….Many of the students who enroll in our master?s program and serve us as teaching assistants are from diverse working class backgrounds and are struggling to make ends meet and stay in school right now. Like the UW-Madison, in general, the department of Afro-American studies relies on the high-quality performance of our teaching assistants.
It is with dismay and disappointment, therefore, that we greet Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to deny collective bargaining rights to Wisconsin?s public employees. This will certainly have a detrimental effect on these students? welfare and a negative impact on their ability to maintain the superior service that they currently render to the hundreds of undergraduates who take our courses.