UMD vetoes student government bylaw changes backing Israel boycott

Patty Perillo, the University of Maryland’s vice president for student affairs, vetoed three Student Government Association bylaw amendments that would have entrenched support for boycotting Israel and limited how student fees could be used. The move was the first time in more than six years that the university exercised that veto authority.

They would have barred student government spending of student activity fund fees on companies listed by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and required the SGA to push the University of Maryland College Park Foundation and the University System of Maryland Foundation to divest from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s top 100 arms-producing and military services companies.

Perillo wrote that the changes “contravene the nature and purpose” of the governing document and would bind future SGA administrations to political positions.

The veto lands after a year of escalating conflict over divestment on the College Park campus. In spring 2025, more than 3,200 students voted in favor of university-system divestment from companies implicated in human rights violations. On May 6, 2026, the SGA folded divestment advocacy into its bylaws by a 17-1-1 vote, requiring the SGA president to advocate divestment from top arms-producing companies.

That followed a February 2026 resolution that passed 19-0-1 calling for the university system and the foundations to publish current investments and divest from top arms-producing companies. In October 2025, the SGA passed a separate BDS resolution 29-0-1 on Yom Kippur, drawing criticism from Jewish campus groups and broader Jewish organizations over both the timing and substance of the vote. University officials called that resolution symbolic and said it would not affect university investments.

In April 2024, an SGA committee voted against a divestment resolution. In April 2025, the SGA elections commission said an endorser of the Our College Park ticket bribed students to vote unfavorably on the divestment referendum.