After reaching deal with UW-Milwaukee, student protesters keep door open on more protests if further demands are not met

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) – Two weeks after first pitching their tents on campus, pro-Palestinian student protesters at UW-Milwaukee are now packing their bags.

On Monday, the UW-Milwaukee Popular University for Palestine Coalition held a news conference to discuss the agreement they entered into with the university to end the encampment voluntarily.

Khalid Hamdan, a pro-Palestinian protester, said, "It's great. It's a step forward that we may have never seen generations ago."

It was a celebratory scene later Monday evening at the site of the now-former protest.

More than 100 people shared one last meal together that was prepared by the Palestinian mothers of the student protesters.

Palestinian-American Khalid Hamdan volunteered for the US Air Force after 9/11. He thinks this protest can help secure a better future for children who have only known conflict. Hamdan said the future can be "Hopefully a peaceful one. Hopefully one where we don't have enemies. Hopefully one where people look at us and they recognize us as people, as human beings, as equals."

The tension that surrounded the encampment during the first two weeks was gone Monday, for now.

But protesters kept alive the possibility they would return as negotiations continue.

Tuesday they're scheduled to meet with the UWM Foundation. Protesters want full disclosure of the foundation's investments. And despite thawing tension, protesters said they will keep fighting if they don't get that disclosure.

As they kept clearing the lawn outside Mitchell Hall, some left the door open for a return if the meeting does not go the way they want it to.

Protester Audari Tamayo said, "If we don't get that we're going to keep going. We never agreed to not set up an encampment. We never agreed to stop protesting."

Protesters pledge to keep pressuring the UWM Foundation and the Board of Regents over potential connections to Israel, into the summer and beyond, if necessary.

Tamayo said, "If we don't get what we want in that meeting we're going to keep fighting."

While taking questions from the media, the coalition said after three meetings with administrators, they received an ultimatum.

"They sent us an email at 8:20, 8:30 Saturday, telling us we had to come to an agreement by midnight, otherwise everything was out the window," Tamayo said.

The previous commitments made by UW-Milwaukee are what was on the line if an agreement was not reached.

"When they did give that final ultimatum, we still went back and forth, I think two or three times after that. We did not back down when there was pressure. We know that the pressure was coming from UW-System, specifically after Madison reached an agreement," coalition member Ameen Atta said.

The agreement includes condemning the plausible genocide in Gaza, as determined by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, calling for a ceasefire, and having UW-Milwaukee review its study abroad programs to make sure they adhere to its discriminatory conduct policy.

It also includes the university coordinating a meeting between protesters and the UW-Milwaukee Foundation, a separate legal entity from the university, to discuss the foundation's financial investments.

"Without disclosure, we can't know where we're invested in or not. Disclosure is the bare minimum of transparency. If they're not guilty then they need to prove it," Tamayo said about their demands from the UWM Foundation.

In its statement announcing the agreement, UW-Milwaukee said its leadership prioritized the safety of everyone involved, so they sought resolution through dialogue with students to reach "the safest conclusion".

Even as other universities -including UW-Madison- sent in police to break up encampments, UW-Milwaukee held off.

Kayla Patterson, with the UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition, said Monday, "We don't want to necessarily congratulate UWM too much for not sending in riot cops on the students that they claim to care about."

But Milwaukee's Jewish community is furious with the deal.

A joint statement from the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and Hillel Milwaukee -The Jewish student center just a block from the encampment- condemned the agreement, saying they are "aware of and appalled by the shocking decision of Chancellor Mark Mone and UWM to capitulate to protestors' demands, while also parroting their false inflammatory narrative."

The statement continued, "On Yom Hazikaron, as we remember those who fell in defense of the Jewish state and those murdered by terrorists, we are especially horrified that Chancellor Mone equated the innocent hostages in Gaza with those jailed on charges of terrorism by Israel. This is reprehensible."

The groups added they are, "fielding dozens of calls and emails expressing anger this process was handled so badly."

Both groups said they would be issuing a joint response to the agreement which they called a sheer failure of campus leadership.

Students at the encampment have until 8 a.m. Tuesday morning to clear out. They will not face any conduct violations if they are gone by then and there are no disruptions to UW-Milwaukee's commencement ceremonies.

CBS 58 reached out to UW-Milwaukee for comment on this story but did not hear back.