Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupt UW Board of Regents meeting, leading to 7 arrests

About a dozen Pro-Palestinian protesters briefly interrupted a UW Board of Regents meeting Thursday, continuing their efforts to demand universities cut ties with Israel.

“Not another nickel! Not another dime! No more money for Israel's crime!" the protesters chanted in a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student union meeting room during a presentation on the UW System budget for next school year.

Officers arrested and cited seven people with disorderly conduct, according to UW-Milwaukee spokesperson Angelica Duria. Non-students were banned from the student union through the end of this month.

"UWM respects and supports people’s right to free speech and to engage in peaceful demonstrations," Duria said. "However, attendees were made aware that disruptions risked violating state law and could result in arrests."

Audience behavior guidelines posted outside the meeting room informed attendees they had to remain seated and could not hold signs or shout. The disruption lasted about a minute.

The UWM Dean of Students Office and Student Union staff asked protesters to allow the meeting to continue without further interruptions, but those requests were ignored, Duria said. To ensure safety and keep the meeting moving, police escorted protesters outside.

"This is the first time I will say, at least personally, that I've been physically removed," protesters Kayla Patterson said. "So I think there's definitely an escalation of police presence going forward."

UWM did not send in police to clear an encampment protesters maintained outside of Mitchell Hall for two weeks last month. The tents came down May 14 after UWM struck an agreement with protesters. Part of the deal required the university to facilitate a meeting with UWM Foundation to discuss divestment.

Patterson said the foundation provided few answers and gave protesters the "runaround" in scheduling a second meeting.

"Seeing that lack of willing to work in good faith, we decided to take our efforts a little bit higher, keep up the pressure," she said. "The meeting that we went to was the business and finance committee, so we figured it's relevant to them. If they're trying to 'transform for tomorrow,' as they said in that presentation, we want to see action that we can transform for today."

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at [email protected] or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @KellyMeyerhofer.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested for disrupting UW Regents meeting