As pro-Palestinian protests sweep U.S. campuses, here's what's happening at Wisconsin universities

Demonstrations intensified on college campuses across the country over the last week, a sign of students' growing discontent over their schools' responses to the war in Gaza.

Students are setting up encampments that university administrators find disruptive and are attempting to quash with police force. At the heart of these conflicts is a debate over free speech and how far schools should go in cutting ties with Israel.

Here's what has happened on Wisconsin's college campuses:

Jewish and Palestinian students on edge

In the weeks immediately after the war began, Milwaukee-area college students told the Journal Sentinel they felt anxious and fearful on campus.

Jewish students said pro-Palestinian rallies on and near campus made them feel unsafe, isolated and misunderstood. They saw some popular chants, such as "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as calls to eradicate Israel.

Palestinian-American students and other activist groups have kept up the pressure on universities in the ensuing months. They have urged school leaders to cut ties to Israel and held perhaps dozens of rallies, panels and other events.

Both groups of students said they were experiencing constant stress seeing graphic images of the war on social media and television. Many local Jewish and Palestinian-American students have personal ties to the Middle East; They said their families have paid close attention to news from the region.

Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel says militants took roughly 250 hostages during the attack and are still holding about 100 people and the remains of more than 30 others.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to local health officials.

At UW-Milwaukee, pro-Palestinian protesters facing citations

In February, about two dozen student protesters staged a sit-in outside the office of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone. They sought a meeting with Mone to discuss their demands, which include:

• Renaming Golda Meir Library. Meir, who grew up in Milwaukee and is one of UWM's most notable alumna, was Israeli prime minister from 1969-74.

• Ending study abroad trips to Israel. UWM said it has no study-abroad activity in Israel and no jurisdiction over Hillel, an international organization through which local Jewish college students can join and take birthright trips to Israel.

• Divesting from weapon manufacturers involved in the war. UWM said its foundation supports the university by investing in mutual funds but it cannot divert money from individual companies within its funds.

The Feb. 9 standoff lasted six hours and led to five students arrested. They face tickets for assembly blocking, obstructing, unauthorized occupation, prohibited signs and prohibited noise. All citations carry fines but no jail time.

More recently, protesters picketed outside Mone's home in Shorewood on April 18. They resurrected their demands from the February sit-in and also urged for the dropping of citations against the "Milwaukee 5" students.

The students pleaded not guilty earlier this month. A status conference meeting is scheduled for early June.

At Marquette, outsiders remove pro-Palestinian flags

Pro-Palestinian activists at Marquette University recently called attention to the arrests earlier this month of three women who campus police say pulled flags from a school-sanctioned Gaza memorial.

Police say one of the women, Kathryn M. Hinderks-Schlotman, carried a gun during the April 7 incident. The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing the case, and it’s not yet clear whether prosecutors will criminally charge her.

The women are not Marquette students, faculty or staff. The incident terrified Arab and Muslim students, a faculty adviser said, and added to students’ concerns about safety.

At UW-Madison, there's an ongoing federal investigation

Students have staged several peaceful protests since fall. At least one turned into a physical confrontation, however, when pro-Palestinian students disrupted a February career fair that included several companies believed to have ties to Israel. UW-Madison police issued a citation to one student.

Also this semester, the federal Department of Education opened an investigation into whether UW-Madison failed to protect its Jewish students from harassment. The investigation launched after Campus Reform, a conservative news outlet, filed a complaint against UW-Madison and several other universities.

In response, UW-Madison condemned antisemitism and said it would fully cooperate with the investigation.

Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, who is Jewish, has called for civility and respectful dialogue. In a recent interview with student newspapers, she voiced support for students' rights to assemble as long as the actions “stay within permissible limits and rules.”

State rules ban people from camping on campus land except in camping-designated areas.

Can universities divest from Israel?

One of the key demands from UWM protesters — and other student protesters nationally — is ending investments tied to Israel.

But experts say that might be too simplified a perspective. It's difficult to define what an "investment" in Israel entails, said economist Sandy Baum, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who studies college finances.

She said bigger investments are more obvious than smaller ones tucked away in mutual funds ? an investment tool many colleges use that pools money and spreads it out over numerous assets.

Universities hire private companies to manage their endowments to preserve their funds over the long run, Baum said.

Debates about the investments of college endowments are complicated, Baum said, because some university stakeholders argue the money needs to produce the biggest return on investment possible to fund teaching and programming and services.

"The purpose of the endowment is to have money that will allow the university to permanently provide educational opportunities so that they don't have to go out and raise new money every year to continue operating," she said.

The bigger a university's endowment, the more is at stake. That's one reason why pro-Palestinian student protesters at wealthy universities are fighting so hard this week, she said. There's a lot of money involved.

"There are always going to be differences of opinion about what you don't want to invest in," Baum said.

USA Today contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pro-Palestinian protests are impacting Wisconsin universities