The University of Maryland SGA’s civic engagement and governmental affairs committee voted Monday against a resolution calling on the University System of Maryland Foundation and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation to divest from certain security, defense and military companies.
The resolution, which failed 265-343-2, urges the foundations to withdraw investments from companies that violate international law and human rights in countries such as Palestine, Myanmar and the Philippines.
More than 500 students attended the committee meeting Monday. After Stamp Student Union’s Colony Ballroom reached maximum capacity, about 100 students were unable to enter the meeting, according to Student Government Association leadership.
Undergraduate students who attended the committee at least once before Monday were eligible to vote on the resolution.
The SGA legislature on Wednesday can either vote to uphold the committee’s unfavorable report with a simple majority, or vote to overturn the report with a two-thirds majority.
If the general body upholds the unfavorable committee report, the resolution will fail to advance. But if the general body overturns the report, which would require a two-thirds majority, it can vote on whether to pass the resolution.
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The university system foundation may be invested in companies implicated in “human rights violations,” including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, according to the resolution.
Support for divestment has increased over the past year after Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took about 250 people hostage in an Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the Associated Press reported. Israel declared war on Hamas the next day, and its military has since killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
If the resolution passes, the SGA will begin lobbying this university, the UMCP foundation, the university system and the university system foundation for divestment.
This university did not respond to The Diamondback’s request for comment in time for publication.
The University System of Maryland and the University System of Maryland Foundation did not respond to The Diamondback’s request for comment. The University of Maryland College Park Foundation deferred to this university.
Ten students were randomly selected to testify on the resolution — seven speaking in favor and three speaking against. Some argued this university is complicit in human rights violations through its investments, while others expressed concerns the resolution would alienate this university’s Jewish community.
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Sophomore information science major Sarah Edwan spoke in favor of the resolution during two committee meetings on Monday.
“I don’t think it’s right for any student to be complicit in genocide, and I don’t think it’s right for [this university] to be complicit in genocide,” Edwan told The Diamondback after the hearings. “They need to cut all ties with weapons manufacturers.”
Junior hearing and speech sciences major Claire Roffman said during the hearing that the divestment resolution would be “counterproductive to our collective goal of Israelis and Palestinians coexisting in peace.”
Roffman added the resolution would further divide students and increase discrimination against Jewish students.
At an earlier meeting Monday, the resolution’s secondary committee — the student affairs committee — voted in favor of the measure. The diversity, equity and inclusion committee, the resolution’s tertiary committee, also voted in favor of the measure during its weekly meeting Tuesday.
The resolution’s sponsor, senior economics and physics major Abel Amene, said the votes from secondary and tertiary committees have some influence on how the legislature will vote, but aren’t the “deciding factor.”
The SGA failed to advance a similar divestment resolution in April, which called on this university and the university system to divest from “companies engaged in human rights violations,” The Diamondback previously reported. Similar divestment resolutions did not pass in 2017 and 2019.
Junior staff writer Sanya Wason contributed to this report.
