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In a tense, simmering meeting, University of Michigan’s student government restored funding on Tuesday night for campus activities and clubs, which had been paused for months in protest of the war in Gaza.
Campus life was put on edge last spring after pro-Palestinian activists won student government elections to the presidency and vice presidency, and secured a near majority of seats in the assembly. Less than 20 percent of students had turned out to vote.
Fulfilling their campaign promise, the activists moved immediately to withhold around $1.3 million in annual funding for campus activities until the university committed to divest from companies aiding Israel’s war in Gaza.
Many student groups, including Ultimate Frisbee, ballroom dancing and the Black Undergraduate Kinesiology Association, were in limbo, unsure whether they could travel to games, rent rehearsal space or provide outreach to students.
But in a meeting packed with activists on Tuesday, the student assembly voted to support a petition that restored the budget. And it rejected an opposing petition that would have sent most of the student government’s money to another university’s initiative in Gaza.
The fallout was immediate. Pro-Palestinian activists accused the assembly members of complicity in genocide.
“It’s scary for someone to be in your face,” said Tyler Watt, an assembly member who voted for the funding. “And at the end, they were kind of mobbing us. They were literally in our faces.”
Assembly members said that campus security officers escorted some of them home, but that no one was hurt.
Tensions had already been high. Earlier Monday, the words “intifada” and “coward” were painted on the home of Santa J. Ono, the university president. The home of Erik Lundberg, the university’s chief investment officer, was vandalized on Monday.
The university administration, Alifa Chowdhury, the student government president, and Elias Atkinson, the vice president, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In taking over the student government, the activists at the University of Michigan seemed to have found a novel form of dissent. Yet, their effort may not be any more persuasive than the encampments that took over campuses, including Michigan’s, last spring.
Michigan’s administration has already said that divestment is off the table, and it had stepped in to loan money to student groups for their activities.
There are also signs of impatience with the activists. Over the last four months, the assembly passed two budgets, which were then vetoed by the student government’s president. In each case, the pro-budget assembly members were unable to corral enough votes to override the inevitable vetoes by Ms. Chowdhury.
This time, there was a change in tactics. In a maneuver that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson might applaud, Liam Reaser, a junior, circulated a petition that collected enough student signatures to prevent a veto according to student government rules. The assembly needed only a simple majority of votes to pass it.
“My impression is that most people on campus don’t really care about student politics, but started to care about it when the vital services we’ve provided for years were interrupted,” Mr. Reaser wrote in a statement to The Times.
The activists countered with an opposing petition, which proposed sending $440,000 from the fall budget — which is around $500,000 — to the Rebuilding Hope initiative, which aims to restore higher education in Gaza and is led by Birzeit University, a school in the West Bank. Many student assembly members said they were unsure whether it was feasible, or even legal, to send almost half a million dollars overseas.
On Tuesday night, however, Ala Alazzeh, an assistant professor at Birzeit, called in to the meeting, urging them to act. “There is an ethical responsibility and ethical obligation from our side, as well as from international scholars and students, to support higher education institutions in Gaza,” he said.
More than 30 activists, many draped in kaffiyehs, also read accounts from students in Gaza, held moments of silence for those killed in the war and called their peers in the assembly “cowards.”
After more than an hour of debate, Ms. Chowdhury, the assembly’s president, urged support for the petition.
“I don’t know why you can’t be just a little braver and a little bolder and just vote with your conscience and try your best,” Ms. Chowdhury said.
The petition failed, 22 to 16.
After the vote, student assembly members said, activists hurled insults and spit at a student. At least one representative, they said, was personally escorted out by security for safety.
The activists have said they will keep trying to send money to Gaza, and the petition is likely to re-emerge for another vote this fall. If the measure passed, it would mean the same funds would be allocated twice.
That’s an issue for another time, said Hayley Bedell, the elections director of the student government.
But, she acknowledged, “It’s a bit of a conundrum.”
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