Pro-Palestine Students Walkout, Confront UWM Chancellor After Awards Ceremony Protest

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A protestor holds a “UWM, shame on you” sign during a photo opportunity for employee award winners.
A protestor holds a “UWM, shame on you” sign during a photo opportunity for employee award winners.

The UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition held a student walkout on Oct. 9, a day that included a rally at Golda Meir Library, a teach-in outside Chapman Hall and a confrontation with UWM Chancellor Mark Mone following a silent protest at the UWM Employee Excellence Awards Ceremony.

Pro-Palestine students arrived at the Union Ballroom around 3:30 p.m., carrying signs and banners as they formed a perimeter around the room for the second half the ceremony. Mone did not address the protestors’ presence as he announced the rest of the award winners.

Following the ceremony, Police escorted Mone out of the Union and into a UWM Police vehicle as protestors followed, chanting, “Mone, Mone, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?” No arrests were made.

The next day, the coalition posted the following Instagram reel:

The week of the walkout coincided with the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas killed over 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. It also marked one year since the latest escalation of Israel’s 16-year long siege on Gaza, in which the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed at least 41,000 Palestinians in the past year – a possible genocide, according to the International Court of Justice.

The day began as “Free, free Palestine” chants and snare-drum hits reverberated across Spaights Plaza. Representatives from Students for a Democratic Society, Students for Justice in Palestine, The Muslim Student Association, Young Democratic Socialists of America and Un-PAC addressed walkout participants outside the library around noon.

The walkout was the coalition’s biggest action since the Pro-Palestine encampment this spring, said Students for a Democratic Society Co-Chair Audari Tamayo.

“Students across the country are coordinating actions this whole week,” said Tamayo. “Despite the repression we’ve faced, we’re all uniting to raise the banner of solidarity with Palestine to demand that universities disclose and divest from the apartheid state of Israel and make sure that our country is no longer complicit in genocide.”

Pro-Palestine protestors gather outside the UWM Library for a student walkout.
A crowd gathers outside the UWM library for a Pro-Palestine walkout.

UWM suspended the five core member organizations of the coalition in July, following an Instagram post containing “intimidating language aimed at Jewish community members and organizations on campus that support Israel,” according to a statement from the Office of the Chancellor. On Sept. 5, UWM announced that all five groups’ temporary suspension had been lifted. SDS announced in an Oct. 16 Facebook post, however, that they will remain suspended until 2025 and on probation until 2026.

During the library rally, one SJP member spoke about his aunt who was killed in Gaza this past year. She had worked as a speech therapist for children suffering trauma from the war.

“Since 2007, there have been five major conflicts in Gaza and her house was destroyed three times,” the student said, preferring to remain anonymous. “Every single time, she picked up the rubble and rebuilt what was wrongfully taken from her.”

Walkout participants paint signs outside the library.
Walkout participants paint signs outside the library.

Around 1 p.m., the protestors marched from the library to the Chapman Hall lawn for a teach-in featuring talks from UWM Professors Fahed Masahlki and Rachel Ida Buff – along with a representative from Listen to Wisconsin, the organization behind April’s “Uninstructed” campaign.

“It is not at all difficult to see that the Israelis could not do what they have been doing without the ammunition and political cover that the Biden administration has been giving them,” UWM Global Studies Professor Fahed Masalkhi said following his talk. “And the students have been the real force in this country that upholds American values: the land of the free and home of the brave, standing up for the oppressed and so on.”

Masalkhi, who happens to be Muslim, emphasized the role that Jewish activists have played in the Pro-Palestine movement. He also stressed the importance of precise language.

“I am very concerned about my Jewish students all the time,” he said. “Antisemitism needs to be taken very seriously, and I frequently urge that the language used in protests should not be careless.”

Professor Fahed Masahlki gives a talk to students on the Chapman Hall lawn.
Professor Fahed Masahlki gives a talk to students on the Chapman Hall lawn.

UWM History Professor and Jewish Voice for Peace-Milwaukee member Rachel Ida Buff also spoke to students at the teach-in. She says that she has only ever felt welcomed as a Jewish person in the Pro-Palestine movement. Sharing some of her thoughts on the controversial phrase, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” she argues that such slogans often have multiple interpretations.

“I have colleagues on campus who are Zionists who feel that the slogan is antisemitic, so, yeah, they’re going to feel like they hear a lot of antisemitism from protestors,” she said. “But to think that every time someone says, ‘from the river to the sea,’ they mean that Jews should not exist strikes me as really unimaginative.”

Buff interprets the slogan as a call for freedom and equal rights for Palestinians, whether they live in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. Many Jewish and Pro-Israel organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee interpret the phrase as an antisemitic call for the violent destruction of the state of Israel, however, citing the slogan’s presence on the 1988 Hamas charter.

A UWM Police Officer tells an SDS safety marshal to make sure walkout participants are not blocking the sidewalks outside of Chapman Hall.
A UWM Police Officer tells an SDS safety marshal to make sure walkout participants are not blocking the sidewalks outside of Chapman Hall.

One group of students observed the protest from a distance while sitting around a picnic table in the green space between Chapman and Sandburg Hall. A student named Jacob shared his thoughts, preferring to keep his last name anonymous.

“I feel like the people out here are a little bit extreme, a little bit misinformed, and I feel like they care more about justice than peace,” he said. “I feel like yelling and screaming angrily about freeing Palestine kind of defeats the purpose of peace in Palestine, which I think is more important.”

Departing from Chapman soon after 3 p.m., the coalition marched through the Union cafeteria to protest the awards ceremony and confront Mone.

In May, the coalition and Chancellor Mone reached a deal to end the Pro-Palestine encampment at UWM. In that agreement, UWM called for a ceasefire, denounced the destruction of Gaza’s universities by Israel and condemned both the Oct. 7 attacks and the “plausible genocide” in Gaza. In the wake of backlash from the Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman and condemnation from three local Jewish organizations, Mone later apologized.

Protestors holding Pro-Palestine signs and banners form a silent perimeter around the UWM Ballroom during the UWM Employee Excellence Awards Ceremony.
Protestors holding Pro-Palestine signs and banners form a silent perimeter around the UWM Ballroom during the UWM Employee Excellence Awards Ceremony.