The University of Maryland’s SGA approved an emergency resolution Wednesday that said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Steny Hoyer, (D-Md.), should not be welcomed at an event near campus this Friday.
The resolution said the Student Government Association is against the representatives’ presence because of their political actions and legacies that are tied to the advancement of war and human rights violations. It passed in a 20-5-3 vote.
Hoyer is set to come to The Hotel at the University of Maryland on Friday for the 2025 Women’s Equality Day Luncheon. The event will feature Pelosi as a keynote speaker.
This is the 23rd year Hoyer has hosted a luncheon for Women’s Equality Day.
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Andrey Chernyak, the resolution’s sponsor, said welcoming Pelosi and Hoyer “goes against SGA’s goal of having everybody on campus feel safe and welcome.”
The resolution listed multiple actions taken by Hoyer and Pelosi that “contributed to systemic harm.”
It cited Hoyer’s vote in support of a 2023 bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that supported Israel “as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists.” SGA legislators also said Pelosi contributed to harm when she said without evidence that protestors calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas may have ties to Russia.
“The SGA condemns the normalization of welcoming political figures whose legacies are defined by oppression, corruption, and complicity in injustice,” the resolution reads.
SGA executive vice president Riona Sheikh told the legislature that voting in support of the bill would express the group’s disapproval of people who have supported Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
During the meeting, Shulamit Frenkel, a former SGA student affairs co-director and parliamentarian, said SGA is a non-political entity but the resolution seemed “exclusively political.”
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The resolution did not cite any goals or initiatives for student wellbeing, the senior criminology and criminal justice major said. There was no way to ensure this resolution represented the feelings of the entire student body, Frenkel added.
Rumaysa Drissi, a bill cosponsor, defended the emergency vote.
“This is affecting us right now, and if you did it next week, it would be completely pointless,” the junior public health science major and off-campus commuter representative said.
Zach Cecere, a sophomore government and politics and Russian major who serves as a behavioral and social sciences representative, thought the resolution contradicted the concept of free speech.
“SGA shouldn’t be using its power to decide what opinions are allowed on or even like near UMD,” he said.
Although she could not vote on the bill, Sheikh said that the resolution’s passage is a testament to the SGA’s commitment to upholding human rights. She added that the decision reflects the opinion of the student body, as they elected the legislators who voted.
“This was an excellent show of how the legislators are representing what the student body wants,” speaker of the legislature Diego Henriquez said.
Staff writer Amelia Twyman contributed reporting.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misspelled Rumaysa Drissi’s name. A previous version of this story also misstated that Shulamit Frenkel is a SGA Stamp student advisory board liaison. This story has been updated.
