Liam Beran
UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, far right, listens to students and faculty during the Faculty Senate meeting on May 6.
Lengthy negotiations between pro-Palestinian protesters and university leaders appear stalled on the cusp of commencement, as UW-Madison warns that students who “engage in disruption” at the ceremonies would risk suspension or arrest.
Protesters have disrupted graduation ceremonies at the University of Michigan and Indiana University Bloomington, according to Inside Higher Ed, and some universities — including Columbia University and the University of Southern California — have canceled or downsized their ceremonies due to potential student protests. UW-Madison has added new security measures “to reduce the likelihood of disruption,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. UW-Madison ceremonies are scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
It has been a tense two weeks for protesters and UW-Madison administrators since a pro-Palstinian encampment went up April 29 on the Library Mall. There are differing accounts of how negotiations, which have been going on for about a week, broke down. In a statement Wednesday afternoon, UW-Madison said student and faculty negotiators “elected to end talks with campus leaders, walking out of a meeting this morning.” In a message to the encampment’s Telegram channel, the student protesters said that they are still willing to meet with university leaders, but that UW-Madison leadership repeatedly “refused to engage” in good faith with the protesters’ demands.
UW-Madison leaders, including Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, have said that some of the protesters’ demands would violate university or state policy. On Wednesday, the university offered a resolution that would facilitate “access” to decision makers at the UW Foundation, the nonprofit private fundraising organization controlling the nearly $4 billion endowment that is one target of the protesters’ divestment and disclosure demands, alongside more access to shared governance.
In exchange, protesters would agree to full removal of the encampment and no “disruption” of future university operations, including finals and commencement. The potential for disruptions to the events is on the university’s radar — UW-Madison has updated its commencement ceremony page to indicate that disruptions of university events like graduation “violate state law and will not be tolerated.”
Protest leaders with Students for Justice in Palestine-Madison (SJP-Madison) and the Youth Democratic Socialists of America submitted a modified list of “ethical investment” demands around noon on Wednesday, alongside a petition. Unethical investments, as described in the proposal, include investing in entities tied to arms manufacturing or the management of private prisons, and those that operate in occupied territories.
The proposal would mandate that UW-Madison disclose any offending investments “managed directly by the university or through associated institutions such as the Wisconsin Foundation,” establish a divestment review committee, and conduct a third-party annual audit for divestment compliance. Additionally, the modified demands ask for a reduction in police presence on campus with an eventual goal of removal, and for disciplinary measures against the 34 protesters arrested on May 1 to be dropped.
In a statement on Wednesday, UW-Madison said protesters were looking for Mnookin to endorse the investment principles, but that she could not “run around important shared governance internal processes.”
“This is not something up for negotiation,” the statement read.
Mnookin pushed back against some of the protesters’ demands in remarks to the Faculty Senate on Monday and denied that UW-Madison administrators could control how the university’s endowment is managed or invested. The UW Foundation’s governing board of alumni and donors control the endowment, not the chancellor, though protesters have asked for Mnookin to use her influence to compel disclosure.
In opening remarks to the Faculty Senate, Mnookin said that while student protesters might not have intended to pose a safety risk, the encampment still posed one in her view. Mnookin noted that if she were to authorize the pro-Palestine encampment, she would likely have to authorize similar encampments under content neutrality rules for public institutions in the First Amendment, which mandate that certain messages cannot be privileged over others.
There was audible emotion in her voice at times, especially when addressing instances of violence against protesters at the University of California-Los Angeles, where she was law school dean from 2013 to 2022.
“What happened at UCLA, an institution of which I was part for 17 years, shows us that in very clear terms and makes clear this risk is neither fanciful nor hypothetical,” Mnookin said.
Liam Beran
More than 200 pro-Palestinian UW-Madison staff and faculty marched up Bascom Hill on May 6 to protest the police response to the encampment.
Mnookin also told the Faculty Senate that “[endowment] decisions are quite literally not at all under my control.” She added that separation between UW-Madison and the UW Foundation is defined in UW Board of Regents policy. UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas tells Isthmus she was referring to Regents policy document 21-9, which mandates a “legal separation” between UW System campuses and their foundations.
On cutting ties to Israeli institutions, a demand SJP-Madison removed from its proposal on Wednesday, Mnookin maintained that cutting programs like the George L. Mosse Graduate Exchange program would be a “violation of state law” and run counter to UW-Madison’s ideas of academic freedom.
When asked which laws Mnookin was referring to, Lucas tells Isthmus Wisconsin Act 248, enacted as an executive order by former Gov. Scott Walker in 2017 and codified into law by the Legislature in 2018, would prevent UW-Madison “from refusing to deal with or terminating business relations with Israel — or entities that conduct business in Israel — if doing so is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relationships with Israel.”
Mnookin’s remarks came after more than 200 pro-Palestinian faculty and staff led a march up Bascom Hill on May 6 to protest the arrest of 34 protesters on May 1, when police moved in to break up the encampment. Many faculty and staff who marched attended the Faculty Senate meeting afterwards.
Both faculty and students spoke at the meeting. UW-Madison School of Business professor Jon Eckhardt said that protesters were putting UW-Madison in a tough spot for academic freedom by breaking the law and forcing the university down “a path of conflict.” Eckhardt asked the protesters to “stop challenging our framework and comply with our laws and norms.”
Sociology professor Chad Alan Goldberg, who also is on the faculty committee for the Mosse exchange, says he agreed with “everything” Mnookin said. Goldberg says he was concerned about on-campus antisemitism and called cutting ties to Israeli institutions “a direct threat” to academic freedom.
Samer Alatout, a UW-Madison professor of community and environmental sociology who was arrested and injured during the May 1 encampment sweep, supported the students’ demands and asked the Faculty Senate why no university leaders had contacted him to see how he was doing after the police action on Wednesday.
UW-Madison sophomore Adam Donahue, who was arrested on May 1, said that Mnookin should pursue protesters’ demands even if she doesn’t have the institutional power to do so.
“I think I speak for many of us here when I say we don't care — make it happen,” Donahue says. “I don't care if you do so using legitimate or illegitimate means. Show up at the doorsteps of the Foundation’s managers, pull political favors. I don't care, make it happen.”
Liam Beran
Sociology professor Chad Alan Goldberg, waiting at the microphone, expressed concerns about the demands of protesters at the May 6 UW Faculty Senate meeting.
The Madison city council has also weighed in. On May 7, members deadlocked at 8-8 on a resolution expressing support for student protesters. Authored by Ald. Juliana Bennett, it called for Mnookin to refrain from authorizing further police action against the encampment during negotiations and for the council to reaffirm a call for ceasefire it made in December. That resolution passed unanimously.
Ald. MGR Govindarajan tells Isthmus he voted for the resolution because it “supported students’ First Amendment right to protest” He says he’s “disappointed” it didn’t pass, but will continue to communicate with UW-Madison administration “to focus on de-escalation and safety for everyone as I have been the past week.”
Many community members spoke in support of the resolution during a public comment period. Some referenced the peaceful nature of the encampment and denied claims that the encampment fostered antisemitism. “I've heard Muslim students tell me that the encampment is the first place they felt truly safe,” said Cait Mallery, a community organizer. Lulu Hussein read a statement of support for the resolution from SJP-Madison, one of the main groups behind the protest.
Some speakers said the resolution would endorse “lawlessness” and promote antisemitism at UW-Madison. Fred Gants, an attorney and the incoming president of the Jewish Federation of Madison, criticized the resolution’s portrayal of Hamas’ culpability and said the resolution was not “needed.”
What comes next? Protesters say they stand behind their demands and are willing to come to the negotiating table again, and UW-Madison leaders say they would be open to meeting Thursday.
For now, the future of the encampment is unclear, which concerns not just university officials but some students as well.
A group of Jewish students met with Mnookin and other campus leaders on Monday to outline concerns around antisemitism from “encampment protesters and outside agitators” and request, among other things, that UW either officially waive the state ban on encampments — Mnookin can authorize the encampment under Wisconsin Administrative Code Chapter 18 — or enforce it.
“With the looming threat of protesters disrupting graduation and the untenable rise of antisemitism on college campuses, students ask that the University take a stand against hate and promote the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea,” read a Monday press release from the Jewish students.
In a May 8 press release, the UW-Madison Police Department outlined three crimes that have occurred on Library Mall from May 1 to May 8, including one possible antisemitic hate crime. In a separate incident, UW-Madison placed two student organizations under investigation and interim suspension for an alleged connection to antisemitic and pro-terrorist chalkings at the Dane County Farmers’ Market.
But some Jewish students and community members maintain that the encampment is safe and a welcoming community space. Efrat Koppel, a UW-Madison alumna who is Jewish, told the Madison city council during its May 7 meeting that the encampment is “not violent” and that “the Jews who are protesting in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movements do so not in spite of their Judaism, or religiosity or faith, but because of it.”
On the evening of May 3, a student-led Shabbat service was held at the encampment, followed by a Muslim sunset prayer. In her city blog, Bennett called it “an incredibly emotional and impactful religious moment where community members of various religious backgrounds engaged in prayer together.”
[Editor's note: This post has been updated to correct comments by UW professors Jon Eckhardt and Chad Alan Goldberg.]
