Last week, the Undergraduate Student Senate at the Ohio State University (OSU) rightfully removed an antisemitic referendum urging students to vote for the university to divest from companies doing business with Israel, America’s greatest ally in the Middle East. This decision stemmed from OSU Divest, the organization behind the discriminatory campaign, violating the Student Government’s bylaws by using social media to garner more signatures for their hateful initiative.
However, less than 24 hours before voting opened, OSU’s Jewish community received an email stating that the Judiciary Panel reversed course and caved to anti-Israel detractors on campus by placing the hateful referendum back on the ballot. This disturbing decision followed an appeal by the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, which serves as an extension of the notorious hate movement that, following the October 7 massacre by Hamas — the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — championed that its members are part of the same “resistance” movement.
By not informing students about the appeal, OSU’s Jewish and pro-Israel students could not attend the hearing to argue why the bylaw violations must be upheld, with the absurd referendum remaining off the ballot. As a consequence of this disgusting decision to appease radical, anti-Israel groups on campus, OSU is giving wind to the bigoted BDS movement, which aims to economically strangle the sole democracy in the Middle East at a time when antisemitism is surging worldwide as Israel defends civilians against Hamas’s terrorism.
Even more alarming is the reality that this referendum is coming at a time when Jew hatred is at an all-time high at American colleges and universities, with OSU being far from excluded. Since October 7, two Jewish OSU students were physically assaulted just off campus. The school’s Hillel building was also vandalized, and Jewish students were spit on. As if this wasn’t enough, OSU is also under federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Education following damning allegations of discrimination against Jewish students.
The OSU administration and Board of Trustees must intervene and exclude the referendum from the ballot, mirroring the actions taken at the University of Michigan in November 2023. In that instance, during an antisemitic referendum campaign, anti-Israel activists similarly breached regulations by distributing a mass email encouraging the student body to vote for the divestment referendum. Call on the OSU administration to adopt a similar course of action to ensure the safety of Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus today and in the future.