The Student Government Association at the University of Maryland, College Park passed a resolution on Wednesday calling for the public school to ban former Israeli soldiers from speaking on campus.
The resolution, which JNS viewed, “vehemently” condemned an Oct. 21 event in which the Students Supporting Israel chapter on campus brought three former Israeli soldiers to speak.
The student government voted to call on the university “to publicly acknowledge the harm caused by this event and to issue an apology to the affected students and the wider campus community.”
It also told the university to bar speakers who are being investigated for or found to have committed “genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or systematic human rights violations.” The resolution added that the International Court of Justice has said it is “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The resolution passed 25 to 0 with one abstention, the Diamondback, a student paper, reported.
Katie Lawson, chief communications officer for the University of Maryland, College Park told JNS that the student government’s resolutions “are student-led and reflect perspectives of voting members of the SGA.
“They have no bearing on university policy or practice,” she said.
Ari Israel, executive director of Maryland Hillel, told JNS the organization is “deeply disappointed” that the student government passed the resolution. (There are 6,500 Jewish students at the school, according to the Hillel, which says it is affiliated with more than 25 Jewish student groups.)
“We proudly support bringing IDF soldiers to campus and connecting students with Israel, our ancestral Jewish homeland,” the executive director said. “We are troubled that the SGA continues to promote divisive measures that target specific communities and hinder good-faith dialogue across differences.
“This symbolic resolution fosters hate and division rather than the open exchange of ideas that should define our university,” he added.
