Alifa Chowdhury is a former Daily staffer. Chowdhury did not contribute in the writing or editing of this article.
Rows of Palestinian flags danced in the wind as representatives of the SHUT IT DOWN party in the upcoming Central Student Government elections stood firm on the Diag, holding up a banner reading, “No business as usual during a genocide.” The campaign’s kickoff rally proclaimed the party’s refusal to be complicit in the University’s investment in companies profiting from Israel’s ongoing military campaign and occupation of Palestinians in Gaza.
Candidates from the SHUT IT DOWN party presented their nontraditional platform to students gathered on the Diag on Monday afternoon. In one of the rally’s speeches, LSA junior and presidential candidate Alifa Chowdhury stated SHUT IT DOWN aims to disrupt campus normalcy by halting CSG activity and withholding funding for student organizations until the University commits to divestment.
“This campaign, we are setting a precedent that no genocide will occur in our name, that life cannot continue as normal as genocide occurs,” Chowdhury said. “The administration and many students would rather remain comfortable than stand up for what’s right. This campaign is meant to make people uncomfortable — you are meant to lose something.”
Chowdhury and the rest of the slate are supported by the TAHRIR Coalition comprised of more than 80 organizations on campus, and the SHUT IT DOWN party has received endorsements from more than 10 organizations including the U-M chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, United Asian American Organizations and Students Allied for Freedom and Equality.
More students joined as speeches continued. LSA sophomore Levi Pierpont, running for one of the LSA representative seats, emphasized in their speech that though the violence in Gaza may seem distant, the University of Michigan is directly implicated through its endowment.
“Today, we stand on the grounds of a university that is complicit in violence,” Pierpont said. “It doesn’t matter if you haven’t killed someone with your bare hands if you’re doing it with your dollars. It’s not that different.”
The U-M Endowment Guide, published by the TAHRIR Coalition, uncovered deep connections between the University’s investments in middlemen firms and the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, as well as the military-industrial complex more broadly. According to the U-M Endowment Guide, the University currently has more than 6 billion invested in companies profiting off of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, including companies like Shield AI, which produces self-piloting drones used by the Israeli Occupation Force for close-quarter combat, and Motorola Solutions, which creates surveillance equipment used at both Israeli and U.S. border walls.
LSA sophomore and vice-presidential candidate Elias Atkinson affirmed that there is strong opposition against the University’s endowment, as there are more than 3,000 Ann Arbor undergraduate and graduate students registered for the Divest! Don’t Arrest People’s Referendum calling for the U-M Board of Regents to divest from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people and to drop charges against student protestors in support of Palestine.
“People are dying as we speak, and we will not allow this university to profit off the blood of thousands of Palestinians,” Atkinson said. “We can see this campus wants divestment and is ready to fight to fight for it.”
The rally’s speakers claimed that CSG has been co-opted by the University as a platform for student voices while historically being ineffective in addressing the needs and demands of marginalized students. During the fall 2023 CSG elections, the University canceled a section of the vote containing ballot initiatives AR 13-025 and AR 13-026. The CSG elections commission was not consulted by the University and condemned this action in an official statement. The TAHRIR Coalition also released a statement condemning the University’s decision to silence the voices of their students. CSG has since passed a resolution to investigate this cancellation.
LSA junior Becca Meyer-Rasmussen attended the SHUT IT DOWN kickoff rally following one of their classes, interested in learning more about the candidate’s goals and demands. Meyer-Rasmussen told The Daily in an interview that they supports the SHUT IT DOWN campaign because it serves as a rallying force for positive change.
“I’m OK with setting aside my comfort because I recognize that all of the work being done here on campus right now is setting the tone and planting seeds for the future,” Meyer-Rasmussen said. “It’s kind of our job, then, to take action.
Elections for all vacant CSG seats run from Wednesday, March 27 and close at 10 p.m. on Friday, March 28. In an interview with The Daily following the rally, Chowdhury said if students want to live to see a free Palestine, they must also be okay with minor disruptions to daily life.
“I’d say you need to put your money where your mouth is,” Chowdhury said. “People are dying on the other side of the world because our institution is funding it. And if we want this to stop, we need to be able to put something on the line. And if that can be something as simple as student org funding, so be it.”
MiC Assistant Editor Sara Wong can be reached at sarawong@umich.edu.