Law enforcement officers are engaging with protesters and attempting to remove them from their encampment from the UW Madison campus.
TMJ4 and our reporting partners in Madison have seen officers begin making arrests and several students are currently in handcuffs. Things got physical between officers and students around 7:30 this morning.
11:32 Update:
Harm reports that protesters are rebuilding the encampment and replacing tents that were torn down by police.
9:38 Update:
This is all that remains of protesters tents:
Harm says protesters have promised to bring more, but things have calmed down on the library mall. Police are still gathered in small groups around the edges of the mall.
9:25 Update:
Harm just spoke to a University of Wisconsin spokesperson, Marc Lovicott, who says more than a dozen people have been arrested. Lovicott says the goal was to remove tents today, and that only two remain. He adds that once the tents are removed, protesters will be back in line with protest rules.
9:13 Update:
Police appear to be retreating. Watch this video captured by Harm:
Harm says officers are now in the street adjacent to the library mall and have arrested another student.
9:01 Update:
Students and police are shoving back and forth. The audio from this video has been removed because of coarse language.
8:58 Update:
Law enforcement on campus have arrested a professor, Sami Shalk, who teaches gender and women's studies.
She and several other detainees were escorted campus by officers.
8:48 update:
Harm spoke with Professor Samer Alatout, who teaches community and enviromental sociology at UW Madison. He's an also advising the student group holding the protest.
Altout's face was bleeding from an interaction with police before his interview with Harm. Watch that full interview below.
Altout says one of his main goals was to protect students from violence, regardless of their views. He's been cited for resisting arrest.
8:28 Update:
TMJ4's Harm Venhuizen observed Dane County Sheriff deputies and Wisconsin State Patrol officers on campus and shared this picture.
Harm also captured this video of students continuing to chant as law enforcement moves onto the library mall.
Background
Student have been protesting the conflict in Gaza since Monday. Hundreds of students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison gathered on the Library Mall to demand that the university divest from Israel.
When TMJ4 covered the protests earlier in the week, many of the students demonstrating on campus Monday declined to provide their names, citing fears of suspension or expulsion. Some international students voiced worries that their visas may be revoked for participating in the protests.
UW-Madison Dean of Students Christina Olstad sent a campus-wide email over the weekend warning students that there would be consequences for breaking the university’s protest rules, including for camping on campus.
Still, protestors were pitching tents and digging in on Monday. Students told TMJ4 they were prepared to stay until the university meets their demands or until they are removed.
Students are also protesting and camping out on UW Milwaukee's campus. They have the same goals as their counterparts in Madison.
The university released a statement Monday reiterating that the UWM Foundation is a separate legal entity from the university and that UWM has no control over the mutual fund investments made by the foundation.
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