Fill out the form to send a letter to The Ohio State University Leadership to urge them to support Jewish students on campus
See letter below
Dear Campus Leader of The Ohio State University,
I am an alumnus of The Ohio State University and a member of the Jewish Community.
Last week, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) removed OSU Divest's BDS initiative from the upcoming election ballot due to bylaw violations. This decision stemmed from issues with digital signature collection, particularly concerning the use of Instagram for petition dissemination, which was deemed to violate USG's bylaws.
Without warning, and less than 24 hours before voting opens, Jewish students received an email from the Chief Justice of the OSU Judiciary, accepting SJP's appeal to add the antisemitic BDS referendum question to the ballot. Jewish students were not informed of an appeal hearing over the weekend and therefore, were not allowed to attend the hearing and argue why the bylaw violations should be upheld and the referendum question not put on the ballot.
In order to protect the Jewish Students of The Ohio State University the leadership of this administration must:
Have the referendum removed from the ballot due to the judiciary’s act of hiding the appeal from Jewish students, as well as due to the rule violations in the process of adding the referendum to the ballot.
Meet with the Jewish student leaders to hear the concerns of the Jewish community.
Engage with representatives of the AEPi Antisemitism Response Center (AEPi ARC) at [email protected] to speak further about resources that you may need to bolster your efforts, train your staff, or better understand the position of Jewish students.
More importantly than the procedural errors, the substance of this referendum is harmful, discriminatory, and sets a dangerous precedent. This referendum is coming at a time when antisemitism is at an all-time high in the United States, and is being mirrored on campuses nationwide. The Ohio State University administration cannot allow this to move forward. Since October 7th, this campus has become a more dangerous place for Jewish students. With multiple acts of harassment, assault and vandalism being reported. If this administration fails to intervene, more antisemitism will befall the Jewish community of this campus. Jewish enrollment will inevitably decline, and students will see Ohio State as a campus where administrators do not take hate seriously.
I earnestly request that you take this matter seriously in an effort to protect our campus and community. This type of bigotry and hatred has no place anywhere, let alone at The Ohio State University.