Barnard’s Student Government Association voted on Monday to bring a referendum on University divestment from Israel to the student body on the spring 2024 student ballot. The referendum will be the second of its kind at Barnard since 2018.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest brought the referendum to SGA after the Columbia College Student Council approved the same referendum for its own student body on Sunday. SGA’s decision is the second in a series of referendum approvals the coalition hopes to pass before upcoming elections this semester.

[Read more: CCSC approves referendum on divestment from Israel, adopts boycott policy]

CUAD proposed the referendum to SGA and allowed members of the council to ask questions following their presentation. SGA then held a closed vote, after which they announced to a crowd of students who awaited the news in the Diana Center that the inclusion of the ballot measure had passed by an undisclosed margin.

The question that will be on the ballot, as proposed by CUAD, asks, “Should Columbia University divest from companies and academic institutions that profit from or engage in the State of Israeli apartheid by: 1. Divesting all stocks, funds, and endowment and refrain from further investment in companies profiting from or engaging in Israeli apartheid; 2. Canceling the opening of the Tel Aviv Global Center; 3. Ceasing the Dual Degree Program between Columbia University and Tel Aviv University.”

“In adding this question to the ballot, SGA is allowing the student body to voice its opinion and actively engage in the college’s decision-making process,” CUAD’s referendum team wrote in a statement to Spectator.

The team wrote that CUAD “celebrates” SGA’s vote to add the referendum to their spring 2024 ballot.

On Thursday, Columbia’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing rejected a divestment proposal from CUAD citing a lack of “broad consensus” on the issue in the University community.

Per SGA’s constitution, the council will get input from “stakeholders”—Barnard students, faculty, and administrators—regarding the wording of the referendum before it is formally added to the spring 2024 ballot.

Representatives from CUAD began the presentation with a quote from Barnard’s website, which reads “Barnard students become agile, resilient, responsible, and creative, prepared to lead and serve their society.”

“These are traits that Barnard values itself in having, and we think that Barnard as a school should work to embody these traits as well,” a representative of CUAD said. “As one of these deans just said, this is our committee, and we think that Barnard should be a school that represents our unique core values that it reports to have.”

CUAD’s presentation followed a separate SGA meeting with members of Barnard’s senior staff. Administrators including Sarah Gillman, senior vice president for strategic finance and operations; Jennifer Rosales, vice president for inclusion and engaged learning and chief diversity officer; Jennifer Fondiller, vice president of enrollment and communications; and Leslie Grinage, vice president for campus life and student experience and dean of the college answered questions about the Day of Dialogue held on January 19, Barnard’s 11 task forces announced in November, and Barnard’s new dorm decor policy.

Barnard students passed a referendum in 2018 that called on SGA to ask administrators to divest from companies that “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians” with 64 percent of voters in favor. In 2020, 61 percent of Columbia College students voted in favor of a similar referendum.

“We believe that this referendum will show a consensus among the student body,” the referendum team wrote, “which will either compel the administration to listen to student voices or highlight their hypocrisy.”