Acker, a forty-two-year-old Jewish Democrat, was in his first term as regent of the University of Michigan at the time. The role is a peculiarity of Michigan politics. Regents govern part of the state’s public-university system, but the position is partisan: candidates are nominated by their party, then elected in a statewide popular vote. Acker is a vocal supporter of Israeli statehood, and, after October 7th, his tenure in office quickly became mired in fraught campus-protest politics.