By Sam Gauntt and Pera Onal
More than 650 University of Maryland students have signed a petition asking this university’s SGA to hold a campuswide vote on whether the University System of Maryland Foundation and University of Maryland College Park Foundation should divest from certain security, defense and military companies.
This university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter created the petition for a general vote, or referendum, earlier in November.
The referendum question would ask if the Student Government Association should begin lobbying this university, the University System of Maryland, the university system foundation and the UMCP foundation to divest from companies that may be implicated in human rights violations in places such as Palestine, Guatemala and Myanmar.
The petition, which comes after the SGA failed to advance a nearly identical resolution on Nov. 7, specified defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Students for Justice in Palestine board member Abel Amene, the sponsor of this semester’s divestment resolution, said the petition could increase voter turnout in this spring’s SGA election.
Amene said a vote on the petition question would likely be more representative of the student body’s opinion on divestment because more students can participate in the election than in SGA meetings.
“All of that should build political will for the SGA taking on divestment as its mandate,” the senior physics and economics major said.
[UMD SGA fails to advance resolution calling on divestment from defense companies]
Calls for divestment at this university have increased since Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, according to the Associated Press. Israel declared war on Hamas the next day and its military forces have killed more than 44,400 Palestinians in Gaza since, the Associated Press reported Monday.
Another SGA divestment resolution failed to advance in April, while others were struck down in 2017 and 2019, The Diamondback previously reported.
At least one percent of the university’s undergraduate population — more than 300 students — must sign Students for Justice in Palestine’s petition for the referendum question to be considered for the spring 2025 SGA election ballot.
After the petition gains the necessary signatures, the SGA’s governance board will verify the petition and contact five percent of signatories to confirm each signature’s authenticity.
If a petition is confirmed, the SGA legislature will then vote on whether to accept it as a resolution, according to SGA executive vice president Gannon Sprinkle.
But if the vote to create a resolution fails, a proposed ballot question will be added to the 2025 ballot as a referendum question unless the SGA legislature overturns placing the question on the ballot with a two-thirds majority, Sprinkle, a junior government and politics major, wrote in a statement to The Diamondback.
In a statement to The Diamondback, this university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter said the group will continue to push for divestment. The petition will show SGA legislators that this university’s student body supports divestment, the statement added.
“[SGA] can’t deny that students of all walks of life are in favor of stopping our university’s complicit actions in the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people and war crimes all across the globe,” the statement said.
Many students testified against this semester’s divestment resolution, saying it targeted the Jewish and Israeli communities on campus, The Diamondback reported earlier this month.
This university’s Jewish Student Union said in a statement to The Diamondback on Nov. 25 that the petition is not productive. The petition would marginalize Jewish community members on campus, the statement said.
[UMD SGA committee votes unfavorably on divestment resolution]
“The Jewish Student Union continues to seek dialogue, mutual understanding and cooperation — not divisive measures with no impact,” the statement read.
Students for Justice in Palestine board member Daniela Colombi said the ballot question would give students outside of the SGA a chance to be involved in the decision-making process. Educating students about the topic will be important in helping them feel a sense of urgency about the referendum, the junior physics and astronomy major added.
Holden Zeidman, a board member of this university’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, said although he was disappointed in the results of SGA’s divestment vote earlier this semester, the petition will make more students aware of the push for divestment at this university.
“We’re going to get the opportunity for every student who supports our cause, every student who wants to end this university’s complicity in human rights violations and genocide, the chance to have that voice heard,” the senior mathematics and secondary education major said.
This university, the university system, the university system foundation and the UMCP foundation did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
