Category: Opinion

Column by Norman Jensen, a retired UW School of Medicine and Public Health professor. A group of 25 white advocates contributed to this column.

Letter to the editor: I would suggest that the new train station be built near the UW campus, as many college students do not have cars, rely on public transportation and the university is centrally located in the city.

Letter to the editor: We have a granddaughter who is a freshman at UW-Madison this year.

Student groups have made similar calculations: a student group at the University of Illinois estimated as of April that the university holds $230 million in fossil fuel investments, and a student group at the University of Wisconsin estimated as of last November that the university held $315 million in fossil fuel investments. In the most extreme case, Bloomberg recently reported that the University of Texas is earning more than $6 million a day derived from vast oil and gas holdings in the Permian Basin.

Letter to the editor: We are writing as Jewish members of the UW-Madison community in response to the recent anti-Zionist chalkings on our campus, and especially to the reactions from your offices, UW-Madison Hillel and other campus organizations and media on and off campus.

As a physician, I look forward to serving patients based on the ideals of the Hippocratic Oath rather than following arbitrary guidelines created by insurance companies.

-Aamir Hussain is a resident physician practicing in Washington, DC. Rufus Sweeney, a medical student at the University of Wisconsin, assisted in the creation of this story.

In keeping with the Jewish practice of tokhehah, which could be translated as “calling-in,” we are asking you to recognize and redress the damage that these responses have caused.

The American Bar Association is considering a major change in legal education: eliminating the longstanding requirement that applicants for law school take a valid and reliable admissions test like the Law School Admissions Test. This change would be effective with the law school class entering in 2026.

-Berkeley Law’s dean Erwin Chemerinsky and University of Wisconsin Law School’s dean Daniel Tokaji argue that law schools should not eliminate standardized tests for admissions. The ABA’s proposal to do just that may harm diversity efforts, they say.

Potential misuse of results, source of funding poses risk of political influence on universities.

Similar to many school years, the start of the 2022-23 fall semester left many UW-Madison students stuck with expensive drinking tickets for simply following the masses. In early September, the ever-popular City Bar, informally known to have a large underage presence, unveiled a goldmine of underage drinkers — leaving 137 out of 143 patrons with a drinking ticket.

It is ironic that a biomedical powerhouse such as UW is doing this. Contracts often provide overly targeted responses that are too little, too late, and miss many people, allowing the virus to mutate and spread. Let’s not repeat the mistake of responding to the pandemic with the bare minimum, or even less. This contract is a missed opportunity to keep capacity in-house at UW, and to innovate, helping the rest of the state: the Wisconsin Idea.

Dear Editor: The article “UW-Madison event featuring conservative speaker Matt Walsh leads to graffiti, protest,” Oct. 24) makes me wonder what has happened to the proud tradition of “fearless sifting and winnowing” at the university.

It’s 8 a.m. and you’re waiting for the 80 outside Dejope to take you to class. Boom. It’s there on time. You’re in class by 8:25 a.m., and all is as it should be. But come 10 a.m., 11 a.m., the bustling University of Wisconsin-Madison student body and our haphazard walking has disrupted our beloved buses entirely off their scheduled rhythm.

Column by Neil Kraus, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls

Letter to the editor: My question for the chancellor is what bridge could she possibly build to connect the group of determined students against Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation of Palestinian land and its horrible treatment of the Palestinian people with others at UW who called the activists who scrawled those simple chalk messages against Zionism — the ideology used to justify those crimes — “antisemitic”?

National housing shortage hitting college campuses hard, students fear for future.

While change is undoubtedly necessary, disagreement persists over nature of transition to sustainability.

The creators of these hateful messages need to understand that being a Jew does not equate to being a Zionist. This is a common misconception of Jewish people, where many Jews disagree with the Zionistic idea. Although, many Zionists are undoubtedly a vocal part of the ethno-religion.

Dear Editor: The UW campus was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti on the first day of classes. The UW news release stated that anti-Semitic sidewalk chalkings appeared around campus labeling Jewish student groups as “racist,” “genocidal” and “having blood on their hands.”

Dear Editor: Having read this article, (“UW-Madison welcomes record-breaking freshman class at convocation,” Sept 7) I am stunned by the remarks made by the new chancellor and others offering reassurance to students of a “safe” and “welcoming place” at UW.

While I’m sure Paul Chryst would love to have us students a little oiled up before entering the stadium to make sure we bring the noise, it doesn’t do him any good when we are too drunk to care about showing up.

Self-reflection on our own intents and our own capacity for harm is the gateway to change. Listening to those around us who have lived experiences rather than centering ourselves in conversations is the key to creating a more empathetic campus. Remembering not everyone has the option of silence is allyship in its rawest form.

Simply put, Midwestern residents looking to attend neighboring states’ universities are suffering at the expense of out-of-state tuition — even if they live only a few hours away from the school.

UW Health nurses are asking for two simple things from their employer: safe, quality patient care and recognition of their union. This has been the rallying cry of nurses there for nearly three years. Like so many other workers, they’ve organized, marched in rallies, met with administrators and voiced their concerns over and over.