Police remove pro-Palestinian protest encampment at UW-Madison

After issuing multiple warnings, scores of police with riot shields forcibly removed a Pro-Palestinian tent encampment from the UW-Madison’s Library Mall last week, as campus protests against Israel’s war to annihilate the terrorist group known as Hamas spread across the country.

Protesters re-established some of the encampment soon afterward and, as of this writing, university leaders had pledged no further police action for at least 24 hours. Meanwhile protests spread to Marquette University and other UW campuses, including UW-Milwaukee.

In a separate action, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a discrimination lawsuit against Northwestern University, which tried to appease protesters by offering tuition-free enrollment to Palestinian students and to hire Palestinian faculty.

In Madison, WISC-TV ran footage of University of Wisconsin police and partnering agencies dismantling the original encampment, with officers and students pushing against each other and the students chanting “Free Free Palestine.”

The ACLU of Wisconsin condemned the police action, saying the students were peacefully expressing solidarity with Palestine and that the encampments were non-violent and posed no risk to public safety.

“Responding to peaceful acts of dissent with militarized police is dangerous and only makes things worse,” Wisconsin ACLU executive director Melinda Brennan said. “Too often in situations like this, we’ve seen police behave recklessly, violate the law, and endanger people gathered at protests and acts of civil disobedience.”

Inviting armed police into a campus protest environment can create unacceptable risks for all students, faculty, and staff, Brennan said.

“University officials must also be aware of the history of law enforcement using inappropriate and excessive force on communities of color, including black, brown, and immigrant students,” she said. “Moreover, arresting peaceful protestors is also likely to escalate, not calm, the tensions on campus — as events of the past week have made abundantly clear.”

However, in a message sent to UW-Madison students and faculty, UW-Madison chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said the removal of the encampment was necessary and that the university had warned the students over several days to bring their demonstrations into conformity with a law that prohibits camping on UW grounds. 

“This morning, those present at the encampment were given several warnings during which time they were offered the opportunity to peacefully leave the encampment with their belongings and avoid being either cited or arrested,” Mnookin said. “These warnings followed prior communications, including two messages from campus leaders that clearly delineated the expectation of consequences if the encampment was not removed.”

Mnookin emphasized the university’s support for free expression and peaceful protest. 

“Now that the illegal activity has been resolved, students and others are free to resume peaceful protest that abides by campus protest guidelines today or at any time in the future,” she said. “Our operation focused only on the tents and the encampment, which constituted the only prohibited activity under Chapter 18 of the UW System.”

Mnookin also said she recognized that “deeply felt pain and horror about the tragic and devastating loss of life and scale of destruction in Gaza” had fueled some community members’ desire to protest in ways that went beyond the law. 

“UW–Madison has a long and proud history of fighting for deeply felt causes and exercising our right to free expression,” she said. “Civil disobedience has been a time-honored tradition in our nation, including here. Yet it is a long-standing element of the civil disobedience tradition to respect the laws we share and to accept that there are consequences for violating them. It is this that distinguishes civil disobedience from mere lawlessness.”

Mnookin also called out outside agitators — people she said were not affiliated with the campus coming into the area and engaging in confrontational and other inciting behaviors. 

“Such an increased risk to the safety of our community, which would be expected to grow over time, was a significant contributing factor to today’s action to address the illegal encampment,” she said. “A small number of blatantly antisemitic actions on the grounds of the encampment have been credibly reported, but we have no evidence that any members of our UW–Madison community engaged in this odious activity.”

Still, Mnookin reiterated, the presence of non-community members, including, reportedly, several highly aggressive individuals, was one of the predictable harms of an illegal encampment staged on campus.

“Let me state clearly that true threats and harassment based on one’s identity, religion or national origin will not be tolerated on our campus,” she said. “Anyone experiencing this is urged to file a bias report. And let me repeat loudly and unequivocally that we must all roundly condemn both Islamophobia and antisemitism.”

Mnookin said she understood that many of the campus’s Jewish community members had experienced fear and anxiety during both the year and during this week’s protest. 

“I am grateful to campus partners and others who provided care for them over the past several challenging days during which they sought to celebrate the conclusion of Passover,” she said.

The role of campus leadership is not to take sides in national and international debates, Mnookin said, or to make special allowances for particular points of view, but to ensure that all participants in campus life have access to university resources for learning and growth. 

“We recognize that the campus debates of the last few months take place in the shadow of international violence that has touched a great many students, faculty and staff, either directly or indirectly,” she said. “This violence has created strong emotions of fear and anger among many segments of our community. We express our profound empathy for those who have had to navigate this academic year amid ongoing grief and heartbreak due to the devastating destruction, injustice, and loss of life in Israel and Gaza.”

Among the politicians condemning both anti-semitism and the encampment was former state lawmaker Roger Roth, a Republican candidate for Congress in the state’s 8th congressional district. 

“The antisemitic madness of Columbia and NYU has found its way to Wisconsin,” Roth said. “University officials need to stand up and tell the Jewish community they are welcome and that calls for genocide are not. University officials need to enforce their own policies and state law regardless of the political affiliation of protestors. It’s past time for the adults trespassing on state property to learn what every other member of our society already does — actions have consequences.”

Northwestern lawsuit

Meanwhile, not far away at Northwestern University, school officials responded much differently to students occupying university property, acceding to student demands rather than forcibly removing an encampment. 

According to WILL, the university reportedly offered $1.9 million in scholarship funds, faculty positions, and student-organization space to Palestinian students and staff.

WILL responded by filing a federal Title VI complaint against Northwestern on behalf of the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), which has an active chapter on the university’s campus. 

WILL said the complaint documents the university’s agreement with the students to provide the reported benefits and pointed out that, as a recipient of federal funds, Northwestern University is subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “on the grounds of race, color, or national origin.” 

“Our message to Northwestern University and any other university is simple: if you do this, we will take legal action,” WILL deputy counsel Dan Lennington said. “The Constitution and federal law are clear, and this agreement concocted with radical pro-Hamas protestors is illegal.” 

Vic Bernson, vice president and general counsel for YAF, called Northwestern’s response “pathetic.”

“It’s a perfect encapsulation of the infantile DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) mindset in action: those committing illegal acts and spewing antisemitic bile are justified, so let’s not challenge them but instead give them everything they want and they’ll go away,” Bernson said. “But it never works that way, does it? Appease awful people making awful demands, and they’ll always respond by demanding even more. This is pure cowardice and lunacy, and YAF will fight back with every fiber of our being.”

More specifically, the WILL complaint alleges that on April 29, university officials entered into an agreement with anti-Israel demonstrators occupying a space on campus called Deering Meadow.

“Under the agreement, the university promised to provide the ‘full cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates to attend Northwestern for the duration of their undergraduate careers,’” WILL stated. “The agreement also provides ‘funding two faculty per year for two years,’ with the provision that these faculty will be ‘Palestinian faculty.’ Finally, the University promises to ‘provide immediate temporary space for MENA/Muslim students.’”

MENA is an acronym for “Middle Eastern and North African” individuals. 

By providing nearly $1.9 million in scholarships, two faculty positions, and “immediate temporary space” based on an individual’s status as Palestinian or MENA, WILL alleges in the complaint, the university is intentionally discriminating against non-Palestinian or non-MENA individuals on the grounds of race, color, or national origin. 

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.