Yesterday evening, this university’s Student Government Association shelved a controversial ‘divestment bill’ that calls on the campus administration to cut ties with companies “engaged in human rights violations.”
Campus Jewish organizations came out strongly against the bill, calling it a veiled attempt to advance the cause of BDS — boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel — on Maryland’s campus.
“Together, we have achieved something rare among universities today. We beat BDS twice this year,” said Jewish Student Union Vice President Emma Steinhause in a statement following the resolution’s failure. “This is a testament to all of you and our amazing, amazing community.”
The bill, introduced at the start of October, bore resemblance to a proposed resolution from last semester that called on the university to divest from companies facilitating “severe violations of international law and human rights.”
Last year’s bill met similar opposition from pro-Israel students, and was eventually rejected in a SGA general body meeting.
Prior to the vote on Wednesday, this semester’s bill had to pass through a few committees, namely the Civic Engagement & Governmental Affairs Committee and the Student Affairs Committee in order to advance to the general body meeting.
Since both committees allow participation from the entire student body, pro-Israel students quickly mobilized to gain voting rights in both, and managed to thwart the resolution in the former committee.
Pro-Israel students’ success meant that when last night’s general body meeting considered passing the divestment bill, legislators had to first overturn a negative report issued by the Civic Engagement & Governmental Affairs Committee.
But the vote to overturn never materialized, and most legislators chose to approve the report in a narrow 19-17-2 decision, effectively axing the bill.
Before the vote was held, students gave speeches discussing the merits and shortcomings of the bill. Despite the resolution’s broad language, the public comments zeroed in on Israel, the ongoing Gaza war and campus antisemitism.
Meirav Solomon discussed her prior experience in SGA and recounted that during campus elections last year, pro-Palestine campus elements circulated a “blacklist” dissuading students from voting for certain candidates based on their purported human rights stances.
According to Solomon, the list crudely profiled candidates with “Jewish-sounding names,” and most students denounced by the document had never voiced a public opinion on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The students who spoke in opposition to the divestment bill made arguments about how it divides communities and makes Jewish and Israeli communities on campus feel unsafe.
Mia Mikowski who transferred to this university due to the antisemitism she experienced at her prior school, gave an impassioned speech recounting a conversation overheard from fellow students about how to “deal with greedy f*cking Jews.”
Mikowski stressed that the students referred to “not Zionists, not Israelis, [but] Jews.”
The students arguing in favor of divestment talked about the University’s ties to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and other defense contractors that are displayed on UMD’s engineering building. They used this fact as their reasoning for why the University is complicit in the “genocide of Palestine.”
One of the more passionate speeches in favor of divestment talks came from Daniela Colombi with the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
She began by discussing Trump’s electoral victory earlier this week, insisting the results of fascism could be counteracted by divesting from what she called “mass murder” — referencing Israel’s war in Gaza.
Colombi accused Zionists of fighting “tooth and nail against genocide in Palestine,” rebuking opponents’ claims that the bill was unproductive or a waste of time.
A student who declined to give her name derided SGA, urging them not to be “neutral” in the face of injustice. Concerns about “divisiveness,” she argued, are incomparable to “violence, colonialism, and capitalism.”
The anonymous speaker went on to dismiss calls for peace by pro-Israel students as mere lip service.
“I don’t want peace, I want justice,” she proclaimed.
Speakers opposing the bill alleged that some of its clauses may defund resources meant for students at the university.
A Jewish student named Tali, who did not provide her last name, argued that the bill’s Clause 17, which urges divestment from “community corrections” services, may lead to the defunding of campus mental health and substance abuse programs.
