This past week, as Jewish students around the world celebrated Passover with their families and retold the story of our people’s journey from freedom from oppression — Georgetown University’s student government is trying to silence us.
In a move that should alarm everyone in our community, the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) voted to advance a referendum targeting Israel through the discriminatory Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. But it’s not just what they voted on; it’s how they did it.
To push this BDS referendum through, GUSA broke procedural norms that exist to ensure fairness and transparency, namely voting without public attribution. While the vote was originally scheduled during Passover — one of the most significant holidays in the Jewish calendar — it was ultimately delayed until after the holiday due to significant backlash. But the initial scheduling of the vote wasn’t just a matter of poor planning; it was part of a broader and troubling pattern of marginalizing Jewish students on campus.
Shortly after the October 7 massacre, Mohammed El-Kurd was invited to speak by the Georgetown Law Students for Justice in Palestine, where he dubbed Hamas as a “liberation movement” and called the massacre a “resistance tactic.” Earlier this year, the same group invited Ribhi Karajah — a convicted terrorist — to speak on campus. Despite significant opposition, the university didn’t cancel the event but merely postponed it. The message was clear: voices that promote or justify violence against Jews are tolerated.
This tolerance doesn’t exist in a vacuum — it creates an atmosphere where antisemitism can grow unchecked. That’s why Georgetown’s BDS referendum is not merely symbolic. Because when BDS ideology is embedded on campus, antisemitism typically spikes. A study titled “Faculty Academic Boycotters: Ground Zero for Campus Antisemitism” found that campuses with five or more BDS-supporting faculty members were 3.6 times more likely to experience actions that intentionally target Jewish and pro-Israel students. So, what happens when it’s not just some faculty members, but the student government endorsing BDS?
The implications are horrifying, not just for Georgetown, but beyond. Therefore, I am leading a letter campaign to the Georgetown administration requesting they halt the vote due to the student government engaging in procedural irregularities, the antisemitic nature of BDS, and the potential economic consequences to Georgetown from divesting. Five members of the U.S. Congress, including former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, prominent figures such as Elisha Wiesel, and a diverse coalition of student organizations across the political and religious spectrum, signed my letter.
The purpose of my letter is not for my university to lose important, necessary funding. But I don’t blame the federal government for trying to curb antisemitism; I blame the university for enabling it to thrive.
Georgetown is at a crossroads. Will it allow a discriminatory referendum, passed through procedural manipulation, to go forward? Or will it stand up for the values of fairness, inclusion, and integrity it claims to uphold?
Universities across the country are facing a reckoning. The Trump administration’s latest push to hold universities accountable for allowing antisemitism to flourish is only the latest chapter in a broader story: Jewish students will not be silenced or intimidated. Not at Georgetown. Not anywhere.
Passover reminds us that even in moments of darkness, we persist. We speak out. We fight for freedom. We fight for justice. At Georgetown, this truth has never been clearer.
Jacob Intrator is the president of SSI (Students Supporting Israel) at Georgetown University.
This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Ryan Mauro.