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NEWS
NEWS
UMich students file challenge to SHUT IT DOWN’s CSG executive, Assembly victories
Alifa Chowdhury, Elias Atkinson of SHUT IT DOWN executive ticket projected to win in 2024 CSG elections
3 other CSG parties, 1 CSG candidate and 1 student brought forth the lawsuit to the Central Student Judiciary, alleging SHUT IT DOWN violated CSG election code.
According to unofficial results, Chowdhury and Atkinson are set to become the 2024 president and vice president, and SHUT IT DOWN
MARY COREY
Daily News Editor
candidates won 22 of 45 Assembly seats. will be released pending the outcome of the CSJ lawsuit.
THE MICHIGAN DAILY NEWS STAFF This is a developing story and will be updated as additional information becomes available. Editor’s Note: Alifa Chowdhury is a former Daily staffer. Chowdhury did not contribute to this article. UPDATE 4/2: According to CSG Elections Director Abigail Peacock, the official results for the Winter 2024 CSG elections
LSA junior Alifa Chowdhury and LSA sophomore Elias Atkinson of the SHUT IT DOWN party are projected to become the 2024 president and vice president of Central Student Government, according to unofficial results obtained by The Michigan Daily Friday morning. Chowdhury and Atkinson won 4,396 votes out of 9,238 total votes cast in the executive race. Chowdhury and Atkinson are members of the TAHRIR
Coalition, comprised of more than 90 pro-Palestine student organizations at the University of Michigan. The SHUT IT DOWN party plans to halt all CSG activity and associated funding until the University fully divests from companies profiting off Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The results will be made official March 31, three days after voting closed, to allow all election violations to be submitted to CSG and give time for the Central Student Judiciary to evaluate all claims.
This is a developing story and will be updated as additional information becomes available. Editor’s Note: Alifa Chowdhury is a former Daily staffer. Chowdhury did not contribute to the writing or editing of this article. LSA junior Alifa Chowdhury and LSA sophomore Elias Atkinson of the SHUT IT DOWN party were projected to become 2025 president and vice president of the University of Michigan’s Central Student Government, according to unofficial results obtained by The Michigan Daily
March 29. Now, the party will face a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of their campaign. Three other CSG political parties with candidates running in this year’s CSG election — MomentUM, United For Michigan and New Ideas — and two individuals, MomentUM candidate Isabella Horvers and Rackham student Laurie Tabachnick, brought forth the lawsuit. The slate of SHUT IT DOWN candidates ran on a platform of halting all CSG activity and associated funding until the University fully divests from companies profiting off Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. According to the unofficial results, the SHUT IT DOWN party won the CSG presidency and 22 out of 45 available CSG Assembly
seats. The lawsuit challenges the results of both the executive and Assembly races. Included in the lawsuit are claims that SHUT IT DOWN committed various violations of the CSG election code, including campaigning through unauthorized listservs, obscuring opponent’s campaign materials flyers and posters, campaigning within 100 feet of polling sites and promoting endorsements from student groups before they were officially registered with CSG. The lawsuit will be heard by the Central Student Judiciary, the judiciary branch of CSG, before election results are officially certified on April 9. If SHUT IT DOWN is disqualified, the runners-up for the executive and Assembly seats will be declared the winners.
ADMINISTRATION
Over 600 march in largest UMich pro-Palestine protest this year
University of Michigan students and Ann Arbor community members called on the University to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli military campaign in Gaza SNEHA DHANDAPANI Daily News Editor
More than 600 University of Michigan students and Ann Arbor community members rallied on the Diag Thursday afternoon, calling on the University to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. The protest — the largest pro-Palestine protest this past year — included a march down East University Avenue, through the Ross School of Business and through the Michigan Union before returning to the Diag. During the rally, student representatives from each of the U-M student organizations that make up the TAHRIR Coalition, a coalition of more than 90 pro-Palestine U-M organizations, took the stage to demand divestment. Shortly after, the TAHRIR Coalition announced the voting results for the Divest! Don’t Arrest People’s Referendum. The referendum, which was organized by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, outlines three action items: for the University to immediately divest from companies that profit from the Israeli military campaign, provide full disclosure of all University investments every fiscal quarter and drop all charges against student protesters. According to voting results obtained by The Michigan Daily, there were 3,251 valid votes cast. Of these valid
JOSH SINHA/Daily Students and Ann Arbor residents protest for divestment in the Michigan Union Thursday.
votes, 3,204 people voted yes, 39 voted no and 8 chose to abstain. The emergency rally was announced after the University sent an email to the campus community Wednesday night asking for feedback on a draft policy that would prohibit U-M community members from engaging in any activities that disrupt University operations. The rally comes after University President Santa Ono
sent an email Tuesday evening to the campus community denouncing the interruption at the University’s 101st Honors Convocation. In an interview with The Daily, Rackham student Garima Singh said she found the draft policy to be hypocritical, given how the University praises past protests that created positive change. “When universities say that they’re proud of the history of
protests, they don’t understand it,” Singh said. “If you go back in time, the protests were disruptive, every single protest on the campus has been disruptive. (The) University cannot take credit for protests that happened in the past, at the same time trying to finish any sort of possibility of protest on campus right now.” In an interview with The Daily during the rally, SAFE Education Director Zaynab
Elkolaly said the University often celebrates change makers in history but does not acknowledge marginalized communities on campus. “The University loves to highlight change makers and civil rights activists historically when they’re distant enough to distance themselves from their role in the oppression and shut it down,” Elkolaly said. “So to have an event highlighting
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people like (Cesar) Chavez and Dr. (Martin Luther) King is incredibly hypocritical. They’re gonna look back in 50 years and be embarrassed because they were on the wrong side of history. We won’t let them forget that.” On the benches behind the Diag, a small group of students held Israeli f lags high in protest. One of these students was LSA junior Josh Brown, who said he hoped his actions would call attention to the platform of the SHUT IT DOWN party running in the Central Student Government election. “I think people should listen to what they’re saying and understand that their message is very clear,” Brown said. “They want to shut down the student government and prevent any funding for any of the services that they provide and to any of the clubs that need it. I think people should understand that they’re holding, they want to hold CSG hostage and so people should vote accordingly in the election.” In an interview with The Daily after the event, Alex Sepulveda, U-M chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace director of activism, said the protesters specifically chose to enter University buildings to draw attention to their cause. “We marched into the Ross School of Business because it is imperative for us to interrupt at the highest function of the University operations,” Sepulveda said. “Same for the Michigan Union.”
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INDEX
Vol. CXXXIV No. 21 ©2024 The Michigan Daily
N E W S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 ARTS............................. 5 MIC ..............................7
S TAT E M E N T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 OPINION.................11 SPORTS ......................13