Amid student protests and candlelight vigils at the start of school year at U-M, the student body government passed a 25-15 vote to end the freeze on student organization funding.
The freeze preventing the university from allocating over $600,000 in annual funds to student orgs was put into place at the end of last school year by current student president Alifa Chowdrury and other government members belonging to the Pro-Palestinian TAHRIR Coalition.
Chowdhury says the goal of the freeze is to pressure the university with her coalition’s demands.
"We are asking the university to divest companies implicated in Israel’s genocide."
While student speaker Mario Thaqli feels for his fellow members, he says that it’s wrong to have student groups struggle financially.
"When this funding is being withheld from them; hundreds of thousands of dollars… you know, it has large effects on the outcome for the school year."
Chowdrury says that she will veto the budget plan, but Thaqi says he’s confident the veto will be overridden.
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
