are not only complicit but active parters in genocide is not only inappropriate — it is dangerous,” reads the statement. “We cannot and will not be part of any system that prioritizes political civility over resistance and liberation.”
The Michigan Daily student newspaper reported the resolution “will now move to the Central Student Judiciary, which will hear the case within five days of the resolution’s passage and determine whether the impeachment will be upheld.”
MORE: UMich skirts student gov’t anti-Israel move, restores campus group funds
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