The University of Maryland, College Park, vetoed the Student Government Association’s bylaw amendments that would have codified support for the movement to boycott Israel.
According to an undated letter that JNS viewed, Patty Perillo, vice president of student affairs for the public university, wrote to the student government that the amendments “contravene the nature and purpose of its governing document” and “bind future SGA administrations to certain, specified political or policy positions.”
Perillo cited an amendment barring the student government from spending student activity fund fees toward companies on the BDS movement’s list and another requiring the student government to advocate for the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, a nonprofit that manages the university’s investments, and the University System of Maryland Foundation, a nonprofit that manages the investments for the University of Maryland system, to divest from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s top 100 arms-producing and military services companies.
“Given the incompatibility of these amendments with the overarching function of the bylaws document, and to preserve the policy prerogatives of future SGA administrations, I must now, as a last resort, reject and otherwise veto the above-referenced proposed amendments,” Perillo wrote. (JNS sought comment from the student government.)
Katie Lawson, chief communications officer at the public school, confirmed the letter’s authenticity to JNS.
It was “the first time in more than six years that this authority was exercised,” she told JNS.
The veto was not due to “viewpoints being expressed,” she said.
“Rather, the proposed amendments sought to incorporate specific political and policy positions into the SGA’s foundational governing documents in a way that would bind future administrations,” she told JNS. “The veto reflected the determination that the bylaws should remain focused on the organization’s structure, governance and operations, while policy positions and advocacy priorities remain subject to the judgment of current and future elected student leaders.”
