The Shut It Down Strategy at the University of Michigan

This is a really interesting article about goings-on at the University of Michigan, where a "Shut It Down" party won effective control of the campus student government in elections last spring (they have the presidency and vice presidency, and 22 of 45 student council seats). They ran on a platform of refusing to distribute student activity money unless and until the university administration acts on their demands for divestment. The funds not being dispersed include everything from subsidies for the airport shuttle to money for the Ballroom Dance team to rent rehearsal space. As many of the effected groups have noted, these consequences tend to fall on the most vulnerable and marginal students (who are dependent on subsidies and support to access the full panoply of campus offerings).

As far as "protests" go, it's hard to argue that this one is out-of-bounds. The students who ran on the shut it down platform made no secret about what they planned to do, and they were able to convince enough of their peers to vote for them (I don't know if 20% turnout is low or not for a student government election, where turnout often is thin even by America's comparatively low bar). "Democracy," as the saying goes, "is the theory that the people know what they want and deserve to get it, good and hard." We know well that political movements predicated on anti-"establishment" backlash and throwing sand in the gears of the "system" can generate genuine appeal -- at least temporarily -- and so too here. Whether that enthusiasm is sustainable once the machine actually starts sputtering to a halt is another question.

Practically speaking, the most obvious strategic analogue for what the students are doing is the recent choices of House Republicans, who have also regularly threatened to shut down government unless their political rivals cede to their demands. It is not clear, to say the least, that this strategy has worked out for the GOP -- either materially or politically -- and there are some reasons to think it will be even less successful in this context.

For one, House Republicans had the "advantage" of genuinely not caring about all the suffering their chaos play was going to cause. That sociopathic lack of empathy may or may not characterize the student political leadership at Michigan; it is quite plausible to me that they will feel more pressure to back down if and when the consequences of their defunding start to actually land on their fellow students. And I should be clear that when I say this sort of strategy isn't "out-of-bounds", I mean that it doesn't break any formal rules. Obviously, one can still criticize it for how it hurts vulnerable student in order to (perhaps not even effectively!) make a predominantly symbolic statement about a war occurring thousands of miles away.

For two, I don't see where the actual leverage over the university administration comes from. The tangible pain the Shut It Down caucus is proliferating falls almost entirely on the heads of students -- it doesn't (arguably in contrast to some of the protest activities) make the administration's life significantly more difficult. Faced with student frustration over, say, airport shuttles that have doubled in price, they can pretty easily lean back and say "we hear you, and the student council can release those funds any time it wants." Fairly or not, the comparative lack of democratic accountability for the administration compared to the student council means that any student frustration will probably be channeled towards the student council, since they're the ones who can be most easily ousted and they're the ones who are most obviously holding up distribution of the funds.

Indeed, the article suggests that there's already been some kind of side deal where the central campus will fund the frozen student activities, with the promise that the student government will pay them back later. On the one hand, this insulates the Shut It Down caucus from the consequences of their demands, perhaps making their protest more sustainable over the long-term. On the other hand, it also obviates the theoretical leverage they're trying to exploit (i.e., immiserating the campus), returning the "protest" to the level of the near-totally symbolic (for what it's worth, the Shut It Down leaders appear to be opposed to this deal -- they do not want the pain to be symbolic).

So on the whole, I'm skeptical that this strategy will work, and I think there is a solid chance -- particularly if the funding freezes actually are allowed to play out -- that there will be a substantial backlash against the Shut It Down caucus whenever the next elections are. But as "protests" go, this one is clearly one that is playing inside the rules of the game. In contrast to "shout downs" or violent disruptions or indefinite occupations of campus buildings, there is absolutely no question that students are permitted to run for and win elections in their student government and then decide to freeze their own budgets. I'm very interested to see how this plays out.