The Divestment Resolution calling for the University of
Michigan (Ann Arbor) to divest from companies violating Palestinian human
rights was “postponed
indefinitely” by a vote of 21-15-1. As the voting drew to a close, student
representatives at the Central Student Government chose to delay a claim for
justice through the façade of uncertainty and lack of “real” power. Students
should only care for “student issues,” claimed one student representative while
another underscored they were not the United Nations. Those who favored
postponement bracket the University and themselves from the rest of society and
the international flows of power. In the minds of these representatives it
seems that students must refrain from becoming engaged in the social and
political struggles around them. Perhaps, they imagine themselves above these.
Forgotten is the articulation of universities as projects
meant to instill notions of proactive, responsible citizenship and as spaces
for the production and contestation of knowledge. Instead, what we saw last
night was the university as an apparatus of empire. The resolution to postpone
the decision was a tactical move to annihilate debate, as the continuous maneuvers
policing who could speak, who could not and for how long showed. “You are out
of order” became a privileged trope throughout the meeting. Student attendees,
most of them supporters of the Divestment Resolution, were told to remain
silent; they where threatened with outright exclusion from upcoming meetings. Student
activists and supportive representatives were subjected to the rigors of
business as usual. Empire, as Amy Kaplan has argued, emerges through chaos or
the troubles of creating order. In a move to organize chaos, boundaries were delineated
marking the space for those allowed to speak. The rest were left out.
As I watched the live stream I wondered about the fact that Michigan
represents itself as a
global institution serving “the people of Michigan and the world through
preeminence in creating, communicating, preserving and applying knowledge, art,
and academic values, and in developing leaders and citizens who will challenge
the present and enrich the future.” Can students fulfill this mission if they are
constantly told to keep silent or if debate is disallowed from moving forward? Some
student representatives last night led the charge in diverting their gaze from
injustice and human rights violations as they cast it towards the depoliticized
imaginary of “student issues.”
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| Credit Terra Molengraff / The Michigan Daily |
One last thing comes to mind from the CSG’s resolution to
indefinitely postpone the Divestment Resolution. It is a defense of privilege,
a privilege that resists any attempt at undoing and dismantling the structures
of racism, injustice, and violence. It should not be forgotten that this
decision comes on the tails of resurgent student activism by students of color
who have mobilized against racism and institutional failures in granting them
access to public higher education.[1]
Education, justice, and human rights – something the Law representative who
moved for the postponement of the resolution failed to acknowledge (oh, cruel
irony!) – are issues very much on the table right now and student activists
will continue to bring attention to them. The subjective and systemic violence
of Israeli apartheid was let off the hook as the subjective and systemic
violence of structural racism continues to thrive in the imperial university.
[1] Two examples are the
Coalition for Tuition Equality and the United Coalition for Racial Justice.
