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The president and vice president of the University of Michigan’s student assembly were impeached after they demanded divestment and stopped funding campus activities.
Dec. 24, 2024Updated 8:36 a.m. ET
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 vote in mid-November to impeach them and 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.
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