Last May there were pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Michigan, just as there were a lots of other schools around the country.

BREAKING: The Encampment at the University of Michigan is currently being raided. Pepper spray has been deployed. pic.twitter.com/GyDFKCw5cy

— Stu (@thestustustudio) May 21, 2024

But at U of M things took a different turn when a slate of candidates ran for student government positions and won. The campaign had one goal: To force U of M to divest all of the school's endowment money from Israel.

Pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor were frustrated by their inability to persuade the university to divest endowment funds from Israel and military-weapons manufacturers, so they came up with an idea: run a slate of candidates for student government based on a provocative platform. If elected, they’d refuse to fund student groups unless the university complied with their demands. They won — and now they’re carrying through on their threats.

The threat in this case, was to completely stop distributing funds to students groups on campus until the campaigns' goals are met. That process already started over the summer but with students returning for the fall, the situation is about to get more serious. 

The new 2024-25 president of UM Central Student Government has since vetoed the summer budget, shutting down funding to student groups. She is expected to take the same action next month when a fall budget is considered. Students are expected to become more aware of this development as classes begin Monday on the Ann Arbor campus and most student organizations restart their activities...

"The Shut it Down movement ran on a completely transparent platform," said Alifa Chowdhury, the 2024-25 student body president. "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."

The catch here is that the funds in question don't come from the school, they come from the students. Each semester, every student pays a fee of about $11 which is pooled and then distributed to several hundred student groups on campus. Shutting that funding down hurts students twice. They still have to pay the fee but now they don't get any benefit from it. Student groups are already starting to complain about this tactic.

Among the groups that are expecting to feel the impact is the UM Rugby Football Club, which held its first game Friday.

UM student government had provided $20,000 annually to the club in recent years, which makes up a quarter of its budget, said Ryan Grover, club president. The rest of the budget is financed through player dues and donations from alumni and parents.

"We are going to be operate," Grover said. "The big thing is we will have less operating cash, so we probably won't be able to focus on our endowment growth, which will be preventing us from developing and becoming a varsity program, which is our goal. It will strain our students, and we probably might not be able to grow long-term."

Another example:

“It feels a little silly to me to refuse to hand out money that’s coming from students to help students,” said Gabriel Scheck, a senior, and president and captain of the men’s Ultimate Frisbee team, which receives up to a third of its annual budget from the student government.

The team is one of the few club sports without membership fees. But without funding, the players would need to pay dues and other expenses, like travel, which Mr. Scheck said would increase the barrier to entry.

The only good news here is that several of the groups who endorsed this plan of action will also have their funding cut.

Some of the almost two dozen groups that endorsed Shut It Down were also at risk of losing funding, including Students Organize for Syria, the Muslim Students Association and United Students Against Sweatshops.

Ali Allam, co-chair of the Muslim Coalition and the Islamophobia Working Group, is not a member of the Shut It Down party, but he said he agrees with the mandate for change.

There is already a crack in the wall. In order to get around the shutdown, the university has agreed to temporarily fund some of these groups with the agreement that the money eventually must be paid back. In other words, the money is going to be spent even as the Shut It Down activists continue to pretend it's not being spent. Chowdhury, the new student president, seems aware that this makes a mockery of her effort. She is asking groups to boycott the money.

There are some good comments on the NY Times version of this story:

College is a great time for students to learn that there are consequences to your choices, and that if you don’t participate in democracy you’ll let others make the choices for you. Hopefully that lesson sticks with some of these students now that they’ve got some first hand experience.

That's a reference to the fact that only about 20% of the student body voted in the election which put Shut It Down campaigners in charge. Now everyone is stuck with it. 

Refusing to disperse student activity funds, which are paid for by the students themselves, is likely to be illegal. They should be sued.

Lastly, it's not all bad. This alum points out that what these students did was a lot better than what was going on at Columbia, UCLA and other schools.

Michigan Law alum here.

I don’t support the divestment movement because it is fundamentally against the best interest of the endowment, but love that this group of young activists used the levers of democracy (rather than, say, taking over buildings) to advocate for their beliefs.

Fair enough, but I do think most of the student body is going to regret having to pay student fees and then having to pay higher fees to groups they participate in just so a tiny minority of students can grandstand.