To resign is to take responsibility for one’s actions. Ever since SHUT IT DOWN took power in CSG in April 2024, its leadership has mixed incompetency with actual malice toward the U-M community.
It’s time that the President and Vice President of the Central Student Government take responsibility for their misdeeds and depart their offices before greater harm is done. This isn’t merely my perspective of the most controversial CSG presidency in the institution’s history: it abides with precedent.
2007: The Resignation of Zack Yost
The Michigan Student Assembly (MSA) was U-M’s topmost student government before CSG was established. The 2007 President, Zack Yost, found himself in hot water a year before his term even started after a member of his political party launched a cyberattack on their opponents’ website during the voting period. Though real criminal charges came from this controversy, Yost emerged unscathed.
But in the Fall of 2007, Yost, fresh from his election as MSA President, took to a private Facebook group to criticize a disabled MSA member using threatening, ableist language. MSA Rep. Tim Hull, who had a form of autism, was the target of Yost and other representatives’ hostile words. Yost’s act of cyberbullying was quickly made public, and soon, members of the U-M community pressured him and others to resign. Eventually, Yost did just that: he resigned in December 2007 and apologized for the harm he caused to Hull and the rest of the U-M community.
2020: The Recall of Sam Braden
A more recent instance of CSG leadership being held accountable was the removal of Assembly Speaker Sam Braden in September 2020. Braden, an LSA junior, irritated fellow CSG members more so due to incompetence than ill intent. He was accused of mismanaging the CSG Test Prep Program, leaving teachers and students in a lurch over uncertain lesson plans and unapproved payment systems. In how he led CSG meetings, Assembly members found Braden to be unsure of rules and procedures and too quick to stifle debate for quick meetings.
Unlike Yost, Braden resisted resigning, viewing those criticisms as hostile and unfair. Undeterred, a supermajority of the Assembly voted him out of his Speaker role on September 29, 2020. To date, he has been the only CSG officer removed from his office in such a dramatic way.
2024: Chowdhury and Atkinson?
The dual precedents of Yost (who resigned after creating a hostile environment) and Braden (who was ousted due to mismanagement) apply to CSG’s current leadership. President Alifa Chowdhury and Vice President Elias Atkinson did nothing to stop the mob that ended the October 8th meeting by shouting down the Speaker, spitting on an Assembly intern, following CSG members to their cars, and lobbing every insult in the book at their fellow students. Chowdhury and Atkinson could have followed up that night by apologizing and offering support to affected student government members. Instead, they opted to take over the CSG Instagram to condemn their government, locking all other members out and changing the password in the process. It took two weeks for them to offer a non-apology to the Assembly via an off-camera statement on Zoom: they “acknowledged the Instagram incident” but declined to take responsibility for the threats they joined the community in leveling against members.
Though this malicious behavior outshines Yost’s bullying, SHUT IT DOWN’s ineptitude in their attempts to run a government far outpaces any of Braden’s faults. Chowdhury and Atkinson rarely provide reports to the Assembly and skip their long-sought opportunities to address the Board of Regents. They have put on zero events for the student body. They have intentionally not filed CSG as a Sponsored Student Organization, jeopardizing its potential to disburse student funds and use U-M spaces in the future. They rarely meet with administrators and don’t let the Assembly know when they do so. They have alienated students with whom they disagree and consistently double down when given the opportunity to work toward common goals with non-SID representatives. It’s no wonder that scores of CSG members, past and present, have signed onto a statement asking for Chowdhury and Atkinson’s resignation.
This outcome was never guaranteed. Chowdhury and Atkinson could have taken on their leadership roles with a renewed spirit of student activism, keen to work with students across differences while maintaining a respect-built relationship with administrators so that policy changes could actually happen. Potential for institutional change could have been borne by conversations and teach-ins, not by shouting matches at Assembly meetings. In the form of Chowdhury and Atkinson, SHUT IT DOWN leadership squandered the pro-Palestine movement’s best hope for institutional change by their failures to act like real student leaders.
The road ahead for this administration is shaky and uncertain. Having led the student body with malice and ineptitude for nearly seven months, it is time that the leadership of CSG resign their offices and allow CSG to once again serve the student body.
