On Oct. 8, the Student Association quietly passed five significant pieces of legislation. Pro-Palestine groups and individuals were surprised by the news and rushed to the Lecture Hall to express their frustration, but the SA, nevertheless, chose to move ahead.

The two actions that have received the most backlash and anger are F2425-R4 and the motion to rescind last semester’s Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions resolution. The first piece of legislation sends letters to New York’s State Legislature encouraging them to pass mask bans and calls on the administration to add a mask ban to the Student Code of Conduct. This would prohibit efforts to conceal one’s identity through masks, hoods or facial coverings at public assemblies. The Executive Board shot down the resolution within days, but it is still worth breaking down the recent trend in mask bans.

Take the “religious” and “health” exceptions present in the mask bans in the State Legislature bill and SA’s vetoed resolution. Nassau County’s recently implemented mask ban has similar exemptions, but police officers are trained to interrogate at length anyone claiming to have an exemption. These supposed exceptions give police an excuse to intimidate and harass already-vulnerable communities and, as the SA Executive board stated in their veto, “this would set a precedent for the SA and the University to police students’ bodily autonomy.”

The effect of the anti-mask resolution would have been to stifle political protest, specifically pro-Palestine protest. People mask themselves at protests and gatherings not to commit crimes but to protect themselves from the rampant intimidation, doxxing and harassment promoted by social media accounts and websites such as the Canary Mission.

Last year, a community member was wrongly accused of making a Nazi salute at a rally. The accusation was proven false by a police investigation as well as video from the event and a statement from the SA president. Still, that student was identified and harassed endlessly. There could not be a clearer example of why the SA should be trying to protect student protestors, not to make them more vulnerable.

Jewish history teaches us all the importance of our right to protest. From 1900-1909, Jewish immigrants in New York City organized kosher meat boycotts, rent strikes and the largest strike of women in American history with the Uprising of 20,000. In the 1960s, Jewish activists disproportionately participated in the Civil Rights movement. Some Jews in South Africa, despite facing ostracization from their institutions and communities, fought against apartheid on all fronts. All were fighting against oppressive laws and police abuse, not supporting it.

The second unacceptable piece of legislation was the repeal of last year’s BDS resolution. Enough ink has been spilled, including by the Yiddish Bund, on why this resolution was important. It had acknowledged and condemned the genocidal assault on Gaza, making an effort to humanize those who have been diminished, demonized and ignored in American media and the political establishment. By repealing the resolution and ignoring the death, displacement, destruction of homes and manmade starvation, the SA has reversed course, choosing to take part in that culture of dehumanization instead of fighting it.

At last week’s candlelight vigil, Arab and Palestinian students spoke out against this dehumanization. Speaking about a 12-year-old boy killed by Israel in the West Bank, one said “He is not a number. He was a child, he was a son, he was a brother. He had a favorite food, he had a favorite song, favorite color, and I’m outraged that I have to prove that Palestinians are just as human as the rest of us.”

Just as important as the content of what was repealed is how. Tuesday’s resolutions give lip service to “debate and dialogue,” yet according to a post by the BU Zionist Organization, the resolutions were meant to be passed “on the down low,” subverting democratic debate. When the BDS legislation was originally being considered last semester, fliers, protests and discussions engulfed the campus. The SA session itself took over five hours, stretching past midnight, with speakers giving passionate speeches for and against the resolution. Never before were issues of Israel’s apartheid and genocidal war in Gaza so forefront on campus.

Dozens of student leaders came together to support the resolution. Some of the largest organizations included Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association, the Latin American Student Association, SHADES, the Black Student Union and numerous others. It seems the reason the divestment resolution was repealed so quietly was to silence all the political and multicultural organizations that could have opposed it. The authors and supporters of last Tuesday’s slew of legislation knew that when hours-long debate happens when the whole range of campus voices have a chance to speak, divestment wins.

The Yiddish Bund of Binghamton University is a student-run multicultural and political organization. The Bund led the effort to pass a cease-fire resolution in the Binghamton City Council and co-sponsored last April’s divestment resolution. 

A Letter to the Editor is an opinion column published in response to a column or article previously published. This is The Bund’s response to news coverage on 10/10 titled “What happened at Tuesday’s SA Congress meeting,” which has since been updated in a 10/14 article titled “SA E-Board vetoes two resolutions passed last Tuesday.”

Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.