Georgetown University will hold classes in full on Election Day despite graduate and law students urging the administration to provide students excused absences from classes.
The Georgetown University Law Center Student Bar Association (SBA), the law school’s student government, passed legislation Oct. 9 asking the administration to offer “liberal leave” to students who need to vote in the general election Nov. 5, which the graduate student government, known as GradGov, affirmed in legislation Nov. 1. However, Georgetown graduate administrators declined to implement the legislation late Nov. 4.
Erik Smulson (CAS ’89), Georgetown’s vice president for public affairs and senior advisor to the president, said classes would occur as scheduled and offered resources for voting.
“The university will maintain all operations, including all teaching, research, and service activities on Election Day,” Smulson wrote in an email to all graduate students.
SBA president Max Siegal II (LAW ’25) said he and other SBA members developed the resolution to allow students better access to electoral participation.
“Many people — myself included — feel that voting is a very important right that many people in our country have died for,” Siegal told The Hoya. “We just want election participation and civil participation to be accessible to many people.”
Siegal said SBA also pushed the university to cancel classes in 2016 and again in 2020, but the law school administration did not accept the proposal in either campaign.
GradGov Vice President of Finance Spencer Waters (GRD ’25), a fourth-year doctoral student, said he hoped the legislation would push students to vote in the general election.
“We want to make sure that students feel encouraged to vote, and I think one way we can do that is by fostering this idea that they shouldn’t be penalized if they have to miss class in order to do that,” Waters told The Hoya.
Waters acknowledged the last-minute nature of the proposal and said the GradGov senate was unable to vote on the proposal before Nov. 1.
“If we don’t get optional classes on Election Day, I don’t think that’s, by any means, a mark against the administration — I think it just means we were maybe late on our end,” Waters said.
“The dean of the graduate school is extremely supportive and has been very proactive in helping us work toward better solutions, so I’m 100% confident that we’ll have something positive come out of this,” Waters added.
GradGov President Sebastian Grajales (GRD ’26) said GradGov started the legislative process knowing that it would likely be too late to cancel classes, but wanted to hear from the student body and establish a precedent for future election days.
“We decided to get to know what the community thinks about this proposal, despite of the fact that we know what the position is from the school,” Grajales told The Hoya. “We wanted to at least raise the concern to our community.”
Siegal said that SBA will work to establish a standing policy for optional classes on future election days.
“We are planning to continue with the advocacy so that, four years later, we’re not in the same position where that will be the fourth time SBA has brought the resolution and no change has happened,” Siegal said. “We are quickly shifting focus to long-term change and long-term solutions.”
Grajales said offering students excused absences to vote would help fulfill Georgetown’s commitment to service and impact.
“Georgetown decides to have students that have a purpose and a mission for service, and this is part of what we do and what we came from — protecting democracy and fulfilling our rights,” Grajales said. “It makes sense that we are advocating for this because these are the goals and the values that we are taught at school.”
