SGA under fire amid divestment bill voting confusion
Abel Amene at the UMD SGA General Board Meeting, Wednesday, Apr. 10, 2024 (Razak Diallo/The Black Explosion).
Students demanded transparency last Wednesday evening at the University of Maryland SGA’s General Board Meeting after learning they could not vote on the #DivestUMD bill.
The divestment bill is a resolution calling for UMD to “divest from companies engaged in Human Rights Violations,” assigned to the Student Affairs Committee, a committee addressing campus affairs, campus safety, and student support, and sponsored by Abel Amene, an Off-Campus Outlying Representative.
In UMD SGA’s bylaws, the Committee of Student Affairs is an open committee, defined as a committee “open to all undergraduate students enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park,” but “methods for quorum shall be established in advance at the discretion of the director of the committee.”
AJ Kanakry, a bill supporter and senior environmental science major, said that SGA bylaws could be confusing and make it difficult for him to participate in these committee meetings.
“I was told that once I attended two meetings, I would be allowed to vote,” Kanakry said, after he began attending Student Affairs for the divestment bill.
The member who reported this was Joslyn Kim, SGA’s South Hill representative, who no longer serves in this position.
At his fourth meeting, Kanakry was unable to vote.
“I asked our director, ‘why are you not allowing me to vote here?’” he said.
Ethan Vinodh, the director of Student Affairs, stated late March in the SGA Slack, “Only members of the SGA can vote (with majority attendance).”
“It made me feel like I had been led on,” Kanakry said, after hearing of the director’s decision.
A Students for Justice in Palestine at UMD member, who went on background to protect themselves from the threat of doxxing and career damage, named the move a “violation of bylaws.”
“The rules surrounding committee voting eligibility were unspecified until days before the bill went to committee,” they told The Black Explosion.
Jewish Voice for Peace at UMD said the decision process seemed like an attempt to “deliberately prevent students from voting.”
“It was exhausting and confusing for coalition leaders to properly direct efforts,” JVP said.
At the meeting, the president of the SGA Alexandra DeBus addressed the issue in a short announcement.
Following two previous divestment bills introduced to UMD SGA in 2017 and 2019, the committee assignment to Student Affairs is a decision “rooted deeply in precedent,” she said.
“I empathize with your frustration and you deserve answers, but you should also understand why this bill is assigned the way that it is,” DeBus said.
Shuli Frenkel, the parliamentarian for the SGA, clarified that no language in SGA’s bylaws defined who could or could not vote in committees.
“We recognize that the lack of clarity in the bylaws has created a lot of confusion and frustration for members of our UMD community and we are working on language that sets clearer expectations for voting in committees,” Frenkel said.
In response to the president’s announcement, JVP said, “We call on Alex DeBus and the SGA to listen to communities as they claim to. It is a detriment to the students of this university when they do not,” in a statement on Instagram.
“The SGA needs more transparency and accountability to students,” JVP also told The Black Explosion. “We need the SGA to let our voices be heard, and not shut us out of voting to kill the divestment bill.”