SA passes bill calling for peace amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war

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Syracuse University’s Student Association passed an Undergraduate Call for Peace — a bill defining its official stance on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war — during its Monday meeting.

The bill acknowledges the conflict’s “direct effect” on the SU community and calls for a ceasefire and a “permanent peace process” in the region. It also affirms SA’s denouncement of “any and all antisemitic, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim speech and actions” on campus.

Now that SA has passed its bill, it will present its requests to SU administrators, William Treloar, SA president, said. Treloar said he hopes the bill reflects how students want the university to address the conflict.

“Writing a resolution and passing it isn’t the end-all-be-all,” Treloar said. “We’re really hoping to take (the bill) as an aggregated voice of our students here.”

Yasmin Nayrouz, SA’s executive vice president, said the bill went through several revisions after receiving suggestions from the assembly following last week’s meeting.

“This is a really important bill, it will be a great way for SA to show support and solidarity,” Nayrouz said.

Tim Wong, SA’s newly appointed chair of diversity and inclusion, said he is working with the university’s Community Standards office to address student concerns about biased language on campus and efforts to address it.

“We’ve gotten some reports about problematic language used by students and certain members of the faculty,” Wong said. “We’re collaborating as to how to best educate people on campus.”

Wong also said SA’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee is working to develop programming to promote diversity on campus, such as hosting more events featuring student cultural organizations.

SA members also appointed German Nolivos to the SU Alumni Association as the Class of 2026 Representative, Eniola Festus and Bijan Starr to the University Senate and Avva Boroujerdi to SU’s Community Review Board.

Festus, SA’s current co-director of Sustainability, said she wants to use her position as senator to advocate for students and address ongoing concerns, such as through “diversifying” the SU’s First-Year Seminar course curriculum and preventing sexual violence against women on campus. Last week, SA concluded its first round of distributing sexual violence prevention kits to reduce sexual violence on campus.

Treloar said that next semester, SA plans to continue the distribution of these kits and introduce new programming to address sexual violence, such as potentially hosting on-campus self-defense classes. He also said SA will continue collaborating with SU’s Title IX office.

SA leaders also presented state bills to establish official support for, such as an amendment to the Student Suicide Prevention Act that, if passed, would expand its scope to promoting suicide prevention resources at private institutions. SA leaders also presented the Climate Change Superfund Act, which would encourage Gov. Kathy Hochul to support initiatives combating climate change. SA will hold votes for both bills during next week’s meeting.

“If there’s any bill or legislation you would like to advocate for, Student Association is the place to do that,” Reed Granger, SA’s chief of staff, said to the assembly.

At the end of the meeting, SA also briefly discussed its internal spring planning meeting, where it scheduled several events and initiatives for next semester, Granger said.

Other business:

Dylan France, SA comptroller, said the organization will vote on revisions to its fiscal code during next week’s meeting. If passed, these changes would establish repercussions for Registered Student Organizations that violate SA’s funding procedures.

SA approved funding for Food for Finals, an initiative that will provide SU students with food vouchers for free meals during finals week in the Schine Student Center.

Sukhleen Atwal, SA’s director of internal operations and student consultant for SU’s Information Technology Service, warned the assembly about a rise in email phishing, which is a type of scam that uses fraudulent messages to steal personal information. She said students can find information about phishing incidents on ITS’s Phish Bowl page and report potential scams to the ITS Service Center at help@syr.edu.