The University of Michigan's experiment in woke governance has come to an end. Today a majority of the student government voted to impeach the body's current president and vice president, both of whom were elected earlier this year as part of a slate of pro-Palestinian candidates.

The Ann Arbor-based school’s Central Student Government voted 30 to 7 in favor of ousting President Alifa Chowdhury and Vice President Elias Atkinson — who are part of a pro-Palestine activist group called “Shut It Down” —  for neglecting their responsibilities and actively trying to block funding for student groups on campus, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

The pair had reportedly refused to resign after calls from the rest of the CSG, which alleged that they both had also threatened physical harm against its members.

“Since their time in office began, they have refused to do the duties constitutionally required of them, have incited violence against members of this body, and have openly degraded representatives for disagreeing with the mechanisms by which they govern,” said sophomore CSG member Margaret Peterman during a public meeting on Tuesday. “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.”

To really appreciate this we have to go back to the beginning. Earlier this year when pro-Palestinian campus protests were all the rage, a group of activists at UM came up with a unique plan. They would run for student government on an explicit platform of shutting down the student government until the school agreed to divest from Israel. 

The first part of the plan worked. The activists were elected and Alifa Chodhury became student president. She promptly vetoed the distribution of any funding to campus groups over the summer break. And when student returned in the fall, she did it again.

At this point, students who hadn't voted for this plan were getting irritated. The money in question wasn't coming from the school, it was a fee which all students had to pay to fund these groups. They still had to pay but now none of their activities had any money. 

As opposition built, the university put forward an alternative plan. They agreed to essentially loan student groups the money to continue operating with the promise that, at some point in the future, those groups would pay the university back once student fees were released. As you can imagine, the activists running student government were angry because this ended their leverage. In one last desperate act, they tried to pass a plan to redirect all of the money to rebuild a university in Gaza. That plan failed to pass and that's when things got ugly.

The response after the vote failed started with shouting:

Last night, the University of Michigan's Central Student Government voted on a Gaza Reparations Act. This legislation would have defunded nearly all of UMich's clubs in order to send $440K to Birzeit University.

This measure failed, and the activists immediately freaked out. pic.twitter.com/x9EV7NM1gD

— Stu (@thestustustudio) October 9, 2024

But according to members of the student government it soon escalated to threats.

After the meeting concluded, community members verbally assaulted CSG members as they walked to their vehicles, claiming that representatives would “be seeing them after class” and that they “knew where (representatives) lived.” They also made thinly veiled death threats toward the Assembly members, claiming that their “day of atonement (was) near.” One representative was spat on.

On Oct. 9, 2024, CSG members associated with the TAHRIR Coalition and SHUT IT DOWN used the CSG Instagram page to post a video, labeling CSG representatives as extremists. It also insinuated that the voting process was undemocratic and that CSG representatives acted in a politically corrupt or thoughtless way when voting to pass the budget. What was left out of the post was the verbal and physical harassment and intimidation CSG members faced before, during and after the vote to pass the budget...

We are disgusted by Chowdhury and Vice President Elias Atkinson’s tacit endorsement of these actions, and we unequivocally condemn their complicity in the violence, intimidation and assault against our peers. As the student body’s executive officials, they were elected to serve every student, across partisan divides, regardless of personal or political disagreements.

In addition to winking at the bullying by their comrades, Chowdhury and Atkinson were also faulted for failing to do their jobs. There have been dozens of calls for them to resign and even former allies have turned on them.

Assembly speaker [Mario] Thaqi said he has been devastated by what he views as excessive force by the Israeli Army in its counter offensive against Hamas. But the senior who is studying philosophy, politics and economics with a minor in Arabic said he is also opposed to the Shut It Down movement despite his participation in UM pro-Palestinian protests...

The president and vice president have neglected their duties, such as assembling a staff or speaking before the UM Board of Regents during their monthly meetings, he said.

"It’s been clear she is not upholding the oath that she swore to when she became student body president and her and Eli have not done anything," Thaqi about Chowdhury. "A lot of people on campus initially were in support of their goals, myself included, but they feel really failed by them.

The opposition, which dubbed itself, "Keep It Running" in response to the activists calling their agenda "Shut It Down," wanted the woke candidates out so they couldn't use their positions to block funding in the spring. And today it looks like they got their wish.

To sum all this up, UM's student government went woke, campus groups went broke and now the activist government has croaked thanks to student opposition. There's another student government election coming up so, in theory this group could run again but it seems the opposition is now organized and motivated to prevent them from gaining power a second time.