The University of Iowa’s Undergraduate Student Government passed legislation to allocate money to a number of different organizations on Tuesday night following an engaged debate over the government’s contingency fund. USG’s contingency fund supports large-scale projects that help university staff, students, and the community at large. The student government first voted to allocate $6,500 out.
Amid an ongoing process to improve current campus safety systems as a result of recommendations by the Reimagining Campus Safety Committee, the University of Iowa is beginning its search for a new assistant vice president and director of UI Public Safety.
UI students ensure representative for Jewish students
CLEO KREJCI, Iowa City Press-Citizen
April 23, 2021
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IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) Kendall Michaels was disturbed by years of anti-Semitic incidents she witnessed as a student at the University of Iowa.
She and other Jewish students recall being asked where their “horns” are, being afraid after a local Jewish student organization was vandalized during a Shabbat dinner, and, in Michaels’ case, seeing a fellow student’s Snapchat story with a swastika and the caption “I hate all Jews.”
This school year, Michaels decided to turn to her peers for help in making the campus more welcoming for Jewish students. She found allies in the student government, and they came up with a plan to add a representative on that body who could advocate for the university’s roughly 600 Jewish students.
Kendall Michaels was disturbed by years of anti-Semitic incidents she witnessed as a student at the University of Iowa.
She and other Jewish students recall being asked where their horns are, being afraid after a local Jewish student organization was vandalized during a Shabbat dinner, and, in Michaels case, seeing a fellow student s Snapchat story with a swastika and the caption I hate all Jews.
This school year, Michaels decided to turn to her peers for help in making the campus more welcoming for Jewish students. She found allies in the student government, and they came up with a plan to add a representative on that body who could advocate for the university s roughly 600 Jewish students.
A view of the University of Iowa campus (Wikimedia Commons/via JTA)
JTA When the University of Iowa student senate debated a bill to give special representation to Jews on campus, Nick Nachtman voted no.
Other minority groups had been given their own seats in the Undergraduate Student Government, chosen by their respective student organizations. The Jewish senator would be chosen by students at Hillel.
In Nachtman’s view, that was a problem.
“Unfortunately as I was researching Hillel International, I’ve seen quite a connection that holds a specifically positive view of the State of Israel,” said Nachtman, a first-year student at the university who is not Jewish. “I worry that having such a strong power connected to the people who are making this decision could influence them to hold a political belief in an office that shouldn’t have a political belief.”