The University of Maryland's(UMD) SGA passed a resolution on Wednesday with a vote of twenty-five to zero, with one abstention, according to The Daily Caller. The vote on the matter came after the university hosted three Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers at a Students Supporting Israel (SSI) event on campus back in October.
Aaron Bandler is U.S. national correspondent for the Jewish News Syndicate. He explained that anti-Israel groups were "up in arms" about the IDF guests.
"The SGA over the University of Maryland College Park is filled with a bunch of anti-Israel socialist members. They took up the complaints of the anti-Israel groups, and they passed this resolution,” informs Bandler. “What it says is that it calls on the university to not invite any and to ban any speakers from campus who are being investigated for or have been credibly accused of genocide."
Four people were reportedly detained by university police at the event after a protest started, but its reported that they were only detained for about an hour. It is per the universities’ policy, events are not supposed to be disrupted, with protesters only outside of the event or give them “a respectful hearing” if they protest inside the even space.
An SGA representative and UMD student claims that the university “protecting war criminals” instead of their students is a double standard. The SGA wrote in their resolution that the university should apologize to those they detained, and they want a meeting where they can demand a change in policy.
Part of the SGA's demands also include that the university "publicly acknowledge the harm caused by this event" and offer "an apology to the affected students and the wider campus community." Fortunately, UMD has said that the student government resolutions have no impact on university policy.
Bandler further says that this further shows the hostility that Israeli students face on the campus.
