Milwaukee, WI – On June 6, the student movement steadfastly continued their efforts to get the University of Wisconsin System to disclose its funds and to divest from the apartheid regime of Israel.

At the June UW System board of regents meeting, approximately 15 students and community members entered the open-session financial meeting to disrupt the scheduled programming.

As this meeting was hosted at UW-Milwaukee, the UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition led the effort to get on the agenda. Kayla Patterson, a coalition leader as well as a member of UWM Students for a Democratic Society and the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, led the disruption by standing and speaking directly to the board, going through the facts of the matter at hand.

Patterson echoed the calls of thousands in shaming the universities for complacency in genocide as she others followed by standing and holding signs reading “As we sit here, over 40,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered at the hands of the settler-apartheid regime of Israel, with thousands more reported missing under the rubble.”

As she continued with her speech, in came the cavalry. A mixed force of approximately 30 Milwaukee, Madison, Marquette, and Whitewater campus police aggressively grabbed the protesters, stating that they were under arrest, and herded them into a nearby building, where a total of 13 people were taken into custody.

These tactics were similar to the historic February 9 sit-in at UW-Milwaukee, where students saw ten different police precincts swarm the divestment protest in Chapman Hall.

The detained protesters are now banned from the student union through the month of June. They were let go with warnings that cited UW-Milwaukee policies and state statutes. There were also signs about the ban placed on-site as of June 6.

After the protesters were released, they started discussing upcoming strategy for further struggle in the campaign for the university to disclose and divest. A successful disruption and continuation of the encampment’s struggle was accomplished. The future of the student movement remains uncharted, but one thing is for certain – the students united will never be defeated.

The student solidarity movement that was sparked by the Columbia Gaza Solidarity encampment on April 17 brought a tsunami of student activism and civil disobedience, and the schools of the University of Wisconsin System were no different. After a week of watching the beginnings of a movement live-streamed, the UW System students gathered their resources and started Gaza solidarity encampments of their own.

UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee started their encampments on April 29, and UW-Whitewater and UW-La Crosse held sit-ins protesting their respective university’s complacency in genocide. After different degrees of struggle, schools made concessions, including calling for a ceasefire, condemning the destruction of Palestinian educational institutions , and meetings with financial foundations from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Students employed a diversity of tactics and actions and the student who participated in the many actions across the Universities of Wisconsin System have developed a target for their efforts – the UW board of regents.

The UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition includes Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Muslim Student Association (MSA), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Un-PAC UW-Milwaukee, and Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA).

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #AntiWarMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #StudentMovement #SDS #MSA #SJP #YDSA

Milwaukee, WI – On May 12, the 14th day of encampment at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the UW-Milwaukee Popular University for Palestine Coalition reached an agreement with university administration. Students agreed to take down the encampment, known as “Falasteen Lawn,” after hard-fought negotiations and winning one of the strongest agreements in the country.

Student leaders fought hard in negotiations with the university administration, pushing back on bad faith negotiations, lackluster offers, and ultimatums. Through struggle, the students won demands including an official public statement from the university condemning the genocide, an end to study abroad trips to “Israel,” and a meeting with the UWM Foundation which controls university funding.

It is through militant action that the students of UW-Milwaukee forced their administration to make these concessions. Student organizations had been pressuring the university to meet these demands for months, but it only took 14 days for the encampment to force their hand, signifying the success of this action.

As part of the agreement, students were given until Tuesday, May 14 at 8 a.m. to take down the encampment.

On Monday evening, the day before takedown was completed, students, faculty and the community gathered for a feast and celebration of their wins. “We may have taken the tents down, but this will always be Falasteen Lawn. For as long as Palestine is occupied and until Palestine is free, this will remain Falasteen Lawn,” said Patricia Fish of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Despite taking down the encampment, student organizers emphasized that the fight does not end here. Rather, the struggle continues into a new phase with new targets like the UWM Foundation and UW board of regents. Both entities have direct control of university funds for UW-Milwaukee and the UW system as a whole.

As a part of the agreement reached with the university, five student leaders went into a meeting with the UWM Foundation, which was the only meeting held with students that included absentee Chancellor Mark Mone. The meeting, held on Tuesday, May 14 at 10 a.m., demanded full disclosure of investments made by the university and to divest from all companies that do business with Israel.

Audari Tamayo of SDS said about disclosure and divestment, “If we don’t get that, we’re going to keep going. We never agreed to not set up an encampment. We never agreed to stop protesting.”

The UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition includes Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Muslim Student Association (MSA), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Un-PAC, and Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA).

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #AntiWarMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #StudentMovement #SDS #MSA #SJP #YDSA

Milwaukee, WI – May 2 marks the fourth day since students, faculty and community supporters flocked to Mitchell Lawn at UW-Milwaukee on April 29 after a massive rally and march. The end of the march saw the rapid assembly of tents and the official launch of an encampment for Palestine, bringing Milwaukee into the national movement sparked by the actions of heroic students at Columbia University and Cal Poly Humboldt.

The four demands of the newly minted UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition are: One, disclose all financials and divest immediately; two, cut all ties with weapons manufacturers; three, no future educational partnerships with the occupation; and four, release a statement condemning the actions of the apartheid state.

The action was organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Muslim Student Association (MSA), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Un-PAC, and Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA). Many community organizations collaborated with these student groups.

“I am here until Palestine is free. I am not only here until UWM complies with our demands, but I’m also here fighting until there is a permanent and immediate ceasefire,” said Ameen Atta, one of the leaders of the UWM MSA. “And after that I will still be here fighting until the siege on Gaza is lifted and after that I will still be here until Palestine is liberated and the occupation is lifted.”

Police on that first day amassed across the street, but the various law enforcement agencies ended up dispersing before nightfall and have not returned in force. A barricade around the camp was constructed all the same, and more than 30 tents stood by the time morning broke on April 30. The UWM Popular University for Palestine has remained steadfast ever since.

Spirits have remained high as a result of the intricate planning of the organizers, with ample resources being donated – including food from local Palestinian-owned restaurants – along with a packed daily schedule of teach-ins on various topics and cultural showcases.

“Morale is high, people are very motivated. I think also it’s the lack of police interaction and just straight community support happening. There’s young and old, Palestinian and non-Palestinian, organizers and non-organizers. It’s just a great time all around. We have a lot of students coming out which is really what we wanted. This is a student-led movement, so it’s going very well I’d say,” said Kayla Patterson, a leader with UWM SDS and member for FRSO. “Every day we're recruiting people throughout the day as classes are going on. It feels good to have the good numbers.”

The university administration, headed by absentee chancellor Mark Mone, received the demands of the coalition and released a statement acknowledging them but essentially announcing they'd meet none of them. The students and their allies have affirmed that the encampment will continue until their demands are met.

“We are here at the encampment because for the past seven months, UWM has done absolutely nothing to assure their Palestinian, their Muslim, their Jewish, their students in general that they care about what’s going on,” said Nada Moubarak, another leading member of UWM SDS. “They want to say, ‘this is so far away,’ but no, this is not far away. It directly affects us and UWM directly has ties, so they need to take accountability for that. That’s why I’m here, so UWM administration can take accountability.”

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #AntiWarMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #StudentMovement #SDS #MSA #YDSA #FRSO #SJP #Feature

Minneapolis, MN – On April 20, on a brisk spring afternoon, over 350 pro-Palestine demonstrators rallied at Bryant Square Park in the Minneapolis Uptown neighborhood for the first large scale march initiated by the Minnesota chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and the Arab Student Association at the U of MN.

The event was titled “Sumud Across Generations.” Students and educators, young and old, all came out in a show of support with the cause of Palestinian resistance as the world enters its seventh month of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Chanters and speakers, some who have never spoken publicly before, got on the mic with tears in their eyes and offered their heartfelt and heartbroken solidarity.

“Sumud” in Arabic means “steadfast perseverance.” It is both a cultural Palestinian value and a political strategy that emerged in the wake of the 1967 war as a consequence of the brutal Israeli occupation and the Palestinian resistance it inspired.

To date, Israel has killed some 35,000 people in Gaza since October 7, the vast majority civilians, with current estimates of 16,000 children killed by Israeli air strikes, and several thousand unaccounted-for civilians trapped in rubble and assumed dead. As the world reels from the news of the many Flour Massacres and the brutality of the Al Shifa Massacre, Minnesota students came to mourn the dead and pray for a better future and a free Palestine from the river to the sea.

The rally began with chants and two powerful speeches. The first speech was by a member of Law Students for a Free Palestine, who stated “As a Palestinian born and raised in Gaza, I’m here to say that we share and feel your pain. Growing up in Gaza, I lived through the massacres that took place during 2008, 2012 and 2014. Since then and throughout this ongoing genocide, the content we see on our screens doesn’t even begin to show one percent the pain and suffering the people of Gaza live on a daily. On behalf of all Palestinians, I’m here to see that we feel your pain.”

After a few more minutes of chants by the powerful Sabry Wazwaz, the march began to head west and eventually toward Lake Street, one of the busiest and most visible arteries in Uptown. Upon taking Lake Street many onlookers honked in support of the message while many many people going about their lives immediately stopped what they were doing to join the march. A family even opened their front window and began waving their Palestine flag for the march. The march stopped and held space at the Bryant and Lake Street intersection. This ground all eastbound traffic in Uptown, including public transit, to a dead halt, to tell the city of Minneapolis that as long as the genocide continues the people will not allow there to be business as usual.

At the Bryant/Lake intersection a young speaker from Students For Justice in Palestine got on the mic and stated, “At Columbia University this week, students created a Gaza Solidarity encampment inspired by a similar movement on campus in 1968 protesting the universities complicity in the Vietnam War and imminent construction of a segregated gymnasium. The demands included full transparency of the university’s financial investments and full divestment from all companies and institutions from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine. After 34 hours, over 100 students were forcibly arrested by the NYPD. In response hundreds more students gathered on campus in solidarity, they are still there now! Bernard College has suspended multiple students for organizing this protest, including Ilhan Omar’s own daughter.”

The speaker continued, “As news of this protest spread, multiple other groups across the nation started their own Gaza Solidarity encampments on their own campuses, including Yale. As these events unfold across the nation we must stand in solidarity with these groups as they put their bodies on the line. It is student movements like these that multiple decades from now will be considered as critical watershed moments that turned the tide, we are living that moment now.”

#MinneapolisMN #TwinCitiesMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #StudentMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #SJP #SDS #MSA

New Orleans, LA– On January 29, students, faculty, staff and community members attended a vigil for Palestine at Loyola University to mourn over 27,000 Palestinian martyrs.

After months of back-and-forth struggle with the Loyola University New Orleans administration, students were finally able to hold a vigil honoring all of the martyrs in Palestine since October 7. The vigil allowed attendees an opportunity to hear from Palestinian voices and other perspectives, and allowed them the space to stand together, mourn together, pray together and cry together.

The vigil opened up with a prayer and was followed by several speakers from the community, students from both Loyola and Tulane Universities, and concluded with speeches and prayers.

Hakm Murad, a member of Masjid Omar Mosque, located on the West Bank of New Orleans, stated, “When the poorest, most oppressed, and most exploited people in the world say, ‘we want to be free,’ they say ‘you’re terrorists.’ I say it’s a projection. Colonial power that brutalizes and savages all over the world calls other people savages. The only savages are the people in the legislative offices, and the headquarters of corporations who plan these massacres all over the world. The Palestinian flag represents human freedom.”

Speakers stood on a stage behind a memorial installation created for the event that had the names of over 1500 Palestinians that lost their lives since October 7. At the bottom, it read “+25,000 more” to include the, at the time, estimated number of lives lost that could not fit on the board.

“It's hard to imagine that many individual people, our brains aren't really built for that. But these aren't just numbers. Each fact I just read to you is the sum of a person plus a person plus a person plus a person. A person with a childhood. A person with a favorite movie or song. A person who fell in love. A person who went through heartbreak. A person with insecurities or a person who bites their nails too much,” said Silas Gillett, a student from Tulane Students for a Democratic Society.

In the middle of the event, attendees were invited to place gifts, such as flowers and candles, at the shrine and a moment of silence followed.

“Every untold story, every unread poem, every painful scream and cry. We carry their pain with us. We carry their legacies. we will not allow them to be erased or made into statistics,” said Nour Saad, a Palestinian student from Loyola.

This vigil happened just after the recent news of the murder of a Palestinian-New Orleanian youth, Tawfic Abdeljabbar. Abdeljabbar was killed by an Israeli settler in a senseless act of violence, bringing the struggle for Palestinian liberation to the heart of the New Orleans community.

The vigil was organized by Loyola Students for a Democratic Society and the Muslim Students Association.

#NewOrleansLA #AntiWarMovement #StudentMovement #International #Palestine #SDS #MSA

Milwaukee, WI – On November 2, over 50 students at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) rallied then marched for the National Students for a Democratic Society Day of Action to demand justice for Palestine. The event began and ended in front of the university library, named after Zionist and former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir.

The event began with chants and speeches by the Muslim Student Association (MSA), Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), and UWM SDS.

Nada Moubarak, a member of UWM SDS, echoed the suffering of Palestinians but urged the crowd to not lose hope. “The Palestinian people will persist. They have persisted for centuries and will continue to persist long after you and I are gone.”

Moubarak also introduced a name change campaign SDS will be rolling out in the coming weeks. “We demand UWM change the name of the library. Upholding the Zionist Golda Meir, who denied the very existence of Palestine and its people, is shameful!”

Calls for the university and the U.S. government to stop funding and supporting the Israeli genocide of Palestine rang through the crowd. These demands come in the wake of a Milwaukee family, the Sakallas, losing 50 members of their family in the October 24 bombing of Khan Younis in Gaza.

“A student, here at UWM, just lost 50 members of their family in the bombing of a residential building by Israel,” said Ameen Atta, a member of MSA. “Babies, children, pregnant people, women, the elderly – they are all being murdered indiscriminately by Israel. Just for being Palestinian.”

The students then marched around campus with chants such as, “Free, free Palestine! Long live Palestine!” “We will honor all our martyrs, all our children, sons, and daughters” and “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide!”

#MilwaukeeWI #Palestine #MSA #SDS #FRSO