University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and protesters agree to end encampment

Protesters at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will take down a pro-Palestinian encampment that had stood for two weeks under an agreement reached with the school, university officials said in a statement on Sunday, May 12, 2024. The encampment, believed to be the last one standing at a Wisconsin college, will be gone by Tuesday, May 14, they said.

School officials had allowed the encampment to stand and occupy a broad patch of lawn between Mitchell Hall and a busy thoroughfare on the campus’s southern boundary, choosing not to call in the police. That approach differed from one at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where administrators in early May called in the police to break down the tents after negotiations failed. After the initial crackdown failed to end the encampment, Wisconsin-Madison later came to an agreement with protesters to break down the camp voluntarily before commencement ceremonies over the weekend.

Mark Mone, the chancellor of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said in a statement last Wednesday that the university had exercised “the widest possible amount of patience and restraint.” But he also indicated that patience had nearly run out, and warned that the school might take action.

Under the agreement with the group of protesters, known as the UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition, the university pledged to join calls for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas; denounce the destruction by Israeli forces of schools and universities in Gaza; and meet with protest leaders over their concerns about university investments.