University of Michigan Central Student Government Representatives vote to impeach President Alifa Chowdhury and Vice President Elias Atkinson.
Student government members at the University of Michigan have impeached their president and vice president for allegedly inciting violence along with a slew of other allegations.
University of Michigan student government President Alifa Chowdhury and Vice President Elias Atkinson are members of the Shut It Down Party, which campaigned to push the university to divest from Israel. In September, Chowdhury vetoed the entire student budget twice, pointing to the university’s inaction on divestment as the justification.
According to The Michigan Daily, thirty student government representatives voted in favor of impeachment on Tuesday. Seven voted against the measure, while one student abstained. The vote was secret. The student government’s Central Student Judiciary must decide whether to uphold the impeachment within five days.
The articles of impeachment, obtained by Campus Reform earlier this week, allege that Chowdhury and Atkison incited violence against the student government last month.
Motion to Impeach by Campus Reform on Scribd
During an October 8 meeting, Chowdhury and Atkinson reportedly called a large group of Shut It Down supporters to protest opposition student government members who passed the student budget.
“Once at the meeting, President Chowdhury sat with the protestors they had assembled and spoke with them,” the articles say (Chowdhury appears to use “they” as a personal pronoun). “Thus incited by President Chowdhury, members of the crowd they had addressed, along with President Chowdhury themself, 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.”
Members of the Shut it Down party proposed its own budget during the meeting, one that would have sent over $480,000 to Birzeit University, a school in the West Bank that has been accused of having ties to terrorism.
Protesters at an October 8 student government yelled “colonialist Mexican” and “Zionist piece of s—” at one opposition member of the student government.
The articles continue: “In all this, President Chowdhury gravely endangered the security of students and the functioning of the Central Student Government. They threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful consideration of legislation, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. They thereby betrayed their trust as President, to the manifest injury of the students of the University of Michigan.”
[RELATED: UMich cancels student gov vote, citing election interference by pro-Palestinian students]
The articles also allege that the day after the October 8 protest, Chowdhury changed the password of the student government’s Instagram page and published a post praising the protesters. In doing so, Chowdhury did “knowingly [cause] the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally cause[d] damage without authorization, to a protected computer,” the article read, citing the government’s Constitution.
The impeachment articles make other accusations against Chowdhury and Atkinson, including dereliction of duties.
In its party platform, the Shut It Down Party says that the University of Michigan’s student government “merely serves as an extension of an institution that has perpetuated systems of oppression by maintaining the current status quo of neocolonial capitalism.”
In an Instagram post appearing to respond to the impeachment articles, the Shut it Down Party wrote “We remain steadfast in our demand for divestment regardless of manufactured narratives and calls for our resignation. Until divestment and liberation – Shut. It. Down.”
Campus Reform contacted the University of Michigan for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
