The
ADVANCE-TITAN
November 8, 2018 INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN OSHKOSH VOL. 124, NO. 9
Democrats take control of the House by Joseph Schulz schulj78@uwosh.edu Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives while republicans maintained their majority in the Senate after Tuesday’s midterm elections. Tony Evers became the 46th governor of Wisconsin after defeating republican Scott Walker. Democrat Tammy Baldwin won her re-election bid in the Senate, defeating republican Leah Vukmir. UW Oshkosh student Gabrielle Newman said many students participated in the midterm election because the 2016 presidential election made students understand how important voting is. “I think it’s important for college students to know that [the midterm election] is important even as much as presidential elections, if not more so…,” Newman said. “These are the issues that directly affect us in Wisconsin; they affect how much tuition we pay, the roads we drive on, and those are direct Wisconsin things.” According to unofficial returns from the Associated Press, about 2.7 million Wisconsinites voted in the midterm elections. Executive Director for Campus Life Jean Kwaterski said in an email that 1,602 votes were cast on campus this midterm, up nearly 4 percent or 59 votes from the 2014 midterm election. UWO political science professor David Siemers said high voter turnout is a trend that could continue in Wisconsin. “Where the stakes are higher, there’s more turnout, and people are perceiving the stakes of politics to be higher these days than in the past,” Siemers said. “I wouldn’t expect that to change in 2020.” UWO student Matthew Gill said it’s important that students on both sides go out to vote. “It’s important that students feel like they’re represented because we have a representative government,” Gill said.
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UWO students wait in line at Reeve Memorial Union to cast their vote in the 2018 midterm election.
COURTESY OF TONY EVERS’ FACEBOOK PAGE.
Governor-elect Tony Evers thanks Wisconsin. Siemers said democrats controlling the House is important because it gives them oversight power. “Investigations of the administration have been languishing under the republicans,” Siemers said. “Now expect investigations into the Trump administration to be much more serious, including possible corruption in his cabinet and potential tax eva-
sion by the president himself.” Benito Cruz-Sanchez, organizer for NextGen Wisconsin, a voter registration group, said the democrats taking control of the House is important because they can put checks on President Trump. “Young people — college students — aren’t comfortable seeing kids in cages, we’re not comfortable hearing rhetoric from
PHOTO COURTESY OF RICK WOOD/THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin reacts to winning. the president about women, we don’t like that,” Cruz-Sanchez said. “We feel with democrats taking more seats there’s going to be more representatives and people standing up to Donald Trump.” Patricia Malesa, membership chairwoman for the Winnebago County Republican Party, said democrats taking control of the House could make Congress
UWO earns a ‘red light’ rating by Christina Basken baskec94@uwosh.edu
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education recently rated the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh with FIRE’s worst “red light” rating for severely restricting students’ speech rights on campus. FIRE was founded in 1999 by University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Charles Kors and Boston civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate. According to FIRE’s website, their mission is “to defend and sustain the individual rights of students and faculty members at America’s colleges and universities.” FIRE rates 461 of America’s largest universities as “red light,” “yellow light” or “green light” based on how much protected speech their policies restrict. A “red light” policy is given when a policy is considered to be a clear and substantial restriction on protected speech. The analysis FIRE conducted reported that UWO earned its rating for several reasons. One example provided in the report stated, “All members of the University have a responsibility to promote and a right to expect an environment that is free of harassment and free of insulting and demeaning comments and epithets based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, military status, socioeconomic status, family status, or political views; and consistent enforcement of federal, state, and university protections against discriminatory treatment yet is free from any official speech codes.” Senior program officer at FIRE Laura Beltz said the organization also informed UWO of its “red light” rating through letters that were part of a campaign targeting “red light” schools in both 2015 and 2016. “FIRE had discussions with administrators about recommended policies; we hope the administration will eventually revise these speech codes to better meet First Amendment standards,” Beltz said. FIRE also recently published an article on their website regarding a conflict at UWO between a former Advance-Titan news editor and a professor.
The conflict resulted when a professor was mysteriously removed from one of his classes in spring 2017 and Alex Nemec, who graduated in December 2017, requested documents pertaining to the situation. On Aug. 15, Nemec received the records about a previous incident from a UWO record custodian who mistakenly provided the documents without redactions. After learning of her error, the record custodian instructed Nemec to destroy all copies of the unredacted records that were sent to him. Nemec eventually destroyed the documents. According to documents obtained by the Advance-Titan, Nemec could face a restraining order and permanent injunction prohibiting him from “publicizing, printing or sharing, in any manner, whether verbally, in writing or otherwise, the contents of those portions of the records subject to redaction.” The pending restraining order against Nemec is set for an oral decision hearing on Nov. 21. In the article, FIRE stated, “...the lawyer for the professor has also asked the court to impose a similar prior restraint on Nemec. That motion has not been withdrawn, and if granted it would clearly abridge Nemec’s First Amendment rights.” However, Beltz said the article did not play a part in the decision to give UWO a “red light” rating. According to Beltz, FIRE only relies on a university’s written policy when giving spotlight ratings. Director of FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program and author of the article aforementioned, Adam Steinbaugh said he reported on the conflict because he feels that it is important to look out for the First Amendment rights of student journalists, even when they’ve graduated. “Government officials can’t tell you something and then, once they’ve realized they’ve made a mistake, demand that you not tell anyone,” Steinbaugh said. “The government sought a specific court order that would make it unlawful, perhaps even criminal, for a journalist to discuss what’s in government records.” Beltz said UWO earned its rating based on the University’s speech code that infringes on free speech.
“When you have vague terms that don’t have legal definitions like ‘insulting’ or ‘demeaning’ comments, that’s really subjective,” she said. “It depends on the listener’s perception, and it doesn’t have an objective element to it, so really whatever kind of speech the school thinks is insulting could be punished under this policy.” Beltz explained which policies FIRE examines when researching a university. “We take a look at all the policies at the school that regulate expression on campus, so that’s things like demonstrations policies, but it could also be something like harassment policies that are written overbreadth that could include protective speech,” Beltz said. “So we look at all those policies and we rate based on First Amendment standards the extent to which it restricts protected expression,” Beltz also said FIRE works with universities to revise policies to better meet First Amendment standards. “When schools learn they have a “red light” rating, we just invite those schools to work with us on the policies so they can reach the things they’re going for,” Beltz said. “Obviously UWO is trying to protect students from harassment so we would be happy to work with UWO to revise this policy so it bans harassment according to the legal standard set forth by the Supreme Court.” UWO student Ireen Mbekeani said she encountered a problem on campus last year that was not addressed properly. According to Mbekeani, the problem could have been resolved if there was a better policy in place regarding harassment. “Last year I was in student government, and they talked about at few issues they were having in the dorm, like racial slurs being said and being written on people’s dorms,” Mbekeani said. “I even brought it up to the NSAC government and said, ‘Hey, we should raise awareness about this and let people know this is a safe place they can come,’ but nothing ever happened, there was never any initiative to do anything.” UWO Chancellor Andrew Leavitt and Director of Communications Mandy Potts declined to comment.
even more gridlocked. “I don’t know that I would want to put a check on [Trump]; look at what he wants to do to the economy, look what he wants to do to protect the country from our southern borders especially,” Malesa said. UWO student Kaitlyn Walker said she voted for Tony Evers for governor because of his previous experience as an educator.
“As a future teacher, I don’t think it’s smart to have people making decisions on education that have never been a part of that community,” Walker said. “There’s a lot of things that people don’t understand when they aren’t involved in it.” Winnebago County Democratic Party Volunteer Coordinator Pam Henkel said Tony Evers becoming governor is a good thing for Wisconsin because he will put more funding toward education. “Evers and Mandela Barnes will reach across the aisle and they will work with the republicans on infrastructure, as long as they [the republicans] work with them,” Henkel said. Malesa said she doesn’t think that Evers will work with republicans. “With how he feels about open borders, how he feels about a one-party system of health care, I don’t know that he would really truly work with anyone from the conservative party,” Malesa said. Evers will have to work with republicans if he wants to pass state legislation because the republicans held their control of the state Senate and Assembly. Siemers said that having a divided state government means that both parties will have to work together in order to pass legislation. “Everything in the state moving forward will be a result of negotiation and compromise and fighting between the two parties,” Siemers said. “We’ll have a less partisan outcome, but more partisanship in politics.” Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, who lost his re-election bid to democrat Josh Kaul, said he hopes both political parties put their differences aside to pass legislation. “If you go back to when [republican] Tommy Thompson was governor, both sides of the state legislature were controlled by democrats and were able to get things done, and I would like to see that again,” Schimel said.
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Candles are lit to honor the victims of the shooting.
UWO honors victims of Pittsburgh shooting by Neal Hogden hogden39@uwosh.edu The UW Oshkosh Campus Center for Equity and Diversity held a community vigil for victims of the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting Oct. 27. Students honored the 11 victims by lighting a candle for each of them, followed by a moment of silence and other ceremonial events. Chancellor Andrew Leavitt said the hatred displayed in Pittsburgh should have no place in this world. “Hatred and bigotry should have no safe harbor and it certainly should not have safe harbor here in Oshkosh,” Leavitt said. “So when we see something like this we must speak out as a community to certainly condemn it and to work together to try and address the under-
lying causes of it.” Leavitt and UWO religious studies professor Kathleen Corley Schuhart gave short speeches as part of the vigil. Andy Solomon of the Congregation B’Nai Israel led the crowd of about 30 to 40 people in a blessing and the ceremonial Mi Schebereich while the crowd’s candles lit up the patio above Albee Hall. UWO sophomore Emily Bailey said people need to be more aware of what has happened. “Even though we’re a smaller community and it happened far away, we need to spread awareness around campus and all over the world,” Bailey said. “People need to be more aware. There’s a small Jewish
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