UWM students at pro-Palestine encampment determined despite weather conditions

UW-Milwaukee student Thomas Mulkerrins has spent every night since Monday sleeping outside in a tent on his school’s campus, an experience he said has been anything but comfortable.

“I woke up with a sunburn,” he said. “But at night it’s freezing cold, so I’ll wrap myself up in (a blanket) and then I wake up sweating, so that’s been tough.”

Mulkerrins serves as co-chair of UMM’s Young Democratic Socialist of America, He told TMJ4’s Tahleel Mohieldin that doesn’t plan on leaving until the demands he and fellow protestors, in support of Palestine, have laid out are met.

“We’re here for Gaza. What we’re doing is super important,” he said. “It’s very straightforward a genocide what’s happening right now. Children are dying, they're starving the people.”

Tahleel Mohieldin, TMJ4 News

Protestors have been pushing the university to disclose their financial investments and cut all ties with Israel.

After six days of camping outside junior and co-chair of the UWM Students for a Democratic Society, Audari Tamayo told Mohieldin that university leaders have done little to meet their demands.

"Just those mass emails, they sent to the school to try to placate us,” Tamayo said.

Friday the UWM Foundation released a statement about their $237 million investment portfolio. A message Mulkerrins said was woefully inadequate.

"We're asking for an itemized list and they gave us a description of what a bond is,” Mulkerrins criticized. “I would hope that they would have more faith in their Econ 101 classes which most of us have taken."

The statement did provide some information. The Foundation noted in part that while none of their bond investments include weapons manufacturers or governments in the Middle East, they can't select what investments are included in their equity mutual funds because of how they are managed.

Tahleel Mohieldin, TMJ4 News

"If it's true that they have no say where their money goes, then they shouldn't be putting their money where they have no say,” Tamayo said. "If it's true that they're not investing in these things then they need to show us the receipts if they have nothing to hide."

He also said while he believes university administrators are falling short, their encampment is still making progress with others in the community offering their support including UWM faculty and alumni.

Tamayo and other campers said they have every intention of keeping their encampment peaceful as they set up barricades they said were for their own protection from outside agitators.

He said peaceful observers of all backgrounds however are welcome, siting the Jewish Shabbat dinner and Muslim Jummah prayer held Friday at the encampment as examples.

“If anybody feels unsafe it’s because they haven’t stepped foot in this encampment,” he added.

Both Tamayo and Mulkerrins said so far, the university has been hands off the encampment but with campuses across the country clashing with police they're aware that could change. Still, they said they have no intention of slowing down.

“If it does happen here, we’ll be back up strong the next day," Mulkerrin said, looking to UW-Madison as an example. "They can come in, they can arrest us, they can charge us, it’s not going to stop us.”

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