So where do things stand today with negotiations between the protesters and
the Chancellor at UW-Madison? Yeah so as of today we walked out of a
negotiation meeting however we explicitly stated that we weren't
ending negotiations we just weren't gonna sit in a this particular meeting or
any meeting until we felt as though they were acting into a good faith and
taking our proposal seriously and actually interacting with the things we
were putting on the table and over many meetings we saw that that was not
happening so we walked out of the meeting because they were wasting our
time. Now we are trying to get a meeting set up with the Chancellor we'll see if
that happens like I said she's been a little bit wishy-washy on what she
wants us to do and what she's willing to do and it seems to be a little bit
circular. We're here in the second week of protests where do you think things are
going I mean it's graduation time what do you see in the future? I see us
remaining to stand in solidarity here we are gonna continue to fight for our
demands in whatever way we can. You are supported by some professors and people
from the community why is that important? I think that's important for many
reasons going back to what we said before it is I think very important that we
are a university community standing up for people who no longer have
universities because they've been bombed by bombs that and other weapons that
have been manufactured in part due to funding that we provide them so I
think it's very important to have a wide coalition of people from the
University out here supporting from academic staff to other staff to faculty
to students but I also think it means a lot to those students who are out here
graduating. What we're putting on the line is so little in comparison and to
what the people of Gaza are going through but nonetheless it is very
comforting to have some support from our professors. Chancellor UW-Madison has
said that they cannot divest it's just not something that they're able to do
what's your reply to that? My reply to that is she has a lot more power than
she is saying she has and just picks and chooses when she uses it and when she
tells us she can. Why is divestment important? Divestment is important because
we should not be complicit in weapons manufacturing that facilitates the
slaughter of tens of thousands of children. There has been an alert put out
by a campus police about some safety concerns how safe is the protest here?
Looks pretty safe to me. I have been here pretty much 18 hours a day since we
put up the encampment and I have been helping maintain safety in the camp
with our camp marshals or safety people and I think it's going pretty well and
people are feeling safe. If people weren't feeling safe I don't think we'd see
people out here. We are you know at the end of the semester do you think that
protests like this across the country and here will lose steam? I think that
there's definitely a dynamic shift as people graduate and fluctuate in and out
of Madison. Nonetheless we saw and we are seeing that we have a wide support from
many aspects of the community more than just undergraduate students and there
will be representation even after graduation. Okay thank you so much for
your time. Of course thank you. One last question. Spell your first and last name
for me. A-B-B-I-E-K-L-E-I-N Abby Klein. And are you a student? I'm a PhD student yes.
What do you what's your research? I study psychology. When do you plan to
graduate? Give me six years. Thank you very much.