Students gather outside the meeting Thursday of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. (Photo | CodePink)

On Thursday protesters disrupted a meeting of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, holding signs and chanting slogans including “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” and “Free, free Palestine!” Numerous groups participated in the demonstration including CODEPINK, UW-Milwaukee Popular University for Palestine, Wisconsin for Palestine, Wisconsin Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) UW-Madison, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) Wisconsin, and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)-UWM. 

Protesters gathered both inside and outside the room where the Board held its meeting. With chanting and speeches the protesters interrupted the meeting with one demonstrator at one point saying that protesters “will not be allowing” the Board to conduct business during the meeting, followed by loud chants from the group as officers flowed into the room to begin arrests. Activists say that 19 people were arrested during the demonstration. 

According to a CODEPINK press release, the demonstration stemmed from questions student activists sent the Board of Regents about the University of Wisconsin’s response after students joined a wave of encampment protests on college campuses. Students pitched tents on the grounds of college campuses nationwide last spring calling for institutions to sever their ties with the government of Israel. With U.S. support, Israel launched retaliatory strikes into the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which killed around 1,200 Israeli civilians and resulted in hundreds being taken hostage. Since then the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed over 44,000 Palestinians, with a United Nations Special Committee recently finding the IDF’s warfare tactics are “consistent with genocide”. Both Hamas and Israel have been accused of war crimes in the ongoing conflict. 

University of Wisconsin students involved in protests against the war in Gaza say they continue to face hands-on law enforcement responses. Arrests during demonstrations and threats of academic punishment targeting student activists are increasing tensions with school administration, activists say, after negotiations in May quelled the college encampment protests. 

UW students have demanded that the university divest from Israel, and disclose all of the investments made in the country to date. At UW-Madison, campus police and Dane County Sheriffs broke up the encampments last spring, arresting 34 people in May. Injuries were reported both among people in and around the encampments, and among law enforcement. No arrests were ever made at the UW-Milwaukee encampments, though police monitored the protests closely.  

By May, administrators at both UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee reached separate agreements with students to end the encampment protests. In September, CODEPINK said in its press release, the Board of Regents met with student activists, who had questions about the university’s handling of the encampment protests. Activists say that the Board deferred responsibility for the protest responses to university administration, prompting the demonstration on Thursday morning. 

The Board of Regents did not respond to a request for comment on the protests Thursday. Relaying a statement to Wisconsin Examiner on behalf of the protest group, a spokesperson for CODEPINK’s branch in Madison said that the Board’s use of police against student activists “reflects a troubling disregard for dialogue or transparency.” The spokesperson added that “instead of engaging in a one-minute statement from peaceful protesters, they chose to shut off the recording and summon a heavy police presence. This response escalated to harassment by university police and arbitrary arrests of individuals who were peacefully exercising their right to participate in a public meeting.”

CODEPINK questioned why the Board won’t engage with student activists, and said that the Board is responsible for “a significant portion of the UW-Madison endowment money” and should explain how it can use that money to support Israel when the Board’s own guidelines prohibit it from knowingly providing gifts, grants, etc, to “any company, corporation or subsidiary, or affiliate” that practices or condones discrimination against particular groups. 

“The police’s use of force against peaceful protestors underscores a disturbing trend of prioritizing secrecy over public trust,” reads CODEPINK’s emailed statement to Wisconsin Examiner. “Transparency and accountability should not be met with violence, especially in spaces meant to serve the public and promote education.”

Such sentiments aren’t exclusive to UW-Madison. In late October, UW-Milwaukee student members of SDS-UWM held a press conference claiming to have faced continued intimidation by campus police. UW-Milwaukee student Robby Knapp recounted being awoken to someone banging on his door one June night at 2:30 a.m. Initially, he thought that the police car parked outside was from the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD), but the officers were actually from UW-Milwaukee. They’d driven over 20 minutes from campus to Knapp’s home in Milwaukee’s Washington Heights neighborhood. Addressing him by name, they asked about an alleged vandalism incident near campus. Knapp said he didn’t know anything about it, stepped outside, and was immediately arrested. 

Knapp told Wisconsin Examiner that the officers took him back “the long way,” taking side streets instead of the freeway. When they got to the campus, “they photographed me, booked me, the whole nine yards with that,” Knapp said in the October press conference. “They gave me a letter saying the DA [District Attorney] might give you a call, which I haven’t gotten a call from the DA since that night.” Knapp was never taken to the county jail, but was released after an hour, he recalled. 

After Knapp was taken in, officers visited the homes of SDS members Audari Tamayo and Kayla Patterson. “They went to my house at least twice,” said Tamayo. “And we found this out through the police report that they went to my house twice, but I didn’t open the door. They needed to get to the third floor, they needed to get through three different hallways.” Tamayo said that after the officers failed to get into the apartment, “they started calling me repeatedly saying that I had to come down for an interview or else.” 

A spokesperson for UW-Milwaukee was unable to comment on any aspect Knapp’s arrest due to federal laws protecting student records. The spokesperson also said that UW-Milwaukee cannot comment on the ongoing investigation related to the alleged vandalism incident, nor comment on what exactly the vandalism was. “SDS recognition as a UWM student organization is suspended due to student organization misconduct, and only officially recognized student organizations are permitted to use UWM’s name in their organization’s name,” spokeswoman Angelica Duria said. 

A Milwaukee PD spokesperson told Wisconsin Examiner that the department is, “aware that Students for a Democratic Society UWM have engaged in protest activity in Milwaukee. We monitored the tent city situation at UWM to ensure there was no impact to emergency services in the City of Milwaukee. We do not have requests from UWM to conduct any investigations related to the group. We do share when we are aware of a planned protest for the sake of public safety.”

SDS says that its members have also faced academic sanctions, directly related to their protests. Besides Knapp, whom SDS says is facing academic sanctions due to protest activity, Patricia Fish is also facing sanctions due to an occupation protest in February. Additionally, both Patterson and Tamayo were unable to enroll in time for the fall 2024 semester after holds were placed on their student accounts. 

The stress has  affected Knapp’s academic performance. “Since then I’ve been behind … I have to kind of  go to school, and go to class every day understanding that  any work, any midterms, any quizzes, any papers, any exams, any credit, as soon as that suspension becomes effective, then all of that is out the window,” said Knapp. “I have about four courses left until I graduate. I was going to take two this semester, and two that semester. So not only is my education up in the air, but my ability to graduate is now up in the air … It’s the energy, it’s the money, it’s the time, it’s the effort that I’ve put into getting this close to graduating and just this semester in general after having to deal with them holding me back to be able to take these classes in the first place.”

Duria said that “no student is subject to the misconduct process based on considerations other than their own behavior.” Duria said that the Dean of Students Office assesses “reports it receives to determine whether there are potential nonacademic misconduct violations.” Duria went on to say in a statement to Wisconsin Examiner that “UWM has communicated protest guidelines and behavior expectations in several previous emails sent to faculty, staff and students. UWM has also updated its free speech website to make behavior expectations and expressive activity policies easily visible. Protests and expressive activity must abide by state law and university policy and UWM will take appropriate action to enforce the law, and its policies and codes of conduct.”

Patterson feels negotiations between students and the administration were mainly “to save face,” and to also learn more about student activist groups in preparation for more crackdowns. She told Wisconsin Examiner, “It’s very heavy monitoring. They’re going both at the organizational level, and the individual level, in order to crack down.” 

This article has been edited to correct the last name of Robby Knapp, not “Napp”.