The student government at Catholic University of America, a private school in Washington, founded by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, voted down a resolution that would have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred.
The senate of the school’s student government voted 14-7 against the resolution, with one abstention, via secret ballot, according to the Students Supporting Israel chapter on campus.
Felipe Avila, president of the chapter and a student senator, stated that “we witnessed senators on the floor of our own student government denying the Jewish people’s long history of discrimination and struggle.” (JNS sought comment from the student government.)
“To have our peers legitimize these tropes and then, in the same breath, refuse to even adopt the IHRA definition is a chilling and profound moral failure,” said Avila, who sponsored the resolution.
