A controversial Student Government Association resolution, which was slipped onto the March 14 agenda at the last minute, attracted unwanted attention from university officials early Friday morning.
The opinion resolution urges the university to withdraw itself from the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange program and to “redirect its funding to appropriate police training activities.”
The last-minute agenda amendment was made by Sen. Jazmin Mejia, who sponsored the bill. Sen. Hamza Rahman introduced the bill and joined the meeting via Webex.
The resolution faced pushback even before it made it to the Senate floor. Senior Director of the Student Center Boyd Beckwith audibly cautioned SGA University-wide President Franklin Patterson to postpone the resolution indefinitely just minutes before the meeting began.
Despite those warnings, the resolution was read on the Senate floor by Mejia during SGA’s second-to-last university-wide meeting of the year.
But before any motion for discussion was made, Sen. Kaelen Thomas immediately motioned to table the resolution indefinitely with Sen. Nigel Walton seconding it, a motion that would have effectively killed the resolution.
That motion failed in a Senate vote, but Sen. Danny Mai’s motion to refer the resolution to an ad hoc committee subsequently passed.
“I had heard that a resolution similar to this might make it to the floor and so I was aware beforehand,” Thomas said. “But the decision to postpone the resolution indefinitely was something I decided at the meeting.”
Mejia said she was disappointed that the senators didn’t discuss the resolution and that it had been hastily redirected to committee.
“That was the most filled-out bill that we have ever had passed in the Senate,” Mejia said after the meeting. “If they had any questions, they could literally refer to the bill. We had sources on the bill that they could look into themselves if they wanted to form their own opinion.”
The resolution cites evidence pertaining to alleged atrocities committed by GILEE’s global partners, including Egyptian, Hungarian and Israeli law enforcement agencies.
“GILEE’s training partners include foreign law enforcement agencies that restrict civil liberties, violate human rights, and/or engage in bigotry, including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and violent manifestations of homophobia,” it stated.
The resolution further states that GILEE’s collaboration with Chinese law enforcement also raises concerns.
“GILEE collaborates with Chinese law enforcement, which has engaged in mass surveillance, arrested human rights activists, raided houses of worship, and imprisoned one million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps,” the resolution states.
According to Patterson, the ad hoc committee will be comprised of SGA representatives who are not involved with the resolution in any way and who hold no bias. That committee will be led by Sen. Kiersten Nicholson.
Patterson said the committee will spend one day listening to representatives of GILEE, one day listening to opponents of GILEE and then one day to ultimately make a decision.
That ultimate decision, Patterson said, is “whether this bill should be voted down or whether this bill should be voted for.”
After the Senate adjourned, Beckwith criticized the resolution.
“I was surprised that it was allowed on the floor at the last minute because obviously something that substantial does need significant review by the senators before they attempt to vote on it,” Beckwith said.
He said the resolution was substantial because the issue of whether or not to support GILEE has come up in the past.
“It’s come up before,” he said. “It’s significant and I don’t think that all our senators are aware of all the issues around the GILEE program.”
The morning after the Senate meeting, Beckwith emailed Robert Friedmann, the founding director of GILEE, and informed him of the meeting’s events.
Friedmann responded shortly after, noting that “senator [Danny] Mai was correct and indeed the motion passed.”
“It is time to put a stop to this farce,” Friedmann said. “Up to now only 2 senators have bothered to find out anything about GILEE.”
Through email correspondence, Friedmann told The Signal that “the resolution has no merit whatsoever” and that “the students are absolutely not properly informed about GILEE.”
In what GILEE calls peer-to-peer law enforcement, the program sends top U.S. law enforcement to Israel and other countries for training in tactics such as bomb threats and terrorist attacks. The international representatives then come to the U.S. for training in urban and rural policing tactics such as violent crime, homeland security and emergency management.
GILEE is operated as a 501(c)(3) of the Georgia State University Foundation and was founded in 1992 in preparation for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. Since then, GILEE has aided in security planning for six other international olympic events, including the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
According to the GILEE website, “GILEE’s focus has been on anti-terrorism training ever since its establishment in 1992.”
GILEE has faced backlash over the years. A previous article by The Signal identified that “in 2010, Georgia State’s Progressive Student Alliance partnered with other organizations and held a protest in Unity Plaza, demanding the end of GILEE and gathering a petition of 900 signatures.”
After the resolution exits the committee, it will likely be reintroduced at the Senate’s last meeting of the year on Thursday, April 18, where several top university officials will be in attendance. Among those expected to be present is Georgia State University President Mark Becker, who in 2017 said, “GILEE embodies the values and mission of Georgia State.”
