The bill, which passed 18-1-1, urges the deans of both schools and the vice president of university relations to rename the Lockheed Martin Room, Lockheed Martin Partnership Suite, Lockheed Martin Lounge, BAE Systems Lab and Leidos Lab.

Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Leidos have all supplied weapons to the Israel Defense Forces that have been used to commit a genocide in Gaza, the resolution read.

“I think that these companies who are actively engaged in human rights violations, and make me sick to my stomach, should have their legacies remembered more so as that, than partners in research,” transportation and infrastructure committee co-director Shubh Agnihotri said.

[UMD SGA condemns student-hosted event with IDF soldiers, demands university issues apology]

Israel has killed more than 69,000 people in Gaza since it declared war on Hamas two years ago. A United Nations committee in September ruled Israel has committed a genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Agnihotri said the bill’s passage is following through on student voting in favor of multiple resolutions about divestment recently.

Last month, the SGA passed a resolution urging this university and its charitable foundation to disassociate from corporations, institutions and academic entities that “support or profit from Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation.” In May, students also passed a referendum in support of divesting from companies that may be implicated in human rights violations in places such as Palestine, Myanmar and the Philippines.

This university wrote in a statement to The Diamondback Wednesday that SGA resolutions have no bearing on university policy or practice.

Agnihotri said university administration took a long time to provide an accurate response to SGA members on who to contact about renaming the rooms.

“It’s meaningless to say it has no bearing on university policy or practice,” Agnihotri said. “How is SGA supposed to be an advocacy organization or any sort of voice that stands up for students, if the second that our values and administrators’ values are at a crossroads, they shut us out?”

[UMD Students for Justice in Palestine petitions to cancel even with IDF soldiers]

The resolution also cited how the University System of Maryland changed the football stadium’s name, previously after former university president Harry Clifton “Curley” Byrd, because he supported racial segregation. Former university president Wallace Loh supported the name change, The Diamondback previously reported.

Bill sponsor and engineering representative Nane Manukyan said the bill’s intention is to show the university what the SGA thinks.

“It opens the door for us to start having those conversations with the faculty,” Manukyan said.

The resolution also requires the vote results be published on SGA’s official Instagram account and be republished with student organization accounts, including the Asian American Student Union, Organization of Arab Students, Palestinian Cultural Club and this university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Manukyan said this emphasizes transparency and allows more students to learn about the resolution.

SGA also plans to send a letter to the deans of the colleges and the university relations vice president after the vote to officially request the renaming of the rooms.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 222-209 to pass a funding package to end the 43-day shutdown and fund the government until Jan. 30. President Donald Trump then signed the funding bill just hours after the House sent it to his desk.

At least 670,000 federal employees have been furloughed since the shutdown began on Oct. 1 and about 730,000 continued to work without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The shutdown has left many Americans without Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps, since the Trump administration cut off the program in response. Benefits will be restored, but it might take more than 24 hours in some states to receive benefits, the Associated Press reported.

[Trump administration demands state leaders undo full SNAP payments]

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a Wednesday statement that though the government has been reopened, healthcare costs will continue to rise and affect Maryland residents.

“Maryland is doing its job,” Moore said. “It’s time Donald Trump and Washington did theirs – without selling out the people they’re supposed to protect.”

Moore allocated $62 million to ensure full November SNAP benefits for Marylanders. He also declared a state of emergency to help address the impacts of the shutdown and issued $10 million in emergency funding to Maryland food security partners.

Maryland Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, who previously served as Prince George’s County executive, issued a joint statement on Oct. 30 with Maryland’s Democratic House representatives pledging support for Moore’s actions.

“We stand with the Governor and support this decision to help Marylanders put food on the table, as we continue fighting to reopen the government and end this shameful Republican shutdown,” the statement read.

University president Daryll Pines sent a letter to the University of Maryland community on Nov. 4 highlighting resources for students, faculty and staff to use during the pause in benefits, including the campus pantry.

Patrick O’Shea, this university’s vice president for research, shared in a statement just before the shutdown began that even after  the government shutdown ends, there will still be some delays in the federal government funding.

[UMD experts say worse political gridlock is contributing to government shutdown’s length]

During the shutdown, employees could not receive new federal awards and the proposal review process for principal investigators was delayed.

The new funding package will protect federal workers against further layoffs through January and guarantees pay for them once the shutdown is over.

The shutdown has also resulted in the mass delay and cancellation of flights, after an increase in unpaid air traffic controllers calling out of work due to financial pressure, the Associated Press reported on Nov. 7. The Federal Aviation Administration issued an order on Nov. 6 that significantly cut the number of flights at 40 “high impact” airports including Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Dulles International Airport and Reagan National Airport. Flight cuts will stay at six percent as employees return to work, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The resolutions, which both passed 25-0-1, come weeks after this university’s Students Supporting Israel chapter hosted three Israeli Defense Forces soldiers at an event on Oct. 21. Four people, including two protesters and two student journalists from Al-Hikmah, the university’s Muslim student newspaper, were detained by UMPD at the event, The Diamondback previously reported.

The first resolution demands that this university issue a formal apology to the detained students and journalists and hold a public meeting with university president Darryll Pines and the University of Maryland Police chief so students can express concerns and demand policy changes. It also demands the university publicly affirm its commitment to a law protecting student journalists, as well as implement training to UMPD and administrators on journalists’ rights.

The second resolution urges this university to condemn the hosting of the soldiers and change university policy so that student organizations and academic departments will not be able to host speakers who have been found, or are being actively investigated for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or systematic human rights violations. It also demands the university “publicly acknowledge the harm caused by this event and to issue an apology to the affected students and the wider campus community.”

The International Court of Justice is set to discuss if Israel has committed genocide since October 2023. A United Nations committee in September also ruled Israel committed a genocide in the Gaza Strip.

[UMPD detains protesters, student journalists outside event with IDF soldiers]

Zyad Khan, the sponsor of both resolutions, told The Diamondback he wants to see changes made in university policies so “genociders or any more criminals” are not allowed on campus.

He added that the Student Government Association does not want to limit free speech, but said student organizations inviting speakers to campus is a privilege that should “be given to people who are not war criminals.”

“It was a double standard that the university decided that it was worth university resources to protect war criminals rather than their own students, considering students who vocally spoke out against this event were detained,” the representative for the computer, mathematical and natural sciences college said.

Hasan Islam, who co-sponsored the resolution, told The Diamondback that UMPD intimidated the detained students and defended the soldiers. He also said he expects Pines and other university administrators to speak out about the event.

A statement from this university read that UMPD consistently upholds First Amendment rights, including freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

“University officials and UMPD cannot verify an individual’s intention to cover expressive activity as a journalist if they refuse to provide identification or credentials. In this case, the individual who claimed to be a journalist declined to give a name, student ID, or proof of publication,” the statement read.

One of the student journalists previously told The Diamondback they told police they were reporting on the protest. The journalist said they were never asked to provide media credentials, but officers asked for a university ID, which they did not provide. The journalist also said police officers did not ask them what media organization they were with.

[UMD Students for Justice in Palestine petitions to cancel event with IDF soldiers]

In videos obtained by The Diamondback, the student journalist can be heard telling the officers it seemed they were being held because the journalists were also students of color.

UMPD deferred all requests for comment to the university.

SGA president Dhruvak Mirani said from a moral point of view the invitation of the soldiers to campus was “abhorrent” and “grossly offensive.”

He also said he spoke to university police chief David Mitchell to gain clarity about the event. Mirani said university police aren’t always as transparent as they can be.

Mirani emphasized that he is not an expert on the powers and authority of the university and therefore can not speak on policy changes or university actions.

In an Instagram post Wednesday night, this university’s Students Supporting Israel chapter defended the event, stating that academic freedom and open discourse with people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives are essential to learning.

“The current SGA has repeatedly shown that they care more about their own agenda than the concerns of their constituents,” the post read. “We are tripling down on our goal to provide our community with a place for free, open, and healthy conversation and thought.”

Khan told The Diamondback that it’s also important that this university does not invest money in companies implicated in genocides or war crimes.

“What we want in the future is to not allow normalization of genocide,” Khan said. “And we want the full acknowledgement of the suffering the Palestinian people have been through.”

The resolution, which passed 27-0-1, stated that the Student Government Association will provide guidance and support to the College Park City Council student liaisons in order to pursue the passing of an early lease ordinance.

Nicholas DiSpirito, the student liaison to the City of College Park, said the early lease ordinance is necessary because landlords have made students and residents feel pressured into signing their leases early in the year.

[Here’s what UMD SGA leaders hope to accomplish this year]

“This affects everybody who rents in the city, and effectively, this ordinance would put an end to that practice completely,” the junior public policy major said.

Gavin Neubauer, the resolution’s sponsor, said he was asked to resign his lease at The Standard after only two weeks of living there.

“When people are respected and treated like adults, they are not asked to resign a lease for a place that they just moved into,” the senior public policy major and public policy representative said.

If passed, the ordinance would prohibit landlords from asking tenants to release their apartments until 180 days before their current lease expires, DiSpirito said. It is modeled after a similar policy in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan, according to city documents.

SGA president Dhruvak Mirani said an ordinance of this kind has been in the works since he introduced the policy to the council during his term as student liaison from 2023-2024.

“Right now the current pair of city council liaisons are doing a really phenomenal job bringing it to the forefront of the city council’s attention,” Mirani said.

DiSpirito added that passing the resolution in SGA is important because it represents support from the entire student body.

[UMD College Park student liaisons plan to focus on housing issues, civic engagement]

He’s also encouraging students to come to the council’s public hearing on Nov. 12 to testify about their own experiences with landlords. The city council values when residents share personal stories, he added.

Prior to the passage of the resolution, SGA authorized tabling events across campus to encourage students to testify in person or provide a written testimony that will be read aloud at the hearing, DiSpirito said.

The association also created a post on their Instagram account that provides information about the early lease ordinance and the link to a Google Form that allows students to sign up to testify.

Mirani said he will be testifying on behalf of SGA at the public hearing to share why the association is in favor of the ordinance.

“The support that we’re going to be providing is really summoning the stakeholders involved in proving to the city council why this is so important,” Mirani said.

The public hearing for the early lease ordinance will be on Nov. 12. The city council will likely vote on the ordinance that same night.

University of Maryland president Darryll Pines wrote in a memo that he was disappointed SGA held a vote for a boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution on the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.

At its general body meeting Oct. 1, the Student Government Association passed a resolution urging this university and its charitable foundation to disassociate from corporations, institutions and academic entities that “support or profit from Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation.”

SGA legislators passed the resolution on Yom Kippur, which sparked outrage from this university’s Jewish community and outside advocacy organizations. Some said they felt the move affected their ability to participate in SGA’s democratic process.

SGA allowed proxy voting and opened a form for students to submit concerns with the resolution. It also held two committee meetings in the days before the legislature’s vote for student perspectives. Only SGA legislators were able to vote on the resolution on Oct. 1.

The university president wrote in a memo to SGA president Dhruvak Mirani that the group was not being “as inclusive as possible and as accommodating as possible.”

“We hope that going forward, the SGA will be more inclusive with broader stakeholder groups of the community,” Pines told The Diamondback Wednesday.

[UMD SGA passes boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution on Yom Kippur]

Pines and Mirani discussed the vote’s timing during one of their regularly scheduled meetings on Monday. The university president sent the memo after the meeting. The university’s assistant president and chief of staff, Blakely Pomietto, also signed off on the memo.

In it, Pines wrote that he recognized that SGA is a self-governing body and that the organization followed its bylaws by allowing proxy voting. But Pines wrote he was disappointed the vote still happened on Yom Kippur against university administration’s advice.

Mirani said he set the agenda for his meeting with Pines and designated a portion of it to talking about the implications of the vote.

“I agree with the specific sentiment that we should be mindful of religious obligations,” Mirani said when The Diamondback asked how he felt about the memo. “I think the point is well taken, but it’s not necessarily the administration’s point to make.”

Mirani and SGA speaker of the legislature Diego Henriquez supported tabling the resolution last week so voting would occur after the holiday. But the motion to table failed with only two legislators voting in favor.

In a statement to The Diamondback, SGA executive vice president Riona Sheikh said there is a “double standard” when it comes to issues faced by Muslim students.

“Where was this ‘disappointment’ during the numerous times in the past when divestment votes were held during Ramadan and Eid?” Sheikh wrote. “Was there no need for a more inclusive vote then?”

[UMD SGA to consider boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution]

The memo also emphasized that SGA resolutions have no impact on university policy or practice and requested that Mirani share the contents of the memo with other SGA members. Sheikh wrote that the resolutions “undoubtedly have impacts on administration’s policies.”

“This is a shield they use to give themselves a false sense of security and a weak attempt to discourage students and the SGA from making our pro-human rights stance clear,” Sheikh wrote.

Mirani told The Diamondback that he did not expect Pines to ask him to share a message with SGA.

Mirani presented a screenshot of the memo from Pines during the SGA’s general body meeting Wednesday night for the legislature to read. He told members that university administration was asking about moving the date the resolution was voted on for multiple weeks.

Any SGA follow-up initiatives or actions depend on the resolution’s sponsors, Mirani said.

When asked about the administrators’ memo, resolution co-sponsor Daniela Colombi told The Diamondback in a statement that “we have the utmost responsibility and urgency to fight against the US-Israeli siege, occupation, and genocide.”

“Palestine needs total liberation, ceasefire is ridiculously below the bare minimum,” the computer, mathematical and natural sciences college representative wrote.

Zyad Khan, the resolution’s other co-sponsor, declined to comment.

Assistant news editor and administration reporter Sam Gauntt interviewed university president Darryll Pines for this story.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to include a statement from SGA executive vice president Riona Sheikh.

The University of Maryland SGA passed a boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution Wednesday that urges this university and its charitable foundation to disassociate from companies, institutions and academic entities that “support or profit from Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation.”

The Student Government Association is now set to call on this university and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation to implement boycott, divestment and sanctions policies against all companies that supply weapons, surveillance technologies or infrastructure “supporting Israeli occupation, apartheid, and settler-colonialism.”

The final vote, which passed 29-0-1, on the resolution took place on the night of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. Many Jewish community members said the scheduling restricted them from participating in the SGA’s democratic process.

“Holding a vote that seeks to demonize the Jewish homeland on a day when Jewish students will not be able to participate is exclusionary, biased and flat-out wrong,” read a statement from Ari Israel, executive director of Maryland Hillel, posted on the Campus for All Instagram page ahead of the vote.

[UMD SGA to consider boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution]

Under the resolution, SGA will also demand that the university create a student oversight committee to prevent complicity in human rights violations.

The resolution was originally scheduled to be introduced at the Sept. 17 SGA meeting and voted on last week, during the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. SGA held two committee meetings on Monday and Tuesday where students could voice their concerns.

More than a dozen Jewish student organizations at this university posted a joint statement on Instagram on Sept. 18 that said they would boycott all future SGA meetings on the issue.

This week, Jewish Insider, a news publication, and advocacy organization Jewish on Campus posted on social media about the significance of the date of Wednesday’s vote.

The social media account Stop Antisemitism also made a post on Tuesday night telling future employers to take note of four SGA members they claimed enabled the choice to hold the votes on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The post included the names and photos of president Dhruvak Mirani, executive vice president Riona Sheikh and the diversity, equity and inclusion committee directors.

After seeing the post, Mirani said he feared for the members’ safety. He added that none of the members, including himself, had any direct involvement in the resolution.

Mirani and speaker of the legislature Diego Henriquez supported tabling the resolution so voting would occur next week.

“I think the bill should have been tabled until after the Jewish holidays,” Mirani said.

But, he continued, he doesn’t think tabling the resolution would’ve impacted the outcome of the vote.

A legislator motioned to table the resolution at Wednesday’s meeting. The motion failed with only two legislators voting in favor.

Sheikh wrote in a statement to The Diamondback that she has no power over when bills are voted on and that SGA provided numerous accommodations for legislators practicing Yom Kippur to vote. The association has voted on divestment resolutions during Muslim holidays multiple times, Sheikh added.

“The unsettling amount of scrutiny put on this SGA’s administration is a clear act of racism and Islamophobia towards what is probably the most people of color and Muslims the SGA has ever seen,” Sheikh wrote. “To misconstrue the SGA’s actions as antisemitism is obviously a desperate attempt to discredit a bill that simply condemns massacring innocent people.”

[SGA resolution demands UMD recognize Israel’s offensive in Gaza as genocide]

Resolution sponsor Zyad Khan said proxy voting and an online student concern form provided opportunities for students and legislators not able to attend the meeting to have their voices heard.

“The priority for us was to make sure that there was accommodations, and I believe SGA did provide them,” the representative for the computer, mathematical and natural sciences college said.

Abel Amene, a senior economics and physics major, testified in favor of the resolution at the beginning of the meeting.

“I know some Zionists and Jewish exceptionalists have claimed that today is not the day to bring this resolution to a vote,” Amene said. “But I ask you this simple question, if the genocide is occurring on a Jewish holiday … should we wait until tomorrow or the next day to do the little work we can do in our power to stop that genocide?”

Last April, students voted in favor of divestment in a campuswide referendum. This is the first time SGA has voted on a resolution with divestment since the referendum. Similar resolutions failed to pass in 2017, 2019 and 2024.

University president Darryll Pines said in an interview with The Diamondback last week that the university supports student dialogue on the issue as long as the process is “open and fair and has dialogue from all parties of our broad student body.”

This university did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s vote before publication. The University of Maryland College Park Foundation directed all comments to the university.

Khan said the passage of the resolution was the bare minimum. He added that the SGA has a responsibility to tell the university they do not want partnerships with “corporations that just are profiting off the suffering of other individuals in the name of security or defense.”

“The [people of Gaza] have gone through two years … of genocide,” the senior computer science major said. “And the fact that this took so long, when this bill was introduced back in 2017 is a shame.”

Assistant news editor and administration reporter Sam Gauntt interviewed university president Darryll Pines for this story. Staff writer Sanya Wason contributed reporting.

This story has been updated.

The resolution was introduced at the Student Government Association’s Wednesday meeting. If passed, SGA would urge the university and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation to implement boycott, divestment and sanction policies against companies and institutions “complicit in the oppression of Palestinians.”

The association would also demand the university create a process for student oversight on investments and partnerships to ensure it isn’t “complicit in violations of international law and human rights, including those perpetrated against the Palestinian people.”

“We’re dealing with a very urgent situation in Palestine,” said Daniela Colombi, the resolution’s cosponsor. “This phase of a U.S.-Israeli genocide that our university is complicit in has been going on for almost two years.”

This is the first time SGA will consider a resolution about divestment since students voted in support of divestment in a campuswide referendum last April. Other divestment resolutions failed to advance through SGA in 2017, 2019 and 2024.

Colombi, a senior astronomy and physics major, said the new resolution holds more weight than the referendum in the spring. The computer, mathematical and natural sciences college SGA representative added that the resolution was able to include more information about the issue, while the referendum was more vague.

This university wrote in a statement to The Diamondback that SGA’s debate and decision will have no bearing on university policy or practice. The University of Maryland College Park Foundation directed all comments to the university.

In an interview with The Diamondback on Wednesday, university president Darryll Pines said the university supports students’ right to discuss the issue. But he said the university wants to ensure the process is “open and fair and has dialogue from all parties of our broad student body.”

The resolution was first supposed to be presented last week and voted on at Wednesday’s meeting, which falls during the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. The resolution was removed from the agenda shortly before last week’s meeting.

Several of this university’s Jewish student organizations posted a joint statement on Instagram last week that said SGA’s actions this year have “marginalized Jewish voices and aim to harm Jewish life on campus.”

Jewish Student Union president Lucy Schneider told The Diamondback on Thursday that boycott, divestment and sanction resolutions are often problematic because there’s “antisemitic rhetoric embedded into BDS resolutions that make it harder for Jewish students and Israeli students to feel comfortable on campus.”

Schneider said SGA’s decision to vote on a separate emergency resolution last week and bypass the organization’s usual voting process meant student voices weren’t being heard. SGA ultimately passed that resolution, which called on this university to recognize Israel’s offensive in Gaza as a genocide.

[SGA resolution demands UMD recognize Israel’s offensive in Gaza as genocide]

Maryland Hillel, the Jewish Student Union and other community organizations wrote in last week’s statement that they will not attend any student government meetings on the topic.

“We will not legitimize the efforts of any SGA members’ one-sided, anti-Israel, and antisemitic agenda,” the statement read. “We remain committed to debate and dialogue when they are conducted in good faith.”

Schneider, a junior communication major, added that voting on the resolution is not worth the community’s time because of this university’s previous statements that SGA’s voting will not change its actions.

The proposed resolution also calls on the university to disclose its investments.

It mentions Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin as two companies who supply weapons, surveillance technology or other infrastructure used by Israel that this university should boycott and divest from.

The two companies gave the university more than $46 million dollars from 2010 to November 2023, The Diamondback previously reported. A majority of the donations and research funding was given to the engineering school.

[UMD SGA passes act urging university to recognize Graduate Labor Union]

SGA’s diversity, equity and inclusion and student affairs committees are set to discuss and vote on the resolution next week.

At SGA’s general body meeting on Sept. 10, the legislature approved a change to its bylaws that makes it easier for students to vote in committees.

All undergraduate students may now vote in a nonbinding student vote at their first committee meeting. The student vote can be adopted as the official committee report with a two-thirds vote from the legislature.

If the resolution receives favorable committee reports, it could be voted on by the SGA legislature as soon as next week.

SGA Speaker of the Legislature Diego Henriquez announced on Wednesday that he will allow proxy voting for the next general body meeting. The process lets legislators who are unable to attend the meeting send in their votes by emailing him, he said.

This decision came after legislators expressed concerns that they could not attend the meeting due to it being the night before Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday.

Proxy votes are not counted if substantial amendments are made to the bill, Henriquez said.

Assistant news editor and administration reporter Sam Gauntt interviewed university president Darryll Pines for this story.

The resolution came in response to a United Nations commission report released Tuesday that urged Israel and all countries to fulfill their obligations under international law “to end the genocide” in Gaza and punish those responsible for it. The Student Government Association approved the resolution nearly unanimously, with 25 representatives voting in favor, one opposed and one abstention.

“The SGA calls upon the UMD administration to issue a public statement urging for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, in alignment with its stated humanitarian and equitable values,” the resolution reads.

SGA demands statements from university administration that “publicly acknowledge the ongoing situation in Gaza as a genocide” in the resolution. The association will also advocate to establish a fund and support system for Palestinians in the university community, according to the resolution.

[UMD students express hope, fear after SGA divestment referendum passed]

It also urges university administration to condemn Israeli attacks and human rights violations in Lebanon. The resolution cites an Israeli attack last September on Hezbollah, a militant group that fired rockets into Israel nearly daily for a year in support of Palestinians in Gaza, the Associated Press reported. Israel’s attack exploded thousands of people’s pagers in Lebanon, leaving more than 3,000 people injured and killing 12.

“Calling on our university to make a statement on it is crucial, because of the Palestinian students that have lost their family and friends during this genocide,” said Zyad Khan, the resolution’s sponsor. “Their pain and suffering has not been acknowledged by the university.”

This university wrote in a statement to The Diamondback Wednesday evening that any resolution voted on by SGA will have no bearing on university policy or practice.

The resolution also referenced university student movements that successfully urged the University System of Maryland to cut financial ties with “companies complicit in human rights violations” from apartheid South Africa and Sudan.

Members of the United Nation’s International Committee of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel found Israel’s actions to meet four of the five criteria of a genocide established in the Genocide Convention. These include:

• Killing
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm
• Inflicting conditions meant to bring destruction
• Preventing births

Danny Meron, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, denied Israel has any genocidal intent, according to a news release from the United Nations.

Israel’s attacks have killed more than 65,000 people in Gaza since it declared war on Hamas nearly two years ago. Its war declaration came after Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 more people hostage.

[UMD students vote in support of divestment referendum]

Rumaysa Drissi, one of the SGA’s off-campus commuter representatives, thought it was important that the resolution was considered an emergency and voted on so quickly. Israel’s war in Gaza has been an emergency for two years but nothing has been done, the junior public health major added.

The bill was not discussed or debated during the general body meeting due to its emergency status.

“Now that [the United Nations] finally acknowledged it as a genocide, it might start helping to shift people’s perspectives, and hopefully the university as well,” said Jenna Awadallah, a sophomore physiology and neurobiology major and off-campus commuter representative.

A public statement is just the first step that needs to be taken by the university, said Khan, a senior computer science major and computer, mathematics and natural sciences college representative.

Another resolution calling on the university and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation to sever financial ties with companies that enable Israel’s violations of international law was originally set to be presented at this meeting. It was removed from the agenda before the meeting.

The resolution said the Student Government Association is against the representatives’ presence because of their political actions and legacies that are tied to the advancement of war and human rights violations. It passed in a 20-5-3 vote.

Hoyer is set to come to The Hotel at the University of Maryland on Friday for the 2025 Women’s Equality Day Luncheon. The event will feature Pelosi as a keynote speaker.

This is the 23rd year Hoyer has hosted a luncheon for Women’s Equality Day.

[Here’s what UMD SGA leaders hope to accomplish this year]

Andrey Chernyak, the resolution’s sponsor, said welcoming Pelosi and Hoyer “goes against SGA’s goal of having everybody on campus feel safe and welcome.”

The resolution listed multiple actions taken by Hoyer and Pelosi that “contributed to systemic harm.”

It cited Hoyer’s vote in support of a 2023 bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that supported Israel “as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists.” SGA legislators also said Pelosi contributed to harm when she said without evidence that protestors calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas may have ties to Russia.

“The SGA condemns the normalization of welcoming political figures whose legacies are defined by oppression, corruption, and complicity in injustice,” the resolution reads.

SGA executive vice president Riona Sheikh told the legislature that voting in support of the bill would express the group’s disapproval of people who have supported Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

During the meeting, Shulamit Frenkel, a former SGA student affairs co-director and parliamentarian, said SGA is a non-political entity but the resolution seemed “exclusively political.”

[UMD students vote in support of divestment referendum]

The resolution did not cite any goals or initiatives for student wellbeing, the senior criminology and criminal justice major said. There was no way to ensure this resolution represented the feelings of the entire student body, Frenkel added.

Rumaysa Drissi, a bill cosponsor, defended the emergency vote.

“This is affecting us right now, and if you did it next week, it would be completely pointless,” the junior public health science major and off-campus commuter representative said.

Zach Cecere, a sophomore government and politics and Russian major who serves as a behavioral and social sciences representative, thought the resolution contradicted the concept of free speech.

“SGA shouldn’t be using its power to decide what opinions are allowed on or even like near UMD,” he said.

Although she could not vote on the bill, Sheikh said that the resolution’s passage is a testament to the SGA’s commitment to upholding human rights. She added that the decision reflects the opinion of the student body, as they elected the legislators who voted.

“This was an excellent show of how the legislators are representing what the student body wants,” speaker of the legislature Diego Henriquez said.

Staff writer Amelia Twyman contributed reporting.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misspelled Rumaysa Drissi’s name. A previous version of this story also misstated that Shulamit Frenkel is a SGA Stamp student advisory board liaison. This story has been updated.

University of Maryland SGA leaders hope to create changes on campus and beyond during the upcoming academic year.

The Student Government Association’s executives shared some of their plans with The Diamondback.

Influencing legislation

The SGA’s liaisons to the College Park City Council are pushing for an early lease ordinance, which would prevent city landlords from pushing students to sign new leases for the coming year immediately after they move in, said SGA president Dhruvak Mirani.

The senior computer science and international relations major said leasing timelines in College Park are predatory and not in students’ best interests.

The council agreed to draft an ordinance at a work session on Sept. 2, he said.

[Here are some of the bills UMD SGA passed this year]

The SGA also plans to create bills to improve life for students on campus and find lawmakers in the Maryland General Assembly willing to sponsor them in the state legislature, Mirani said.

In past years, the SGA has taken stances on Maryland General Assembly bills and brought Maryland Dairy ice cream to legislators, but Mirani wants to make more of an impact.

“I think it is a shared goal among most members of our SGA, despite folks getting elected from different tickets, so really making sure that we are taking a proactive approach, not a reactive approach, to local and state legislation,” Mirani said.

Divestment

Students at this university voted in favor of a divestment referendum in April’s SGA elections. The referendum called for the University System of Maryland Foundation and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation to cut financial ties from companies implicated in human rights violations.

The university and the foundations have been reluctant to listen to students, SGA vice president Riona Sheikh said, but the student government will continue to make its stance known.

This university declined to provide comment for this story. The university system deferred comment to the university system foundation, which did not respond to a request for comment. The University of Maryland College Park Foundation deferred to this university for comment.

“Students have a lot more power than we think we do, even if administrators can say that a referendum doesn’t impact their policy, ultimately, they serve us as the students,” said Sheikh, a junior international relations major.

[UMD students vote in support of divestment referendum]

SGA plans to spread awareness about Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and keep having conversations with university administration, said Diego Henriquez, speaker of the legislature.

Henriquez, a junior environmental science and technology major, emphasized SGA was given a “clear mandate” by students to pursue divestment, and he plans to take that seriously.

Mirani said he plans to let the legislature decide how they want to propose bills regarding divestment. He said he appreciates the large amount of input the student body has given on the issue.

Accessibility and safety

The SGA plans to add an Accessibility and Disability Services seat in its legislature next year and hopes to find ways to incorporate student opinions into decisions the group makes, Sheikh said.

Every year, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee holds a safety walk and accessibility audit to find and address points on campus that can be safer and more accessible for students, Mirani said. SGA aims to ensure there are more spots on campus that also comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which sets rules for how public infrastructure should be accessible.

Members will highlight locations with insufficient lighting, lacking a crosswalk or having other issues, he added.

Mirani said one of his top priorities is to make sure “we are really being as accessible as can be for students with disabilities on campus.”

Booking of rooms for student groups

Mirani wants to work with university administration to improve the process for student groups to book meeting spaces on campus.

Students currently are limited to booking rooms in older academic buildings and must do so a week in advance.

Mirani has spoken to university president Darryll Pines about improving this process and allowing organizations to reserve spaces on shorter notice.

Dining Dollar exchange

Sheikh and Henriquez are also working on a program that would take students’ dining dollars that don’t roll over into the next semester and redistribute them to students in need.

This program would help address food insecurity within the student population instead of letting that money disappear, Henriquez said.