The Student Government Association at the University of Maryland, College Park, a public school, passed a resolution on Wednesday night, endorsing a boycott of Israel, the Diamondback, a student newspaper, reported.
The final vote passed 29-0, with one abstention, at the start of Yom Kippur, one of the most sacred days on the Jewish calendar. The vote was initially slated for Rosh Hashanah, a two-day holiday that is also among the most sacred times on the calendar but was later rescheduled for Wednesday.
With the resolution’s passage, the association will call on the state university and its charitable foundation to cease ties with any organization that supports or profits from “Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation,” which includes “boycotting goods, services and academic partnerships linked to complicit institutions.”
The resolution also demands that the university “create a student oversight committee to prevent complicity in human-rights violations,” according to the Diamondback.
Rebecca Aloisi, senior director of university communications, told JNS that “resolutions voted on by the Student Government Association are student-led and reflect the perspectives of voting members of the SGA. They have no bearing on university policy or practice.”
Many Jewish students and community members stated they were unable to participate in the association’s “democratic process” due to the vote taking place on Yom Kippur. Additionally, local Jewish organizations, including the Maryland Hillel, criticized it for holding the vote on a major Jewish holiday.
“We are deeply dismayed that this hateful BDS resolution not only passed but was deliberately scheduled on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, to exclude Jewish students,” Ari Israel, executive director of Maryland Hillel, told JNS.
“This is a failure to reject antisemitism and only seeks to marginalize the Jewish community on our campus,” Israel said.
The latest action follows a campus-wide referendum held in April, in which the majority of students at the school voted in favor of divestment from Israel.
In September, the association passed a resolution, 25-1, to call on the school to “formally and publicly acknowledge the ongoing situation in Gaza as a genocide” and to “issue a public statement urging for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.”
