Student journalists from two Twin Cities universities share the latest on divestment protests

[MUSIC PLAYING] EMILY BRIGHT: College protesters across the nation, including here in Minnesota, woke up intense this morning. That's as a growing number of students join rallies and campouts to protest the Israel-Hamas war and to demand that their schools cut financial ties to Israel. Today, student journalists from Hamline University in St. Paul and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities joined me to talk about the latest on their campuses.

First is Sabine Benda. She's a senior at Hamline and has been reporting on the protests for her school's paper, The Oracle. Sabine, thank you for being here.

SABINE BENDA: Hi, Emily. Thank you so much for having me.

EMILY BRIGHT: Of course. So what's happening with Hamline protests so far? Could you paint the picture for me?

SABINE BENDA: Of course, yeah. On Friday at 1:00 PM, a group of six students entered Old Main-- the campus's main administrative building-- and they intended to occupy the space until some of their demands were met. Demands included mainly a meeting with the president, who was off campus at the time for the weekend. And they were willing to meet with somebody from the Board of Trustees as well.

And then mostly, though, divestment. They want any BDS-identified corporations divested from anything that the University has invested in that supports or benefits the Israeli government, is basically what these protesters are calling for the university to divest from. Since then, the university agreed to a meeting and the students moved out to the front lawn. And there's an encampment there that stays until 4:30 today, at least.

EMILY BRIGHT: And what's the vibe of that group that's gathered on the campus lawn?

SABINE BENDA: So over the course of the last 24 hours or so, it's been a little bit different. A large group rally was supporting the encampment yesterday. Since then, a group of probably core 10 or so protesters have taken turns either staying overnight or staying to support the encampment through the class schedules today. So I would say an alternating, you know, between 6 to 10 students are keeping it held together.

They seem to be very hopeful and there's a lot of support. The campus has taken a really student-centric and holistic approach to student safety with everything going on. So it's a supportive environment as of now.

EMILY BRIGHT: So we have a handful of committed students. And you mentioned that they're meeting with the president at 2:00 today. I understand you'll be at that meeting as well. What do you expect will happen?

SABINE BENDA: Yeah, today, 4:30 is the meeting. And they did negotiate last-minute for there to be a journalist present. I was not aware of that negotiation, but then-- but that they say to keep both parties responsible and to have full transparency, they requested a journalist. I am expecting that meeting with the Board of Trustees Chair Ellen Watters, and the president, to go at least along the agenda the students have proposed.

I am not sure at this point whether this university will make actual moves to divestment. We've seen Macalester lay out a plan and students say they'd be happy with something similar happening here. So I think that there's a possibility that this does happen. And it's kind of riding on this meeting today to see whether or not that possibility really exists.

EMILY BRIGHT: And do you have information on to what extent the University of Hamline is invested in Israel or companies that work with the country, or is that something you're hoping to learn more about today?

SABINE BENDA: So as of now-- because we are a private university, not for profit-- that no disclosements have been made, and they don't have to make them as of now. I'm not sure whether or not that will be a part of this, if at any point we will get a full scope of what the university's investments look like. Even if there are steps to divest made, I'm not sure that any of this will become public information. But I-- yeah, again, it's kind of riding on this meeting today to see where the Board of Trustees and where the president is at.

EMILY BRIGHT: Yeah, well, you know, Hamline was the center of a major free speech debate last year. Do you think that has influenced administration's actions this spring? You talk about they're being very student-centric, there's the word.

SABINE BENDA: Yeah, yeah. I think that is a huge element to this. I think they-- while genuinely, the administration here knows their students very well-- we're a very small campus-- and everybody involved in the protests has either seen the Dean of Students and-- who is primarily involved with negotiations while the president has been out of town. So there's a very personal element to this that is keeping that student-centric approach.

I think that the desire for-- or at least not having another bout of media attention for the university is definitely a priority as well. I think following last year, they have done a lot to avoid controversy, for sure.

EMILY BRIGHT: Well, Sabine, thank for your time today.

SABINE BENDA: OK. yeah. Thank you so much, Emily. I really appreciate it.

EMILY BRIGHT: Thank you. That was Sabine Benda, a senior at Hamline University and a reporter for her school's newspaper, The Oracle. Now let's turn to Sam Hill, who is a student, reporter and a sophomore at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where protests led to arrests last week. Sam, thank you for being here.

SAM HILL: Hey, can you hear me all right? How are you doing?

EMILY BRIGHT: I can. yes, good. Thank you. So catch us up. What's happened with the protests at the U so far?

SAM HILL: Absolutely. So since the Tuesday arrests the morning of April 24, we've seen a huge student turnout over the past couple of days with a brief pause on the weekend. We've had between 200 and 700 students showing up on different days. We've had a combination of rallies, marches, encampments. It looks like a minimal amount of police interaction with protesters. There have been no arrests made since that Tuesday.

EMILY BRIGHT: OK. Can you tell me more? I'm hitting you with the same question I asked Sabine-- specifically, what students want to see from administration.

SAM HILL: Absolutely. So student groups have a lot of demands. Principally, it's a general divestment, boycotting universities with ties to Israel, specifically divesting from companies like Lockheed, Honeywell, General Dynamics and Woodward. But it looks like also people want to know what the university is investing in right now. People don't really know, and one of their demands is to have transparency in that aspect.

An additional thing to note is they also do want amnesty for students with pro-Palestinian viewpoints, whatever that will look like.

EMILY BRIGHT: OK. Now in a statement to NPR news, U said it has, quote, "very little direct business or investments in Israel or Palestine," and that its two study abroad programs in Israel were suspended already this year because of the war. Does that feel satisfactory?

SAM HILL: That's something that we don't really know at this point. We do know that the public university-- it's a university with a lot of assets, a lot of money. And right now, no one really knows what it is invested in. You know, the university is one of the forefront science and technological university research institutes.

EMILY BRIGHT: R1 research, yeah.

SAM HILL: Yeah, and I think that remains to be seen. I think people are really going to care about transparency and yeah, eager to-- eager to see what the university does in that aspect.

EMILY BRIGHT: Well, what have other students or faculty been saying about these protests? What have you been hearing?

SAM HILL: Absolutely. In general, people tend to have mixed feelings about where the protests are going. What we've seen is since the arrests, the university is taking a pretty uninvolved response. You know, they're maintaining police presence, but it also seems like police are not-- taking an active effort to not conduct arrests and not engage with protesters. We've seen protesters in multiple locations pretty much every day except Saturday and Sunday since Tuesday, occupying areas.

We've had a very large police presence. At one point Tuesday night, there were approximately 100 police on lowball estimates. And students and faculty seem to think that they're waiting for the protests to die down, so [INAUDIBLE].

EMILY BRIGHT: So just briefly, any idea what will happen next?

SAM HILL: A lot of people think that the university is just going to wait for some of that movement to fade away. Everyone is waiting. Both groups like Minnesota Hillel-- one of the Jewish groups on campus-- as well as Students for Justice in Palestine, everyone's kind of waiting to see what the university will do next. But no one thinks-- or no one has a solid idea of what they will do next.

EMILY BRIGHT: OK. Well, Sam, thank you for your time.

SAM HILL: And thank you. You have a good one.

EMILY BRIGHT: That was University of Minnesota Twin Cities sophomore Sam Hill. He is a student reporter for The Minnesota Daily.