'Addiction is the opposite of connection' - Volume 55, Issue 2

‘Addiction is the opposite of connection’: Strong resource networks guide recovery efforts in Wisconsin

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Learn about efforts to preserve Indigenous languages, including the development of an app, and in-person teaching.

Resumed operations at Planned Parenthood indicate a big step in the right direction for people with uteri. Read

UW Homecoming week to be filled with events, activities, music

Week

by Brianna Davis Campus News Associate Editor

The University of Wisconsin will host its annual Homecoming tradition the week of Oct. 2-7, according to the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s website. This year’s Homecoming also celebrates 175 years of the university.

The over 100-year-old Homecoming tradition was created to celebrate Badger pride and spirit and to bring alumni back to campus, according to Managing Director of Engagement Programs at the Wisconsin Alumni Association and Co-Chair for Planning of Homecoming Activities McKenzie Zdrale.

For years prior to the annual event, the WAA hosted class reunions for alum each year. But in 1911, they planned a large meeting during football season. What began as a tradition called “smokes and cider,” where current students invited alumni back to campus for the season, quickly became Homecoming, according to the Wisconsin Alumni Association website.

Following the first official Homecoming during football season, event planning and improvements were made each year by a permanent planning

committee, according to the WAA website.

While events throughout the years have begun and ended, the purpose of Homecoming was and has always been to celebrate the university, students, alumni and the overall Badger community, according to the WAA website.

Over the years, this tradition developed into the annual event that now occurs by small additions and changes to traditions over the years, with this year being the 112 year mark since the inaugural event in 1911, according to the WAA website.

The events for the week of Homecoming are now hosted by the WAA and the Homecoming Committee, who partners with organizations across campus — such as the UW Marching Band, the Wisconsin Foundation and the Multicultural Greek and National Pan-Hellenic Councils, according to the WAA website.

The WAA is committed to making this year as special and magical as possible because of the 175 year anniversary of UW, according to Zdrale.

The Wisconsin Union has overseen the Homecoming Committee since 2021, according to

Communications Coordinator for the Wisconsin Union Madeline Carr. This has separated events during Homecoming into two categories — those hosted by WAA and those hosted by Homecoming Committee.

Both WAA and Homecoming Committee have events planned through the week leading up to the Homecoming football game against Rutgers. All events have the goal of getting alumni, students and faculty involved, according to Homecoming Committee Director of Marketing and Communications Amari Mbongwo.

One of the main events organized and hosted by the Homecoming Committee is the UW Homecoming Parade. The parade will take place the night of Friday, Oct. 6 and is a highlight of Homecoming week, according to Mbongwa.

Various members of the community, student organizations, the UW Spirit Squad, Bucky Badger and the UW Marching Band participate in the parade route, which travels down Gilman Street to end on Lake Street, according to the Wisconsin Homecoming website.

Events surrounding the parade are hosted by the WAA, including the Block Party and Pep Rally directly following the parade.

The Block Party will be hosted at Alumni Park and Memorial Union Terrace with live music from DJay Mando playing on the Terrace stage. The Pep Rally will also be held on the Terrace stage later that night, according to Zdrale.

Members of the UW Marching Band, the UW Spirit Squad and Director of the UW Marching Band Corey Pompey will all appear during the Pep Rally, with Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin making remarks as well, according to Zdrale.

In addition to the parade and Pep Rally, the UW Marching Band is part of multiple events during the Homecoming game, including the Badger Bash Tailgate Party, the football game, the halftime show and fifth quarter, Pompey said.

“For a lot of fans, this might be the only game that they get to go to,” Pompey said. “Our hope is that when they come to that football game, they’re going to see the best that we have to offer. That’s not to say we don’t strive for that every week, but certainly for Homecoming, there is a little bit of extra something in the air.”

Additionally, this will be the 11th year of a fundraising tradition called “Fill the Hill,” hosted by the University of Wisconsin Foundation. This year the event will begin Oct. 5 at 5 p.m.

The tradition began as a prank in 1979, when 1,008 pink plastic flamingos were placed on Bascom Hill by members of a student group called the Pail and Shovel Party, according to Wisconsin Foundation Director of Annual Giving Betsy Popelka Massnick.

“For every gift that comes in that is given by a member of our community, we plant a flamingo in the lawn of Bascom Hill,” Massnick said. “It’s a really tangible way to see the impact of giving and philanthropy on campus.”

There are over 100 areas across campus that students, faculty and the community can go to to support UW through gifts, giving everyone a chance to find something they care about to give to, according to Massnick.

There have been over 15,000 gifts totalling $2.4 million over the course of the fundraiser’s history, Massnick said.

“It’s a huge impact, and it’s also a fun way to share that impact visually with our community, with students who have never heard about it,” Massnick said.

A recent addition to the Homecoming week lineup was a kickoff concert, with this year’s artist being Armani White, Mbongwo said. The concert came at the very beginning of Homecoming festivities, occurring last Saturday, Sept. 30 at Union South.

More featured events hosted by the WAA can be found on the WAA website and more featured events hosted by the Homecoming Committee can be found on the UW Homecoming Committee website.

brims with activities designed to involve students, faculty, alumni

Homecoming week events, activities catered towards students, alumni help raise funds, foster community.

ABBY CIMA. THE BADGER HERALD.

Hoocąk language organization preserves Indigenous culture

Language division offers services, apps to teach people to speak Hoocąk

by Tarun Vedula City News Associate Editor

Of the nearly 8,000 enrolled members in the Ho-Chunk Nation, there are currently less than 40 who can speak the Ho-Chunk language (also anglicized as Hoocąk). This is due to past removals and relocations of Indigenous Americans, Hoocąk Waaziija Haci Language Division Program Manager Adrienne Thunder said.

According to The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, between 1869 and the 1960s, the American government sent Indigenous children to more than 350 Indian boarding schools. Students at these schools were forced to assimilate to a Westernized way of life. Several decades later, the repercussions of these institutions are evident through the dwindling number of Hoocąk speakers, according to NNABSHC.

Organizations like the Hoocąk Waazija Haci Language Division are working to change that. According to the division’s website, the group offers a range of programs including an online Hoocąk Academy, a Hoocąk language apprenticeship program and classes for local high schools. But these programs have a limited reach.

“I would say most families probably don’t have direct access to someone who can speak the language very well,” Thunder said. “And so even with our instructors, the ones that we have right now, it’s hard to reach everyone.”

There are only about a dozen instructors for the 3,500 Hoocąk tribal members in Wisconsin, which makes covering the language and cultural education difficult. Additionally, not everyone can take the classes when they are offered, which compounds the challenge of preserving the Hoocąk language, Thunder said.

In response, the division has partnered with The Language Conservancy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving endangered Indigenous languages, to expand the division’s virtual Hoocąk dictionary, Thunder said. These forms include a public website and app.

Also in development is an E-learning app for individuals to learn and speak Hoocąk. The plan is for the beta version of the app to be released this fall, with the final product set to release sometime this winter, Thunder said.

Thunder said the purpose of the app is to provide a base for individuals to start with Hoocąk. This could generate more interest and give people some information

to work with before needing to work with an instructor.

“We’re hoping this gives people something to work with, and to be able to help them learn to the point where if they’re ready for further learning, then we

Director of the University of Wisconsin American Indian and Indigenous Studies program Denise Wiyaka said that to teach a course on campus, instructors usually need a master’s degree.

“Most of the native speakers don’t have

people with a Master’s who can teach.”

UW’s AIIS program offers five Indigenous languages including Hoocąk as well as a certificate in which students can take classes about the literature, culture and folklore of American Indian Groups. Wiyak said that though the majority of students in these classes are Native American students, the number of nonNative students interested in learning Indigenous languages is increasing.

For these students, Wiyaka said the value for apps like the one the Hoocąk Waazija Haci Language Division is developing and believes they align with the evolution of teaching.

“I think it’s a tool for learning,” Wiyaka said. “So I think having an app is a good idea. And I think a lot of tribes are going that route. Because you know, everybody has a phone with apps on it.”

Wiyaka also said it is important to preserve native languages in order to preserve culture that has been passed down. Through events such as the Annual Evening of American Indian Storytelling, the AIIS program highlights the importance of having native speakers speak to students in their native tongues. During the event, elders from tribes all over the world are invited to narrate and act out stories in their native languages while being translated into English. By hearing and seeing stories acted and spoken out in their original form, listeners are able to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for the preservation of Indigenous languages, Wiyaka said.

According to Thunder, the biggest difference between Hoocąk and English is the descriptiveness of the languages. Compared to English, Hoocąk is much more dimensional and offers a more immersive experience due to what are known as positionals. Positionals provide insights into the orientation of actions and are added to the end of a sentence to inform the reader of the position of the subject.

The work done by the Hoocąk Waazija Haci Language Division Program as well as the UW AIIS program are steps toward a revitalization of the Hoocąk language around Wisconsin. For Thunder, this means keeping the Hoocąk’s relationships and connections alive through spoken word.

have instructors who will be able to pick up from there or to be able to enhance their own instruction with the use of the app,” Thunder said.

While there are native speakers that can convey this immersive oral experience,

college degrees,” Wiyaka said. “And so we sometimes will pair them with somebody who does, we’ve done that in the past — paired them with a person who does have a PhD or Master’s [degree] and they’ll coteach the course then, but it’s hard to find

“All of that history — all of those relationships, all of those events, everything is encapsulated in our language,” Thunder said. “And so I just think it’s important that we try to keep that going as long as possible to continue to tell those stories.”

Hoocąk Waaziija Haci Language Division works to maintain prevalence of Indigenous languages, culture

JOEY RUETEMAN. THE BADGER HERALD.

Madison named important site for passenger rail service

by Sami Bitat City News Associate Editor

The City of Madison has been identified as an important site for the implementation of passenger rail service connecting Chicago, Illinois, to the Twin Cities in Minnesota, according to a 2021 report from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Since the release of the report, the City of Madison has worked to develop a Passenger Rail Station Study, with the goal of determining the location for an inter-city rail station. By working with USDOT, Amtrak and other stakeholders, the ongoing study will identify potential station locations, Amtrak requirements, funding and more.

Madison and other Midwest cities have long been considered important sites for passenger rail

services by both Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration. But, for over a decade, the project in Madison has seen repeated setbacks and hindrances that have delayed its establishment, according to Deputy Director of the High Speed Rail Alliance Christopher Ott.

Madison has not seen a passenger rail service for over 50 years and efforts to reinstate it in the city have been underway since the 1990s when former Gov. Tommy Thompson, a strong passenger rail advocate, was in office, Ott said.

In 1999, Thompson proposed a high-speed rail service in his State of the State Address, but nothing ever came of it, Ott said.

Over a decade after the initial proposal, in 2010, Wisconsin received $800 million in federal

funding to establish a high-speed rail line from Madison to Milwaukee, but the project was ultimately rejected when former Gov. Scott Walker was elected to office, Ott said.

But the idea of a passenger rail service has further developed since, according to Ott. The service has been under more serious consideration for the last two and a half years.

In 2021, the FRA released a Midwest Regional Railroad Plan, which provided a framework for the development of a high-speed rail network throughout the Midwest. Included in the plan was the transformation of the current framework for passenger transportation — which is currently limited to bus and air travel, Ott said.

That same year, Amtrak released the Connect

Us Plan and Corridor Vision, both of which include maps that visualize a network of passenger railways connecting many locations throughout the Midwest — including the hubs of Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis-Saint Paul.

The plans propose off-shooting railroads from these hubs that would connect these large metropolitan areas to many smaller cities and towns, such as Madison and other locations in upper Wisconsin.

To help create a vision for how the implementation of a passenger rail service station in Madison would fit within the city’s current vehicle and pedestrian traffic framework, Director of Transportation of the City of Madison Thomas Lynch said that the majority of the projected station locations wouldn’t cross major roads in Madison.

The hope is the rail service would integrate into existing uses of transportation in the area, according to Lynch.

“We do believe that there can be a synergistic energy between a train station and adjacent land uses,” Lynch said. “People use train stations, people use coffee shops and they use restaurants. If you go to some places in America, like for instance, Denver’s Union Station, you can see that the train stations are a fun place to be.”

With regards to where the train station would be situated in Madison, Lynch said that he and his team have considered nine locations.

“We have a screening report that we’re viewing right now, which I think has about nine locations,” Lynch said. “And we’re not releasing that yet. But we hope to release it probably within a month.”

There are still many steps the city and the state of Wisconsin will need to take to begin implementation. The state will need to be admitted into the Federal Rail Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program, a program that provides financial support to selected inter-city passenger rail corridors, Lynch said.

Once admitted, a corridor, the land on which a rail is built, would need to be developed. The long-term project spans from planning to the implementation of service, and everything in between, Lynch said.

“Once you do the service planning, we would move into preliminary design and environmental documentation. And then there’ll be construction projects, and so probably the service won’t occur until the end of this decade or the beginning of the next decade,” Lynch said.

While the establishment of this service is not expected to occur until the end of this decade according to Lynch, the idea is in motion.

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway has asked the Common Council to increase funding by $50,000 to conduct additional research on the feasibility of an Amtrak station in Madison in her 2024 capital budget request.

Research continues for potential passenger rail service in Madison

Amtrak, Federal Railroad Administration identify Madison as important site for passenger rail services

ABIGAIL LEAVINS. THE BADGER HERALD.

Caribbean Student Association will connect existing community

by Sophia Scolman Managing Editor

Last spring, Caribbean students at the University of Wisconsin set out to create the university’s first Caribbean Student Association after attending the African Student Association’s Multicultural Fall Ball, an event where students wear cultural attire and gather for music and live performances.

CSA service chair Victoria Breton said she noticed students wearing traditional Caribbean attire at the event, despite the region not having a specific organization on campus to draw them together.

CSA social chair Mara Allen said there is a noticeable Caribbean presence on campus, but students are spread out between existing organizations that align with their identities. This gap in cultural organizations on campus inspired the group to fill out the paperwork to solidify CSA as a Registered Student Organization.

“It was something that was important to me because I just noticed that there is a Caribbean

presence on campus, but everybody is so spread out between Latine Student Union and the Black Student Union, even African Student Association,” Allen said.

When CSA was tabling at the Kohl Center during the RSO fair this fall, Breton said Caribbean students passing by were glad to find an organization that aligned with their identities.

“When Caribbean students came up to us they were like, ‘we’ve been looking for you,’ and just to hear something like that, it just shows this is a need on campus,” Breton said.

CSA aims to create a safe space for Caribbean students to get to know each other and share their diverse cultures, Allen said. The Caribbean region consists of 13 sovereign nations and numerous territories each with differing languages, customs, cuisine and religions, according to World Atlas.

Now registered with the UW Multicultural Student Center, CSA can begin booking rooms inside the Red Gym to host club meetings and events, Breton said.

“I would say the biggest goal is really just community building because like I’ve said, there are Caribbeans here on campus, we’ve just been so

spread out,” Allen said. “We don’t all know about each other. So that’s the principal goal, but also just sharing our culture.”

Allen said the first step when creating a RSO is finding a faculty advisor. CSA decided on UW professor of dance and First Wave scholarship artistic director Chris Walker. Walker is also The Public Theatre in New York City #BARS Workshop co-artistic director, National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica senior choreographer and New Waves Dance and Performance Institute in Trinidad and Tobago program director.

Breton said her and the rest of the soon-to-be CSA executive board quickly formed the longterm goal of creating events like the Fall Ball that bring students together and continue on for years, or even decades, after their conception.

CSA’s first event will be a Sip and Paint Oct. 5 from 6-8 p.m. in the UW Center for Cultural Enrichment, where students will gather to paint and drink traditional Caribbean drinks, according to the organization’s Instagram page.

“We’re really excited for that because it just gives you an opportunity to do something you love, relax, unwind, while also saying ‘okay,

where’s this drink from?’” Breton said.

In the future, CSA hopes to collaborate with the ASA and UW’s Latin-based dance team Fuego Dance Crew, Allen said.

So far this semester, the Vietnamese International Student Association and Albanian American Student Organization have also begun organizing on campus.

Allen said this recent trend helps to create a sense of community on campus for students as they get to know people with similar identities.

“ I think it’s so beautiful because a lot of times we don’t recognize what’s around us,” Allen said. “So now that there are these organizations popping up, it’s really a great way for people to share their culture and just learn about one another which is a really great way to create unity on the campus, especially as organizations collaborate with one another or just host public events.”

Breton said new events and other important information will be posted on the group’s Instagram page, and students interested in joining are invited to join CSA’s GroupMe located in the bio of their account.

CSA will provide cultural home for Caribbean students currently spread throughout other campus organizations, board member says

New student organization seeks to bring together Caribbean students on campus.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREW SHARP

@badgerherald

GOP redistricting proposal raises questions over nonpartisanship

by Abigail Leavins Reporter

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, rejected a Republican proposal that suggested the legislature approve new maps drawn by a nonpartisan legislative bureau Sept. 12, according to AP News Wisconsin.

“A Legislature that has now repeatedly demonstrated they will not uphold basic tenets of our democracy — and will bully, threaten, or fire on a whim anyone who happens to disagree with them — cannot be trusted to appoint or oversee someone charged with drawing fair maps,” Evers said in a statement that day.

Under the proposal, the maps would be drawn by the Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan group employed by the legislature and designated for drafting bills, legislation and drawing redistricting maps. The legislators could vote on the maps, which could then be vetoed by the governor, according to AP News Wisconsin.

This comes as the Wisconsin Supreme Court is seeing a rise in redistricting lawsuits after

the election of liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz, according to AP News Wisconsin.

Evers said in his statement these lawsuits are an opportunity for Wisconsin to have fair maps, despite years of gerrymandering from Republicans. He said this is why Republicans are now introducing legislation claiming to promote fair maps.

“Republicans are making a last-ditch effort to retain legislative control by having someone Legislature-picked and Legislature-approved draw Wisconsin’s maps,” Evers said.

Kenneth Mayer, a professor of American politics at the University of Wisconsin, said in an email to The Badger Herald that Speaker of the Assembly Robin Vos is presenting this bill because he is worried the State Supreme Court will reject his maps as partisan gerrymandering.

“It’s not a sincere effort to create a new system,” Mayer said. “It’s an effort to change the subject to something other than his threat to impeach Protasiewicz, which is an

unprecedented — and, frankly, outrageous — effort to overturn the effect of the April election.”

Republican representatives argued they have always supported nonpartisan redistricting and these maps would promote more objective maps.

Representatives Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) and Travis Tranel (R-Cuba City) said the bill is based on the “Iowa Model,” which creates a nonpartisan redistricting commission to draw the maps.

Senior staff attorney with the UW Law School Derek Clinger said, according to the Iowa model, the Legislative Reference Bureau would be required to draw maps not favoring either political party. But he said in this case, the legislature removed the restriction against favoring a political party in the proposal for Wisconsin. Clinger said this means there is no prevention against partisan gerrymandering in this bill.

Clinger said, ultimately, passing this bill would not change anything. Since the proposal does not prohibit gerrymandering, Wisconsin would likely end up with the same maps as before.

UW law and policy expert Howard Schweber said, in Iowa, even with the language restricting partisan gerrymandering, it still ended with gerrymandering in favor of the Republicans. It turned a formerly Democratic district into a Republican one after strategically drawing the maps.

“Everything the Republicans are doing right now is clear,” Schweber said. “And the reason is very straightforward. Everything else flows from that. If you lose control of the legislature, then take an issue about let’s say abortion — you lose the ability to control that issue.”

Schweber said the gerrymander is essential to Republicans in the state because it keeps them in power, and they will do anything to preserve it.

Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) said it is not possible for legitimate or nonpartisan redistricting to exist in the legislature. He said Vos and Republican legislators have consistently resisted attempts to bring a nonpartisan redistricting bill to the floor.

“It is disingenuous for Speaker Vos and the gerrymandered Republican majority to pretend to support nonpartisan redistricting now — when they are on the verge of having their gerrymander thrown out by the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” Spreitzer said in a statement Sept. 12.

Spreitzer said the best way for the state to get fair maps is through the current lawsuits going to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Legislative Republicans are also in the middle of an attempt to impeach Protasiewicz for taking money from the Democratic Party. They also argue she must recuse herself from the lawsuits regarding fair maps because she made comments during her campaign calling them “unfair” and “rigged,” according to AP News Wisconsin.

Schweber said the impeachment, and this bill, are just tactics to avoid fair maps. The Republicans are hoping to regain control of the Supreme Court in the next election in 2025, but for now, they want to delay changes.

Clinger said this bill could potentially be a bargaining tool used by Republicans to say they won’t impeach Protasiewicz, assuming Evers accepts this bill.

The Assembly voted to pass the bill 64-32 Sept. 14, with all Republicans and one Democrat in favor. It now will go to the Senate, which has a 22-11 Republican majority. If it passes in the Senate, it would go to Evers, who could choose to veto it.

Legislative Reference Bureau may not ensure nonpartisan district maps, experts say

Republican redistricting proposal would put Legislative Reference Bureau in charge of drawing legislative maps.

AHMAD HAMID. THE BADGER HERALD.

New kidney transplant technique uses immune system to enhance recovery

UW researchers develop new transplant procedure that uses donor, receiver immune systems to improve recovery process

by Tobias Berlinsky Science News Reporter

The University of Wisconsin transplant team recently collaborated with the UW National Primate Research Center and the UW Veterinary Hospital to pursue a novel kidney transplant procedure involving the transplant of immune cell bodies to aid in organ donor and receiver compatibility.

Kidney transplants are performed following the failure of the renal system and the recovery process uses immunosuppressant drugs that serve as anti-rejection medication, Director of the UW Transplant Center Dr. Dixon Kaufman said. When the body receives a transplanted organ, it recognizes those cells as “non-self” and the immune system begins to attack those cells, which can lead to rejection of the newly transplanted organ.

The purpose of immunosuppressive drugs is to prevent this attack, but they also make patients susceptible to other diseases and infection and have negative effects on the lifespan of the new kidney, Kaufman said.

In Kaufman’s research on a new procedure to avoid the use of these drugs, his research team transplanted kidneys into monkeys from the UW Primate Center and effectively transplanted immune systems from the original donor, Kaufman said.

The research team used low-dose radiation one day after the kidney transplant on subject monkeys to temporarily suppress critical parts of the immune system. Ten days after this procedure, they transplanted immune and blood cells from the donor into the recipient monkey, Kaufman said.

The UW Veterinary Hospital uses a device named TomoTherapy which enables the researchers to target critical portions of the immune system such as the lymph nodes, according to Kaufman.

Researchers treated the subject monkeys with TomoTherapy at these critical spots, which suppressed the monkeys’ immune systems. In order to succeed, it was performed

Monday through Friday for two weeks before the injection of immune and blood cells from the donor, Kaufman said. TomoTherapy is a new component of kidney transplantation procedures like this because it was formerly used for small animals only.

After 10 days of the low-radiation therapy, researchers injected both immune and blood cells from the donor into the kidney recipient, according to UW News.

When the transplant was taken, the team had achieved chimerism in the monkeys. Chimerism is the biological concept of an organism having two sets of cells, much like the process of donating and transplanting bone marrow, Kaufman said.

By manipulating the body’s original immune cells, TomoTherapy enabled the donor’s cells to coexist with the recipient’s cells. Without TomoTherapy, immune cells, specifically T-cells, would likely attack the new cells, leading to rejection episodes, Kaufman said. Rejection

episodes harm the kidney and can lead to serious complications.

“For the first three months, it [the recovery process] is more intense but it goes down significantly after,” Kaufman said.

After transplantation recipients receive three sets of immunosuppressant drugs, however, researchers can wean the recipient off those drugs much quicker than in normal transplants, Kaufman said.

The goal of this research is to help patients return to normal life and health by reducing the amount of time they must take immunosuppressants. By creating a tolerant immune system kidneys can perform better and for longer, Kaufman said.

“It is possible to achieve tolerance and … people can live better and be easier to take care of,” Kaufman said.

Kaufman and his team work closely with the University Hospital nephrologist Dr. Sandesh Parajuli. The nephron is the functional unit of the kidney, according to the University of Nottingham. Parajuli is responsible for the recovery care of many transplant patients and works closely with immunosuppressant drugs.

While patients wait for kidney transplantation, they are placed on dialysis, Parajuli said.

According to the National Institute of Health, dialysis is a treatment that performs the same function as kidneys — it filters waste and water from the blood, which helps control blood pressure and salt concentrations.

Dialysis can be almost a part-time job, Parajuli said. Dialysis tends to include three sessions per week, up to four hours each visit for a total of 10–12 hours per week, according to the NIH.

Kaufman’s research is part of a NIH study group that funds grants for this specific immune modification in transplants. There are several other groups that are attempting to solve this issue in their own unique way, like the New York Presbyterian-Columbia group.

Kaufman’s novel technique is special because it deals with one haploid match patient, while others are working with identical matches. Haploid refers to a single set of chromosomes, out of two total in the human genome, according to The National Human Genome Research Institute.

One haploid match means patients are not identical genetic matches, however, they are compatible for a transplant. The most common rejections occur in these one haploid transplants, Kaufman said.

Kaufman said his research has implications beyond kidney transplants and may be the key to solving several autoimmune diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes and celiac disease in the future.

Reaseach aims to decrease time patients must take immunosuppresants.

ABIGAIL LEAVINS. THE BADGER HERALD

Project shares knowledge of native rice with community

by Sarah Matysiak Science News Editor

Over the past 40 years, the amount of Manoomin has decreased by about 50%, wild rice technician at Trout Lake Station Sagen Quale said. Manoomin is Ojibwe for wild rice and translates to “good berry.”

But many families and tribal communities rely on it for food sovereignty and to last them through the winter until the next harvest season, Quale said.

Harvesting starts in late August and continues for the next three to four weeks, according to the Wisconsin Wetlands Association.

“The decline didn’t just start about 40 years ago — it started through pretty much the onset of settler colonialism through the manipulation and control of waterways in Northern Wisconsin,” Quale said.

The implementation of dams and intense logging throughout the 1800s also ties into Manoomin’s decline over the years, Quale said. Damming and logging flooded and drowned out the Manoomin, which is a vulnerable plant.

It’s this vulnerability that makes it difficult to come up with a one-solution approach to slow or stop the decline.

“It’s kind of difficult to say here’s the solution to stop the decline because you can’t really look at it with [a narrow view]. You really have to view it holistically,” Quale said.

The floating leaf stage is the most vulnerable stage of its life cycle, social scientist with the Wisconsin Sea Grant Deidre Peroff said. This stage is essential for seed regeneration, but water fluctuations can affect this sensitive stage of life for the plant and even stop it from creating rice that year.

Other threats Manoomin faces are from using improper boat speeds going through the wetlands, pollutants from mining like sulfate, pollutants from agriculture and invasive species like rice worm and milfoil, an invasive plant, Peroff said.

As a wild rice technician, Quale performs fieldwork in the wild rice beds throughout Northern Wisconsin. Over the summer, Quale said she and other researchers used “quadrant sampling” to collect data on the wild rice. Quadrat sampling involves a PVC pipe with an area of a half-meter squared.

Quale said she and the researchers would throw the quadrant into the water from a boat they had to paddle around slowly and carefully so they wouldn’t uproot or damage the rice. Whatever fell within the quadrant’s bounds is what they collected data on. They were specifically looking for what rice was there and vegetation both above and below the

water.

For wild rice that was present within the quadrant, Quale said they also looked at attributes of it like its stage of life, if it had been

sovereignty.

“I think it’s just really important to be able to keep this kind of tradition of harvesting alive and also, I see it as, really, a gift — the

Being an annual plant that relies on the seed bank and water, this process is important for the natural replanting of Manoomin.

But the harvest season — when the wild rice has come to fruition and is a mature grain — only happens briefly. And the wild rice harvest moon only happens once a year, so it’s important to hit the Manoomin at the right time, Quale said. Hitting it too early will prevent any natural replanting because the seeds will not be mature enough.

It’s also important to ensure Manoomin harvesters are doing so appropriately and with a license, Peroff said, since it’s a huge threat to the plant when immature and without knowledge of how to gather it.

One of the biggest needs of the tribes the Manoomin Outreach and Education Project connected with was wanting to engage tribal youth in Manoomin education and bring awareness to non-Indigenous people, Peroff said.

“The thing that kept coming back when we talked to people was that the biggest threat was really just lack of awareness,” Peroff said.

Current outreach and education events include hosting wild rice camps for both adults and youth to teach about harvesting and traditional ceremonies associated with it, Peroff said.

The project is also hosting a Manoomin symposium in early November for the first time since COVID-19, including a Tribal elders panel to discuss traditional harvesting, history and impacts of Manoomin on their lives.

“It’s a time for everyone to get together and celebrate the plant [Manoomin] and brainstorm about next steps or other strategies to increase awareness and appreciation for the plant,” Peroff said.

Another big aspect of the educational efforts of the Manoomin project was updating an outdated life cycle graphic of Manoomin, Peroff said. Tribes the project worked with wanted it to be more relevant and demonstrate the cultural and ecological significance of the species.

The completed graphic shows the complete life cycle of Manoomin with scanned images of the real plant and help from a Madison artist to make a two-dimensional art piece, Peroff said. With the help of an Ojibwe speaker, they were also able to translate it. The finished graphic is available on the project’s website.

eaten by waterfowl, how many stems there were or if it showed any signs of plant disease.

Quale said this type of job was perfect for Quale because it allowed her to combine her passion for environmental justice and food

plant,” Quale said.

Through the act of harvesting, natural reseeding occurs from hitting the plants with cedar knockers, Quale said. This process allows seeds to fall off and back into the water.

“People like to say we’re giving land acknowledgments … ‘since time and memorial’ and that really is true, that this plant is older than any and all of us here,” Quale said. “And so I think it holds a lot of knowledge and it’s something that I think I learned from. I like to say that I learn from and have been learning with it this past summer.”

Amid threats from humans, climate change, Manoomin Education and Outreach Project aims to educate on plant’s ecological, cultural significance

Manoomin population has decreased by nearly half in last four decades.

QUINN BEAUPRE. THE BADGER HERALD.

People of UW: DCC intern Amal Khan talks creating space for people with disabilities

Stories of students: Read about students making a difference on campus

by Lucy Wentink

Features Editor

Editor’s note: People of UW is a human interest series produced by features editors. The series aims to highlight a student at the University of Wisconsin making an impact on the campus community. These Q&As are lightly edited for clarity and style.

What are you studying at the University Wisconsin ? What draws you to those fields?

I’m a senior majoring in philosophy and have a certificate in data science. I think philosophy shows you a really interesting outlook on how to think about things and data science provides you

with the tools to analyze certain ideas. For people who don’t know, what is the Disability Cultural Center?

The DCC is an affinity space on campus, where students who identify with having a disability or any form of chronic illness can come and exist in a space that’s comfortable for them. We do a lot of cultural programming in the sense of promoting and creating an environment where you can talk about disability and specifically engage in disability justice on campus. I think it focuses a lot on uplifting students who identify with this

identity.

What do you do as an intern for the DCC?

I’m one of three interns at the Disability Cultural Center this semester. Our supervisor, Helen, focuses a lot on consistent semester programming. For example, every week on Fridays we have an event called ‘crafternoon’ where you can just spend some time doing arts and crafts in the space together with other students.

Each of the interns are focusing on a specific

semester project that’s important to them. Usually related to whatever they want to see happen on campus. This semester, we have a variety of projects in the making. For example, I’m thinking about creating long term resources for students with disabilities who want to apply to graduate school.

What is the importance of what the DCC does for the UW community?

I think it does a lot for increasing representation of students with disabilities. It reframes the idea of disability in a positive way in a sense that on this huge campus you can find a community of people who have had those same experiences as you. I think it goes beyond other affinity centers in the sense that it doesn’t matter what your race or sexuality or religion is, you are relating on something that’s on a completely different axis than that. So, I think it does a lot to bring people together that have very different experiences over this one shared experience.

What is your favorite part about being an intern for the DCC?

I really enjoy the outreach opportunities that we get. I’ve done some really cool stuff with the Wisconsin Energy Institute and the School of Nursing, and these are opportunities I would have never gotten if the DCC didn’t exist and didn’t focus on promoting their interns as much. There’s a plethora of really interesting opportunities, and I really enjoy working with my co-workers and my boss as well.

How can students get involved with the Disability Cultural Center?

Following the instagram, @UW_Disability, is a great first step in figuring out what events are happening. Then, just coming and attending the events is the best way to get to know the community. We have an upcoming field trip to see the play Romeo and Juliet put on by actors who are all deaf. Otherwise, we have our weekly programming like ‘crafternoons’, or yesterday we had an author come in to talk about a book that she wrote. All these opportunities are available through Instagram, so just following and showing up to events that are of interest to you is the best way to get involved.

What is your favorite spot on campus?

I would say the Multicultural Student Center at the Red Gym or the University Club.

What’s next for you after graduation?

I’m not 100% sure. That’s the big senior year question, but I’m looking to apply to graduate school.

Khan speaks about the importance of creating space for people with disabilities, how to get involved

PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAL KHAN.

by Celia Hiorns Editor-in-Chief

Content warning: This story contains mention of addiction, drug use and overdose. Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the confidential referral hotline, 1-800-622-HELP, or view options on campus at uhs.wisc.edu/prevention/substance-misuseprevention.

Around the end of 2017, a few volunteer board members banded together to form what would eventually become the Wisconsin Association of Sober Housing. At the time of its founding, WASH’s work was focused on housing quality standards for people in recovery from addiction.

In 2021, WASH hired Thomas Vonck as the project director through a three-year research grant. As project director, Vonck is responsible for certifying recovery residences, studying outcomes and implementing measures to improve those outcomes. The research project aspect of this work is done through community-based participatory research — collaboration between researchers and community members to generate more equitable findings, according to the National Institute of Health.

“It’s slow going, but it’s really strengthening a recovery ecosystem in the state,” Vonck said.

In addition to serving as WASH’s project director, Vonck is a person in long-term recovery. In September 2018, he spent three and a half months in residential treatment in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before moving into a recovery house for seven months.

Vonck said a fundamental aspect of his recovery journey was coming into contact with others who were also in recovery. While he is not a fan of the “disease model,” he described recovery as “contagious.” Vonck does not attribute his recovery to the physical space or the proximity to recovery meetings, but the interaction between those resources in addition to the people he was living with.

Vonck’s passion lies in strengthening these kinds of connections at all levels of the recovery process.

“I think that there’s a strong need for scientific evidence, because funding is typically tied to evidence-based practices,” Vonck said. “But there’s also so much you can do in the absence of actual financial capital, just by connecting people to each other and to show people that we don’t recover alone — why would we provide peer recovery services alone?”

As a project director and person in long-term recovery, Vonck is not alone. Wisconsin’s growing recovery network is helping people access the resources they need. Despite remaining challenges, stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds — people in recovery, doctors and public health

officials — are working to build a network around supporting recovery and saving lives.

Contextualizing addiction

The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as “a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment and an individual’s life experiences.” This definition, updated in October 2019, focuses on addiction as a public health issue — and on the efficacy of treatment and recovery. Also inherent in this definition is the idea that individuals have different risk levels of developing an addiction on the basis of a variety of complex factors. Based on this understanding, prevention methods that were used in the past are now being scrutinized more closely.

Julia Olsen is a substance use prevention and harm reduction supervisor for Public Health of Madison and Dane County. Harm reduction is an evidence-based approach that involves engaging with people who use drugs to reduce the risks of legal or illegal behavior, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Olsen said a summary report from the United States General Accounting Office demonstrates past prevention methods — “Just Say No” in the 1980’s and D.A.R.E. in the 1990’s — simply did not work to stop drug use in American youth.

According to Olsen, the Nixon Administration’s War on Drugs and the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act criminalized addiction by implementing higher penalties for certain drugs, thereby creating major racial inequities that persist today. In a 1994 interview with Harper’s Magazine’s Dan Baum, former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman admitted these policies were about disrupting Black communities. Lasting implicit biases in law enforcement lead to higher arrest rates and harsher punishments for people of color in drug offenses, according to the Gateway Foundation.

Now, experts on addiction are reckoning with the failures of past decades and confronting new challenges in drug use prevention as a result of a changing landscape for Generation Z.

E-cigarettes have changed the addiction landscape for young people, according to Dr. Megan Piper, a director of research at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Tobacco

Research and Intervention. Piper said the relative recency of e-cigarettes and a lack of longitudinal studies make the long-term consequences of vaping unclear.

“There are some data that suggest vaping really does cause problems with the pulmonary system,” Piper said. “The other piece that we do know happens is that when you are vaping, you’re putting nicotine into your brain, and when you do that, it changes the structure of your brain. You have more nicotine receptors that your brain grows so that it can handle all the nicotine … that’s where dependence comes into play.”

Early versions of e-cigarettes were not very good at delivering nicotine until Juul entered the market in 2015, according to Piper. Juul developed a nicotine salt product that was marketed to adolescents through social media advertising and fruit or dessert flavor offerings that appealed to younger audiences. Novelty encouraged minors to try the product, while the high nicotine content kept them hooked, Piper said.

University Health Services data from 2019 revealed about 21% of incoming UW students reported vaping in the prior two weeks — a 33% increase since 2017 and a 486% increase since 2016. Vaping is incredibly common on college campuses, and with little research on vaping cessation, there are not many evidence-based treatment options to choose from.

In fact, there is a singular study that demonstrates the success of an evidence-based treatment to help people quit vaping, according to Piper. “This is Quitting” is a text-based program from the Truth Initiative that has worked with over 600,000 youth and young adults in their journeys to quit vaping, according to their website.

“They’re doing their best to market and get this information out there,” Piper said. “When people do want to quit vaping — if they’re not able to just put the vape down because of dependence or other issues — they [Truth Initiative] have got other ways to support them being able to quit successfully.”

While nicotine use continues to rise, so does the use of other substances. As usage for drugs like opioids, benzodiazepines and stimulants increases, rising overdose deaths present an added danger to addiction in Wisconsin.

Drugs and overdose

According to the Drug Overdose Deaths in Dane County 2022 Annual Report, drug overdose deaths in the county have been steadily increasing since 2000, particularly those related to synthetic opioids.

“Fentanyl is the drug supply now,” Olsen said. “Anyone who is using drugs, whether you do it regularly or you’re an occasional user … you should probably be prepared that there is more than likely fentanyl in that.”

Notably, the overdose rate among Black people was more than three times the rate among white people from 2018 to 2020, with a rate that has sharply increased in the last 10 years, according to the annual report.

“There is an urgent need to better understand and address the worsening racial inequities in drug overdose deaths,” the annual report said.

“The rapid increase in drug overdose death rates among Black people in Dane County is related to long-standing inequities experienced by Black people, including higher rates of policing and incarceration as well as policies across sectors that negatively impact wellness and the ability of Black people to thrive.”

Additionally, the highest rates of drug overdose in Dane County are in the 35-44 age group, Olsen said. Olsen said while younger people don’t make up as much of the overdose deaths, patterns of use often begin around college.

But there are some notable distinctions between young people and other generations regarding drug use and overdose, according to Dr. Ritu Bhatnagar, an addiction psychiatrist and the associate director of psychiatric services at University Health Services.

Centers for Disease Control mortality data shows counterfeit pill use in overdose deaths doubled from July 2019 to December 2021. Compared to deaths without counterfeit pill use, people who died from counterfeit pill use were younger, more often Hispanic or Latino and more often had a history of prescription drug misuse and drug use by smoking.

More generally, Bhatnagar said young people are more likely to have attitudes that downplay the risks of substances because of their developmental stage that lends to a sense of invulnerability. Marijuana and tobacco lobbyists have also effectively marketed to young people, resulting in a decreased perception of harm over the last five years, according to Bhatnagar.

The creators of products like Juul not only altered after the e-cigarette to create a more addictive nicotine substance, but they modeled after the marketing strategy of Big Tobacco to reach American youth in advertising, according to Piper.

“What you will learn from the tobacco industry is how to market to adolescents,” Piper said. “And they [creators of Juul] did it hard and heavy. You could see all the different ads, all the different social media influencers that were all talking about Juul … so there was lots of marketing work as well as

Bhatnagar also said social media has changed the way people experience peer pressure, which requires a whole new level of resilience to resist. More broadly, social media has impacted the way adolescents develop social relationships, according to the Clinical Child

Social media use can have adverse impacts on youth mental health, as time online limits the amount of time people can devote to in-person interactions. But since social media offers important cultural context, not using social media can also be isolating, Bhatnagar said.

Isolation is a major concern when it comes to drug use and misuse prevention. In fact,

‘Addiction is the opposite of connection’:

Strong resource networks guide recovery efforts in Wisconsin

Bhatnagar said the number one protective behavior families can do to reduce the risk of their child developing a substance use disorder is having dinner together.

“You’re sitting around talking about things and having that connection,” Bhatnagar said. “There’s one quote that resonates with a lot of people I work with: ‘Addiction is the opposite of connection.’”

Rally for Recovery

In the spirit of building connection, Wisconsin Voices for Recovery hosts an annual Rally for Recovery at the Wisconsin State Capitol. The event hosts a variety of speakers, provides educational resources, offers community building opportunities and honors those who have been lost to overdose. The 2023 event was held Saturday, Sept. 9.

At the rally, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez presented a proclamation from the Governor’s Office, declaring September 2023 as Recovery Month. As part of a wider effort to make 2023 the Year of Mental Health, the Evers administration is working to invest in substance misuse recovery and affordable healthcare, including mental health and behavioral healthcare, according to Rodriguez.

Bhatnagar, who also serves as the principal investigator for Wisconsin Voices for Recovery, spoke about the medical perspective of substance use and recovery at the rally. According to Bhatnagar, the medical establishment is working to address addiction as a health issue, rather than as a moral failing.

Amid a culture of stigma and other barriers, Bhatnagar said people experiencing substance use disorders must be met with treatment when they are ready to receive it. Harm reduction can help with this, as it prevents people from turning down life-saving treatments by accepting them for wherever they are in their recovery process and not leaving them there, according to Bhatnagar.

“We need an approach that provides a bridge these kinds of situations. But off-campus, amnesty is not guaranteed.

Addressing these issues, however, takes coordination between community and policy,

according to Vonck.

“It’s really important for us that service providers don’t feel like they are providing services alone,” Vonck said at the rally. “So we work to build a stronger community, a stronger recovery ecosystem.”

There is a growing ecosystem of support in Dane County offering recovery resources. For example, PHMDC’s Syringe Services Program has two locations in Madison. The program offers free services such as sharps disposal boxes, fentanyl test strip kits, Narcan, safer use supplies and educational resources.

Olsen said SSPs also serve as critical touch points for people using drugs to access other kinds of health services, such as sexual wellness or wound care. People who are using drugs and use SSPs are five times more likely to enter a treatment program than people who do not use SSPs, according to the CDC.

“We’re trying to create a nonjudgmental space for people who use drugs to be as healthy and safe as they can be,” Olsen said. “We’re trying to work on policy changes that don’t criminalize addiction and don’t stigmatize people and hinder them in their recovery.”

Peer recovery is another important aspect of recovery in Dane County. Safe Communities is a nonprofit coalition of over 350 organizations who work to improve health and public safety in Dane County. One of their programs offers recovery coaching, which is guidance from people who either have personal experience in long-term recovery from addiction or mental health issues or have loved ones who have been affected by addiction or mental health issues.

Lily Sultze has been a recovery coach at Safe Communities since early 2023 and is also a person in long-term recovery. Since becoming sober June 24, 2018 through a 12-step program, Sultze has come to appreciate the harm reduction aspects of peer recovery coaching.

“Recovery coaching is something that I hold super close to my heart,” Sultze said. “I think that it’s super important to give folks out there the opportunity to have someone support them who understands what they’re going through.”

In her day-to-day work life, Sultze interacts with several of her peers in recovery — sending text messages, answering phone calls and visiting treatment centers — to offer companionship and help connect them to the resources they need.

Sultze also works with the Addiction Resource Team, a grant-funded initiative through the Madison Police Department that sends a multidisciplinary team to check in on individuals who have recently suffered drug poisoning to offer resources and support. Sultze said harm reduction tactics that promote engagement help make sure people who need resources feel supported, even if they do not feel ready to enter a 12-step program.

“When I was able to get the help that I needed, it was solely because people were there reaching out for me and there to help me when I needed it,” Sultze said.

Though there are many resources available, Sultze said a lack of education, capacity and resources can create barriers that prevent

institutions from being as effective as they could be.

Barriers to resources

The current state of Wisconsin’s Good Samaritan Law presents one of these barriers. In 2017, the law was amended to offer immunity from arrest or criminal prosecution for witnesses of overdoses who call 911, also known as aiders, and for individuals who receive aid during an overdose, or aided individuals.

These protections were sunsetted in August 2020, leaving aided individuals without criminal immunity. A 2021 study from the International Journal of Drug Policy revealed extensive Good Samaritan Laws — those that included immunity for aiders and aided individuals, not only from charges or prosecution but also from arrest — were associated with lower rates of overdose deaths.

Though there is room for improvement on the policy level, Olsen said she’s been surprised how supportive policy makers and people in the community have been of implementing harm reduction programs. While it takes a lot of education in some spaces, Olsen said, evidencebased harm reduction treatments work.

One of these harm reduction tactics is the use of naloxone. Narcan is a brand of naloxone nasal spray that can counteract the effects of an overdose by blocking opioid receptors in the brain, according to the National Institutes of Health.

University Health Services recently installed 13 additional naloxone boxes across the UW campus to increase access. Students are encouraged to take boxes whether or not it’s an emergency, which helps distribute overdose supplies and reduce stigma.

“There’s still an enormous stigma around recovery,” Vonck. “I’m really privileged to be able to say ‘I am recovering’ out loud.”

People are experiencing addiction in every community, Vonck said, but NIMBYism fuels misconceptions that recovery centers draw people who use drugs to those neighborhoods, when in reality, they benefit people who already exist and are seeking treatment.

While there are lots of available resources, connecting people to them in a timely manner is another challenge, according to Bhatnagar. In implementation research projects, Bhatnagar found 45% of the people who died from an overdose in 2020 had a visit to an emergency department in the year preceding their death, according to the Drug Overdose Deaths in Dane County 2022 Annual Report. Bhatnagar said these were missed opportunities for treatment.

Connecting with the people in particular age groups is something Olsen said PHMDC is still working on. The 25-34 age group is most difficult to reach, since they no longer rely on university resources and are transitioning to a period of real independence and stress as adults, according to Olsen.

PHMDC issues overdose spike alerts, which Olsen said are a relatively discreet harm reduction tactic to warn people about potentially unsafe drug supplies in the area. PHMDC has partners such as Safe Communities which are working to bring drug use prevention and suicide prevention

programs to local high school students, and OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center which offers support services to a variety of age groups.

But Vonck identified a disconnect between

For example, WASH advocated for inclusion in a piece of legislation related to the registration of recovery residences. The association proposed including an oversight body to ensure accountability for residences on the registry, but the final piece of legislation created a self-reporting system, which Vonck said is problematic.

Vonck said WASH still frequently interacts with people at DHS to share resources and collaborate on projects, such as a training program for UW–Whitewater’s Center for Inclusive Transition, Education and Employment.

“When we do come together to share our expertise … it’s really great,” Vonck said.

Fortifying a strong recovery network

Despite the challenges of disjointed resources, various organizations, agencies, experts and individuals in Wisconsin are making a connection between the integration of resources and positive recovery outcomes.

“I think for now the main thing is just letting people know they’re not alone,” Bhatnagar said. “UW does a decent job, but it’s a huge place — 55,000 students — it’s easy to feel lost. If that is what somebody is feeling right now, I would really encourage them to reach out.”

Olsen said part of PHMDC’s ongoing work plan is to bolster its long relationship with UHS and UW. This means putting out more information about the state of the overdose epidemic and familiarizing students about the wide variety of resources that are available in Dane County.

At the Rally for Recovery, Bhatnagar listed the kinds of efforts that give her hope for the future of recovery. Peer recovery programs offer a social recovery experience. Harm reduction tactics keep people alive long enough to seek further treatment. And collaboration between the state and other entities better ensures people in recovery are met with support — wherever they are in the recovery process.

“There are people out there that will listen no matter what,” Sultze said. “I think that’s the most important thing — in any circumstance, there’s somebody there who cares.”

Planned Parenthood resuming operations big step in right direction

Decision to allow Planned Parenthood to resume operations in WI is step in right direction for Wisconsin, other states

by Sammie Garrity Columnist

An individual’s right to have control over their own body has always been a topic of debate in the United States, especially the bodily control of individuals with uteri. Their ability to get an abortion, take birth control and make basic decisions for their own health has always been governed and restricted by various levels of government.

When the Supreme Court first ruled on Roe v. Wade, it was a bright light for many people across the U.S. because finally, they were able to be in control of themselves. According to Gallup News, 53% of Americans view Roe v. Wade’s decision from 30 years ago positively,

with only 30% viewing it negatively. They were able to make the right decision for their own life, not have their path chosen for them. It was a sign that the courts recognized that nobody’s body should be controlled by someone else. It was a sign of hope.

June 24, 2022, however, the Supreme Court overturned Roe with Dobbs v. Jackson and returned abortion regulation back to the states. This set people with uteri’s rights to bodily control back decades.

This decision promptly halted abortion access in Wisconsin and reinstated an 1849 law ruling that it is a felony to provide an

century world should not be living like it’s the 19th. Thankfully, the Wisconsin Department of Justice immediately filed a lawsuit to challenge this ruling and restore abortion rights.

As a result of that lawsuit, Planned Parenthood is resuming operation in parts of Wisconsin after a ruling from the Dane County Circuit Court.

This makes it so that Planned Parenthood’s services are in fact legal and are able to garner the support of many Wisconsin politicians — even Gov. Tony Evers — according to AP News. This decision will also help to justify Planned Parenthood’s operation before the legality of abortion reaches the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

This critical ruling is a huge step in the right direction because now Wisconsinites will have much greater access to getting the help they need and the health care that has been missing for over a year.

It also goes to show that Wisconsin leaders who are in support of Planned Parenthood reopening are looking out for the health of citizens instead of treating abortion like a political bargaining chip. They realized that the well being of people heavily outweighs the Republican outcry resulting from resumed access to abortion.

Planned Parenthood is giving individuals with uteri a semblance of control over their livelihood and their bodies. The government should not have a say in the personal health decisions of American citizens.

The restrictions on healthcare for people with uteri caused by the Dobbs decision had many effects, including increased maternal mortality and morbidity and a feeling of fear in healthcare settings, according to an article from Human Rights Watch.

People with uteri who absolutely cannot bring a child into this world might turn to other, less safe forms of abortion, according to Harvard School of Public Health professor Ana Langer.

abortion unless it would prevent the death of the pregnant person, according to the Cap Times.

Dobbs v. Jackson showed people across America that their health and safety isn’t a priority for the U.S. Supreme Court. It showed that the separation of church and state has crumbled within the American government and that politics have become a religion, with religious morals governing our nation.

A law made in 1849 being brought into 2023 is ridiculous. It takes Wisconsin back to a time where women and people of color couldn’t own property or vote. Those in the 21st

The ruling on the 1849 law differentiating feticide and abortion is a key piece of terminology that could potentially be applied to other states who are also held by an ancient law to ban abortions.

Nobody, especially those who will never truly understand the effect that being pregnant has on one’s mind and body, should be able to force a person with a uterus into carrying a child to term. People with uteri have the absolute right to govern their own bodies and that right should never be questioned, much less regulated.

Sammie Garrity (sgarrity3@wisc.edu) is a freshman studying journalism and political science.

Decision to resume services at Planned Parenthood locations in Wisconsin sets important example.

KATIE COONEY. THE BADGER HERALD.

Point-Counterpoint: New Republican redistricting bill

Point: Dems should be wary of GOP’s new redistricting bill

by Aanika Parikh Opinion Associate

The 2011 redistricting resulted in Wisconsin’s status as one of the most gerrymandered states in the country for the next 10 years, according to PBS Wisconsin. In 2021, Gov. Tony Evers and other Democratic lawmakers proposed plans to remodel Wisconsin’s redistricting system to mirror Iowa’s nonpartisan structure, according to the Wisconsin Examiner. Speaker Robin Vos (R-Wis.) turned down these proposals, claiming it would be unconstitutional to hand the Legislature’s power of redrawing maps to bipartisan groups instead, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.

Vos seems to have changed his mind completely in his announcement of the new Republican redistricting bill that delegates redistricting to the same nonpartisan groups who he once condemned as “unelected bureaucrats” according to Wisconsin Public Radio.

It is important to note the new bill is a step forward in the depoliticization of redistricting in Wisconsin. The nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau would be responsible for drawing maps and the Legislature would no longer amend district maps if the bill is passed, according to CNN. This is a similar implementation to what Democrats have suggested for the past few years, and Vos claims it models Iowa’s redistricting system, according to the article.

But, the Iowa State Auditor and former Republican Party of Iowa Chairman pointed out that Wisconsin’s new system is very different from Iowa’s nonpartisan redistricting process. According to Wisconsin Public Radio, Iowa relies upon a judicial review in which the Iowa Supreme Court draws district maps if the legislature cannot come to an agreement by a certain deadline. In Wisconsin, the Supreme Court is removed from the redistricting process.

The bill also coincided with Republicans’ growing threat to impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz. Vos told WISN-AM passing the redistricting bill was his alternative to the

Counterpoint: Dems should capitalize on reforms

by Jack Rogers Opinion Editor

impeachment of Protasiewicz, according to CNN. In other words, impeaching Protasiewicz would remove the liberal majority in the Supreme Court, protecting the Republicans’ gerrymandered maps. Instead, the new redistricting bill similarly revokes the Supreme Court’s power to reject Republican-drawn maps, handing the power to nonpartisan groups.

It seems as though Vos is interested in nonpartisan redistricting only when the Republican Party could benefit. The Republican Party’s historical dismissal of Evers’ efforts for nonpartisan redistricting supports that the party’s ultimate goal is not to depoliticize redistricting.

Vos claims he changed his initial view after listening to calls for nonpartisan redistricting. If this were the case, Vos would not have rushed the bill by voting on it less than 48 hours after it was proposed, as according to WISN. If he truly wished to accommodate the Democrats’ demands, Vos would have held a public hearing and consulted with the Democrats who have been fighting for such a change since 2011.

According to the Wisconsin State Legislature, public hearings allow legislators, field experts, and the general public to voice their opinions and suggest amendments to proposed bills. Republicans’ failure to host a public hearing suggests that they aren’t as open to feedback as they claim to be.

This bill may be a step forward in depoliticizing redistricting, but it cannot be viewed as a precedent for further progressive proposals on behalf of Republican lawmakers.

Moving towards nonpartisan redistricting may have served as a common ground between the political parties if the Republicans were more transparent and thorough with the bill. It is reasonable for Democrats to be skeptical of Republicans’ true motivation behind the surprise policy change.

Aanika Parikh (aaparikh5@wisc.edu) is a sophomore studying molecular and cell biology.

It’s obvious. Wisconsin’s rigged electoral maps are responsible for the extreme swing in partisan power in state government. As recently as 2008, Democrats held the majority in the State Senate according to BallotPedia. Now, Republicans outnumber Democrats two to one.

This isn’t because GOP politics suddenly became popular overnight — Democrats still consistently outperform Republicans in statewide elections according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Yet despite redistricting efforts last year, Wisconsin’s electoral maps still heavily favor Republicans. Wisconsin Democrats have spent years fighting for fair maps according to Fair Maps Wisconsin, and now state Republicans have finally allowed them to achieve just that.

A newly proposed bill in the Assembly would hand over the responsibility of drawing new legislative maps to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau. According to the bill text, the bureau would be legally unable to draw up districts that explicitly favor a political party, incumbent legislator or racial group. These maps would then be sent to the Legislature for approval by a simple majority and signed into effect by the governor.

Under the existing redistricting process, the State Legislature is responsible for drawing legislative maps. Clearly, the Republican majority has an incentive to draw maps that only solidify their grip on power. The new bill removes any ability legislators have to draw maps themselves — even if the Legislature votes to reject a proposed map from the Bureau. Experts claim this move towards nonpartisanship

represents a marked improvement, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. This move, however, comes at a sensitive time in state politics. The liberal majority on the Supreme Court may soon hear a case involving redistricting. Democrats claim the introduction of this bill is an attempt by Republicans to sidestep a likely-unfavorable ruling against Wisconsin’s gerrymandered maps, according to the Wisconsin Examiner. Democrats should be unbothered by the optics of the proposed reforms. Allowing the Legislature an opportunity to keep itself in check through this bill, rather than heighten an existing feud between the Legislature and the Supreme Court is significant.

The Legislature is very powerful — including holding enough votes to impeach Protasiewicz before she has heard a single case. If Republicans decide to follow through with impeachment, the governor might not have the chance to appoint a new liberal justice to hear a case on redistricting before the 2024 elections. Taking the legislative approach to ending gerrymandering would ease dangerous tension and guarantee a pathway to secure fair maps for the people of Wisconsin.

The polarization and gridlock of the two-party system, especially in Wisconsin, has resulted in a state government that does not represent the people in a literal or ideological sense. Democrats should put their ruthless skepticism aside and take the chance to reform maps while the opportunity is still ripe.

Jack Rogers (jrogers@badgerherald.com) is a sophomore studying Chinese and economics.

Republicans recently introduced a bill that would give a nonpartisan body the power to redistrict legislative maps. As the liberal-majority Supreme Court is expected to hear a case on redistricting in the near future, does this bill represent a suspicious Republican attempt to subvert the Supreme Court or a rare opportunity to fix broken legislative maps?

GOP threatens to impeach Justice Protasiewicz, push own agenda

Threats to impeach new justice are dangerous to Wisconsin, U.S. Constitution

by Josh Standal Columnist

Janet Protasiewicz is the newest member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court after she defeated her conservative opponent, Daniel Kelly, in April 2023. The decisive victory for Protasiewicz allowed liberal judges to take control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court at a critical time when important cases regarding abortion rights and gerrymandering are rising up to be heard by the court according to The New York Times.

But Protasiewicz came under fire from the Republican Party as soon as she won the election over comments she made regarding gerrymandering during her campaign and accepted donations from the Democratic party, according to AP News.

Protasiewicz raised approximately $12.3 million dollars from February to mid-March, of which $8.86 million came from the Democratic Party according to the Wisconsin Democracy

Campaign. Republicans said these donations from the Democratic Party would influence Protaseiwicz’s decisions of the court in favor of the Democrats, according to AP News.

Assembly speaker Robin Vos announced Sept. 13 that he had created a panel to investigate the criteria needed to impeach Protasiewicz. The panel will consist of three former Wisconsin Supreme Court justices, who Vos said will not be named until after their work has been concluded. But, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser told AP News that Vos asked him to be on the panel.

Prosser is a rather interesting selection for the panel considering that in 2016 Prosser accepted $25,000 in-kind contributions from the Wisconsin Republican Party, and he personally donated $500 to Daniel Kelly, the conservative judge who ran against Protasiewicz in the 2023

election, according to AP News.

Prosser is guilty of roughly the same charge Republicans are levying against Protasiewicz, and yet Vos has no problem allowing him to sit on the panel that will investigate the criteria for impeaching the newly elected judge.

Republicans are setting forth the argument that since Protasiewicz accepted donations from the Democratic Party and made comments about controversial issues she would likely hear cases about, she cannot rule fairly on redistricting cases that will be heard by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Vos and the other Republicans who are looking to impeach Protasiewicz are using flawed arguments that, if found as impeachable offenses, would lead to the majority of Wisconsin Supreme Court justices being impeached.

Protasiewicz was not the only justice to accept

donations from a political party, as six of the seven of the sitting Supreme Court justices have also accepted donations from a political party at the national, state or county level according to AP News. Both conservative and liberal justices that are currently sitting on the court have made comments and taken stances about major issues.

In fact, one of the current conservative justices, Justice Rebecca Bradley, sent out a flier that featured her holding a shotgun and wearing a hat that promoted the National Rifle Association during her campaign, according to AP News. Clearly Republicans are not worried about donations being sent to candidates or judicial candidates being outspoken about controversial issues while campaigning. If they were concerned about these issues, then they would be pursuing impeachment for the majority of the sitting justices.

Protasiewicz’s win this past April was a decisive one. Her victory secured a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years, and it comes at a crucial time, according to Fox 11 News. The court is going to hear cases regarding some controversial and important topics soon, including issues like redistricting and abortion rights.

Republicans aren’t bringing up charges of impeachment against Protasiewicz because they are worried about the integrity of the court. Instead, they are worried about her impeding the progress of the conservative agenda. This is their attempt to prevent a liberal majority in the state’s highest court.

The action of impeachment is supposed to be reserved to remove individuals from office who have committed crimes or abused their power, according to the U.S. Constitution. Protasiewicz has done neither. Republicans are merely impeaching her to protect their redistricting laws and prevent legalization of abortion from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Impeachment was designed as a check and balance to hold judges and Congress members accountable for their crimes or abuses of power. When a political party or individual politicians begin to use this tool to advance their own agenda, it undermines the institutions of our government and sets a dangerous precedent.

This dangerous act further polarizes the two parties. Republicans are creating conflict instead of working toward bettering the nation and representing the interests of Americans.

The impeachment charges brought against Protasiewicz are hollow. Using impeachment as a political weapon will have dire consequences. Protasiewicz is being wrongly singled out and her impeachment will stain the integrity of our Constitution.

Josh Standal (jpstandal@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in history.

Recent efforts by Wisconsin Republicans to impeach Justice Protasiewicz reveal goals of pushing conservative agenda.

MARISSA HAEGELE. THE BADGER HERALD.

Proposal to keep Brewers in Wisconsin too costly to justify

Republican proposal to keep Brewers in Milwaukee too costly to justify team staying in Cream City

by Emily Otten Opinion Editor

Wisconsin Republicans intend to keep the Milwaukee Brewers in Wisconsin through 2050 with a new proposal in the legislature according to NBC15. The proposal is reliant on state taxes, with the state giving the team $60.8 million dollars in the upcoming fiscal year and then $20 million each year after. The City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County in particular would contribute around $202 million and $135 million respectively.

This proposal would keep the Brewers in Milwaukee for at least 27 years. Though the Republicans may be the ones proposing this, there is bipartisan support for keeping the Brewers in Wisconsin. Gov. Tony Evers previously wanted to set aside about $290 million to keep the Brewers in Wisconsin for another 13 years, but Republicans shut down the proposal claiming that it was a bad deal for taxpayers according to NBC15.

With this proposal comes what the Republicans call a weatherization plan which would allow AmFam Field to be used throughout the year for different purposes like concerts and events. Republicans argue that utilizing the field throughout the year would help generate revenue locally and throughout the state, offsetting the impact to taxpayers.

While the Brewers are important to not only Milwaukee history but also the culture of Wisconsin, the price this deal will cost taxpayers is incredibly steep. Though the Brewers would stay in Wisconsin for those 27 years if the proposal passes, there is nothing to say they won’t just leave the year after the contract is completed.

The Brewers currently play in the smallest television market for any Major League Baseball team and rank 21 out of 30 teams in terms of payroll, according to Forbes. While the team in the past years has been relatively successful, downplaying the impact of the smaller market and lower payroll, there is still the chance that they would want to find more success in another city.

NBC15 said if the Brewers were to move, it would be the second time Milwaukee lost an MLB team as the Braves left Milwaukee around 70 years ago.

The Brewers are an important piece of Milwaukee and Wisconsin, but the steep price just doesn’t seem worth it to taxpayers, especially when the Brewers

can leave as soon as the contract is up. Additionally, baseball has been on the decline for many years now — it is not guaranteed that the money taxpayers spend will be returned in terms of revenue. Only 11% of adults listed baseball as their favorite sport in a 2021 survey by the Washington Post. That same survey also identified that only 7% of people under 30 list baseball as their favorite sport.

CNN attributes this decline in baseball popularity to the growth of television and the slow pace of the games. To see a baseball game, people no longer need to go to the stadium, especially with the many streaming options available. Additionally, since the game is slower paced than basketball or other sports, sitting at home and being able to switch channels is appealing to many.

The cost of keeping the Brewers in Milwaukee would also likely not cover all of the upgrades needed to AmFam field. The MLB is pressuring the Brewers to upgrade their facilities, and upgrades appear to cost around $440 million dollars according to Front Office Sports. Clearly, some of the money from the proposal would go to these upgrades, but that steep price means even more money spent by taxpayers.

The cost to taxpayers, specifically city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County individuals, is just too steep to justify keeping a mid-size team in a sport which is only predicted to continue declining in popularity. Especially with the success of the Milwaukee Bucks and development of the Deer District, the Brewers just aren’t the most popular team in Milwaukee anymore.

The tradition and history of the Brewers is likely important to many Wisconsin residents, but the fact is these millions of dollars could be used in so many different areas across the state instead of just securing a baseball team for 27 years.

These millions could go toward improving education and compensating teachers fairly. They could go toward ameliorating housing issues on the northside of Milwaukee and improving living conditions for those who live there. These millions could even support efforts to stop the housing crisis across the state.

Taxpayer dollars are incredibly important, and the large amount of

money should be used carefully to the residents of Wisconsin. When baseball games can be streamed from anywhere across the country, even if the Brewers moved, Wisconsinites could still watch the game or support another state’s team. Compared to the multiple other issues that Wisconsin is facing right now, baseball is simply the least important.

With so much needing to be improved across the state of Wisconsin, and especially in the City of Milwaukee, it just doesn’t make sense to use millions of taxpayer dollars to keep a team in a sport whose popularity is sure to continue declining in the state.

Emily

Otten (elotten@wisc.edu) is a senior

majoring in journalism.

Keeping the Brewers in the state of Wisconsin may be too costly.

AreaRED continues to expand representation in fall semester, beyond

Creation of ‘Cardinal & White,’ ‘Colony’ shows progress of organization

by Maddox Durst Sports Editor

At the University of Wisconsin, AreaRED has solidified itself as the official student section on campus, providing its following with constant updates about the athletics programs at UW and in-event promotions.

The group was formed in the summer of 2018, highlighted by the thinking of former Wisconsin men’s basketball player and assistant coach Alando Tucker, according to AreaRED’s website. Tucker wanted to create excitement and buzz around UW Athletics and student section planning in the hands of students.

AreaRED, named in relation to the trending Area51 from a couple of years ago, officially formed as a student organization in 2019, according to the website. Since then, it has taken off within the student body and on social media.

UW junior Alyssa Bhoopat joined AreaRED in the spring semester of her freshman year, a couple of years after the program came to fruition.

While working within the organization as a regular member for two years, her role evolved into leading the committee for women’s volleyball, also known as The MadHouse. Bhoopat is the leader of pre-planning student events for the women’s volleyball team, in addition to working hand-in-hand with members of upper management in UW Athletics.

“This summer we worked a lot on planning specific giveaways, theme nights and which games we’re going to tie those to,” Bhoopat said. “We design the student sheets that we pass out before the game, and we basically facilitate the crowd, running some chants or just making sure that we hype everybody up.”

The Badgers’ women’s volleyball team is fresh off of a 2021 National Championship, which allows Bhoopat to utilize their starpower and popularity to ultimately create excitement for attending a volleyball game.

In addition to the in-person hype, Bhoopat gains many positive interactions on The MadHouse X, formerly known as Twitter, account. She sees it as a place for students to engage and receive answers about their questions, whereas the main UW volleyball account won’t respond.

“I think people, at least in the replies, feel that there can be more of a conversation between The MadHouse account then maybe with the more official volleyball account,” Bhoopat said. “I’ll get a lot of questions or comments, or something that kind of indicates that they want to reply that I feel like I don’t often see under the Wisconsin volleyball Twitter [X] account.”

This fall, the main committee, led by AreaRED president Ben McLenaghan created

a couple of new sections to join The MadHouse and Crease Creatures, which serve as the UW men’s and women’s hockey student section. It started with the UW Colony, a group designed to promote and attend men’s and women’s soccer events.

In addition to the Colony, Cardinal & White

Softball, cross country and others are main areas of focus for the Cardinal & White committee to begin the semester. Sept. 23, the committee hosted their first event — a tailgate with some of the softball parents before a doubleheader exhibition against Loyola University Chicago. This was just the start of many opportunities for the student body to get involved with supporting sports teams on campus with the help of AreaRED.

“People say they have a great time at the tailgates, and the team is very good, which obviously helps,” Hoffman said of the softball team. “People see, they’ll come to the game and do well, and be like ‘oh my gosh, i wanna go back’ and then they start a word of mouth.”

The trickle-down effect is something Hoffman noted from her work with the Badgers’ women’s basketball team last season. As more events and effort was put into promoting games throughout the season, crowds began to fill in and people were talking positively about the team.

It’s a goal for Hoffman and the rest of AreaRED to get students talking about the upcoming event, spread the word and then showing up to represent the red and white.

Bhoopat mentioned the success of the volleyball team and how the students play a key role in making the UW Field House an electric environment. Bhoopat said UW volleyball head coach Kelly Sheffield struggles to communicate with his athletes during timeouts just due to the magnitude of the student section.

“…He’s just yelling at his players and they can’t hear him,” Bhoopat said. “That’s really what I feel like our job is, just trying to make the Field House so hard to play in that no one really wants to come and play here.”

While this is prominent for women’s volleyball, AreaRED envisions that their group can lead the way in doing the same with other sports. The school pride continues to expand with the addition of the Cardinal & White, with future events are on the horizon.

AreaRED illustrates to students they are a committed student organization who cares about athletics, Hoffman said. It’s a key piece that will play into the future and even encourage students to join the organization to help increase the buzz around campus sporting events.

was created this semester, led by committee chair Elizabeth Hoffman, who is the director of the sub-group. While most sports have their own representatives, there are other athletic programs who don’t have the same amount of home events, but still deserve equal representation, Hoffman said.

“Moving forward, I’d say our main goal is, again, awareness,” Hoffman said. “But, my goal by the end of the year is to have an event at every sport. Because even if we can’t get consistent presence at these events, we want people to gain new experiences because you don’t know if you like something if you haven’t tried it yet.”

AreaRED members pose for a photo at their first Softball tailgate of the fall.

KRISSY BIRDSALL. THE BADGER HERALD.

Forward Madison FC approaches postseason play

by Ariel Tamir-Pinsky Sports Associate Editor

Forward Madison FC began the final stretch of its regular season and is looking to secure a playoff spot during their final regular season matches.

The Flamingos, currently sitting with an 11-9-9 record, have had a strong regular season — the team’s 42 points rank 6th in the USL Leauge One. With three more games left in the campaign, their playoff spot is not guaranteed. Only the top six teams head to postseason play.

“So it’s just the same mentality we’ve had,” forward Christian Chaney said. “We all set goals in the beginning of the year, saying that we want to at least make [the] playoffs. We want to start off with just getting into the playoffs, and I think as a team that’s still our mentality. Do what we have to do to win the game essentially, and just give it our all and not have any regrets.”

As the Flamingos hope to experience success ahead of the final playoff stretch, the organization has made some roster moves to bolster their chances down the line.

They added midfielder Ozzie Ramos from the Central Valley Fuego FC. With the experience Ramos brings, and his ability to move up and down the field quickly, it will help boost Forward Madison into playoff contention.

His addition, amongst the other contributors on Forward Madison FC, has put this team in the position that they want to be in.

“The job’s not done yet,” defender Stephen Payne said. “We still have to win a couple more games to confirm it, but every game now feels like a playoff game. Everybody’s dialed in. You got to pay a little bit more attention to details that

every training matters a little bit more and every minute matters a bit more. So we’re all just a bit more focused, getting ready for the playoffs.”

Chaney, a Fresno, California native, is currently leading the offense with 10 goals this season, and forward Jayden Onen leads with six assists followed by four from Payne.

Chaney was able to travel back to his roots and play in Fresno earlier this season, where he ended up creating a new memory to add to his soccer experiences.

“It was a tie, but we went to my hometown, in Fresno, California,” Chaney said. “We played against them and we were a man down, and I ended up scoring the tying goal … but there was a lot of adversity in that game. And as a group, I just think we fought really, really hard to stay in that game.”

To keep the Flamingos’ morale high, team chemistry is an important contribution. The camaraderie and trust the team builds outside of training and games can be just as important as attending practices.

Some of those events include spending the Fourth of July together, or even attending comedy shows in their downtime, Chaney said. They coexist well together, a key trait to their success.

“Everybody [is] working for each other,” Chaney said. “Everybody [is] playing as a

team before your individual self, so it has made us really close as a team [and] as a whole.”

Payne said odd-field chemistry plays into their production on the pitch. If they can continue that, the team may continue to find success in their future matchups.

The Flamingos’ final pair of games will be played against Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC away and Union Omaha at home.

“It’s a team sport, there’s 11 of us on the field, and if we all do our job, then that’s your main focus,” Chaney said. “What can I do to help the team win? What can I do to get a goal? We’ll try to make sure that the other team isn’t getting it so easy against us. I just want to do what I can to the best of my ability.”

Earlier this season, the Flamingos tied and dropped a match Northern Colorado Hailstorm FC and defeated Union Omaha in the season opener. These are crucial games as Forward Madison closes out their season. Winning both could open a pathway into the USL League One playoffs.

“One of the things that my coach was looking towards this year was just having a group that gels well together,” Payne said. “I think in the beginning, we had a lot of new faces, including myself, and we’re finally starting to learn each other’s tendencies now. I think that’s what’s leading towards our field success.”

Forward Madison prepares for the playoffs in their final stretch of regular season games.

‘Garbology’ exhibit turns trash into treasure

Overture exhibit celebrates sustainability, supports upcoming play

by Abigail Leavins Reporter

Tucked in the lower level of the Overture Center is a hidden gem. A hallway is lined with vintage clothing, plastic bag art and plastic sculptures. A curtain made up of bottles, food containers, milk cartons, plastic sleeves and other disposable items hangs on one wall.

“Garbology: What We Throw Away” is a temporary art exhibit in the Overture Center’s Playhouse Gallery celebrating the work several artists have created with items that others would normally throw away. The exhibit opened in late August and will remain open until Nov. 26, 2023.

Artist Mackenzie Madison put together several portraits for the exhibit made up of plastic bags, with a different color for their hair, face, scarf and mask.

Another artist, Pat Kroth, spent two and a half years of the COVID-19 pandemic

stockpiling plastic packaging materials for a curtain of recyclables called “Plastic Peril.”

Kroth explains in the statement beside the painting that “how we assign value to things” is an interesting topic. Sometimes humble items are more valuable than one might think.

“Created on site from recycled, and cast-off materials, Plastic Peril explores the notion of need, want, excess and waste in our society and perhaps adds a smile as we grapple with these daunting issues,” Kroth said.

The City of Madison arts and culture coordinator Karin Wolf said they wanted to encourage people to think about important global issues. Wolf was part of the discussion with the Arts and Literature Laboratory in deciding on artists to feature.

“People need to be more educated about how they can reuse and properly recycle their material waste, but it also is reflective of what

the whole globe is going through right now with our climate crisis,” Wolf said.

Wolf said she wants people to walk away from the exhibit thinking differently about their practices surrounding recycling and waste.

The work for this exhibit was done in partnership with City of Madison Recycling. Recycling coordinator Bryan Johnson said he appreciates the exhibit as an alternative way to incentivize recycling for those who visit the exhibit.

“Hopefully their takeaway is ‘Oh, my God, like, that’s in my house,’” Johnson said. “‘Like my choices do that too,’ and like ‘how do I do something different if I don’t want it to do that.’”

The exhibit was done to coincide with the play “The Garbologists,” which is a comedy about people literally driving a garbage truck. The play’s message is that there is more value

to things that the world might discard on the surface.

Co-director at Arts and Literature Laboratory Jolynne Roorda helped coordinate the exhibit and artists. Roorda said Forward Theater Company, which is presenting “The Garbologists,” reached out to the Arts and Literature Lab to collaborate on art to go with the play.

“What’s wonderful about these interdisciplinary collaborations is that the community gets to experience more individual’s interpretations of the subject matter,” Roorda said in an email statement to The Badger Herald. “In theater, you already have the playwrights, directors, actors and everyone else involved in the production contributing to the experience. Involving visual artists to share their work further deepens our shared exploration of complex themes.”

Wolf said it is exciting to see collaborations like this because it brings people together to spread the word about important civic issues like climate change. She explained that it’s easy for people to toss something away and not think about it, but the play and exhibit are opportunities for people to pause and reflect.

And the exhibit has that effect. The room is quiet. The art pieces are complex, causing people walking through the exhibit to stop and analyze them.

A colorful panel covers one wall and it’s easy to wonder what its purpose is. “About the future (Dreaming)” by TetraPAKMAN is made of reclaimed plastic structures and zip ties.

The description says the piece is about community, collaboration and working as a collective to build the future. Different groups of kids from local community centers contributed to the project and creation of the piece.

Recycled clothing made of different materials and designs hangs on another wall, reminding people of restoration and the ability to make something new out of something old and seemingly unusable. The vibrant colors and creative designs of the clothing are appealing and eye catching.

Electrical wires are strung together on a table creating ambiguous figures, called “Freedom,” “Lady Luck” and “Queen,” all done by Sonia Valle. There is no explanation for these works so it is up to the viewer’s interpretation if they want to assign them political, cultural or religious value beyond the art.

And that’s the value of the exhibit. The unique designs and materials are meant to evoke thought and spark action surrounding the meanings behind the pieces — all designed to demonstrate there is value beyond the surface.

Temporary exhibit invites visitors to rethink recycling.

ABIGAIL LEAVINS. THE BADGER HERALD.

WGA strike ends with tentative agreement, SAG-AFTRA strike continues

Writers Guild of America has reached agreement with Hollywood studios, but SAG-AFTRA continues push for better conditions

by Julia Vetsch Arts. Etc. Editor

The 2023 Writers Guild of America strike has finally come to an end after nearly five months. The WGA strike started in May 2023 as writers in Hollywood demanded better compensation, recognition and security within their work.

After recently resuming negotiations, a deal between the WGA, streamers and studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has been reached, according to NPR. These conditions have been agreed upon within a three-year contract.

The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Arts went on strike in July 2023, and the efforts show no signs of slowing. Both strikes have had massive effects on the film and television industry, causing a giant slow in entertainment production.

Throughout the summer, television and movie productions have been delayed, press tours have been halted, schedules have been rearranged and late-night TV programs have stopped airing, according to NBC News.

Some movies halted by the WGA and SAGAFTRA strikes include “Challengers,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Dune: Part 2,” “Beetlejuice 2,” “Deadpool 3,” “Lilo & Stitch,” “Minecraft,” “Mission: Impossible 8,” “Venom 3,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” and the film adaptation of “Wicked.” Television has also been brought to a slow — some major TV shows that have been delayed due to the strikes are “Yellowjackets,” “Stranger Things,” “Severance,” “Abbot Elementary,” “Euphoria,” and more.

But why did these massive strikes start?

Clare O’Gara is a University of Wisconsin student studying media labor. O’Gara said the strikes came as a result of expiring contracts.

“[The strikes] come down to higher compensation, specifically when it comes from residuals from streaming services like Netflix, as well as financial security for writers compared to the pre-streaming era,” O’Gara said, “and some AI problems as well.”

The explosion in popularity of streaming services and the way people consume movies and television today are, in fact, a main reason for the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Streaming platforms like Warner Bros, Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and more are generating massive profits that aren’t being fairly distributed between writers, actors, editors and other media professionals without which these products wouldn’t be possible.

The new contract agrees that writers will receive raises in wages and establishes a system of providing bonuses to writers

based on viewership on streaming platforms, according to the LA Times.

AI is also a factor in the WGA and SAGAFTRA strikes. AI software like Chat GPT has caused fear of job replacement, specifically in writers. Unclear boundaries

that artificial intelligence and ChatGPT writing has advanced pretty quickly, and they want to make sure over the next 10 or 15 years that there are at least safeguards in place for writers,” Kaplan said.

AI has held an uncertain future over the

provided material that is AI-generated or incorporates AI-generated material. The contract also puts in place limitations on use of writers’ work to help generate and improve AI for the time being, according to media labor student Valerie Lines.

“[The writers] are asserting, with this agreement, that their writing also cannot be used to train future AI for the duration of this contract,” Lines said. “So, for the next three years, that part is on hold.”

AI is not currently equipped to entirely replace writers, but using current writers’ material to train AI would increase the possibility of machines eventually gaining the ability to generate human-grade content, according to the Washington Post.

The worry of many writers has been that their own work would train AI too well, essentially rendering writers useless in the future. The strike combated this.

“AI has to be trained, it cannot just exist,” Lines said. “Everything that comes out of it is a result of what has been put into it. If a writer’s work is being put into AI, you won’t need a writer to continue to develop it. If [studios] were, during this time, training AI, and they’d come up to that next contract negotiation, then the rug is essentially pulled out from under these writers and they lose equal footing.”

Another issue resolved in the new contract is staffing. The WGA claims studios had been cutting down the number of writers per project, yet tightening deadlines and increasing hours and workloads. Studios and streamers agreed in the contract to assign at least six writers to shows with 13 episodes or more, according to the Washington Post.

It is anticipated that late-night talk shows will be the first to return, since writers will soon be back on the scene. The future is still unclear for other productions, as SAGAFTRA, which includes actors, editors, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals, has not yet come to an agreement with studios and streaming.

UW professor of media and cultural studies Derek Johnson is hopeful about the future of the ongoing strike and feels that the precedent set by the WGA will assist SAG-AFTRA in obtaining a settlement with streamers and studios.

and uncharted technological territory have led to writers demanding more security. UW media labor student Max Kaplan said much of the bargaining process is forecasting how technology could shift the industry.

“AI replacing a writer tomorrow doesn’t seem possible, but I think they’re realizing

heads of writers in recent years. The new contract has reportedly agreed to terms regarding AI use in relation to writers, according to the LA Times. The agreement regulates studios’ use of AI, but also provides flexibility to writers.

Studios must disclose the use of any

“There is reason for SAG-AFTRA to be hopeful that they’re in a better bargaining position today than they were last week since [the WGA strike] is wrapped up,” Johnson said.

The contract has been approved by WGA leadership, but still needs to be sent to its full membership of 11,000 for a final vote between Oct. 2 and Oct. 9, according to the Washington Post.

Strikes began as expiring contracts created room for negotiation.

THE BADGER HERALD.

Q&A with Leila Aboulela, author of River Spirit

Sudanese author talks about newest novel, journey to becoming writer

by Emma Kozina Arts. Etc. Associate Editor

The Badger Herald had the opportunity to chat with Sudanese writer, Leila Aboulela, and get some special insight on her latest book, “River Spirit.” Readers have the opportunity to learn more about Aboulela in-person Oct. 20 at Madison Public Library for the Wisconsin Book Festival’s Fall Celebration.

Aboulela has received prominent praise for her writing that focuses on the interior lives of Muslim women and themes of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. She has published several novels including “River Spirit,” “Bird Summons,” “Minaret” and “The Translator,” a New York Times 100 Notable Book of the Year.

Aboulela has been long-listed three times for the Orange Prize — now known as the Women’s Prize for Fiction — and her work has been translated into fifteen languages, demonstrating the global reach of her work.

Could you tell us about yourself?

I grew up in Sudan, in the capital Khartoum. I loved reading fiction, but I didn’t think that I would ever be a writer.

I went to London to study for a postgraduate degree in statistics but then I failed in getting my PhD. At the same time, I found myself living in Scotland. My husband found a job there and I had two little children. I was reassessing my life and realizing that Sudan was going through difficult times. There was a coup and I wasn’t gonna go back or do statistics because I wasn’t as good at it as I thought I was.

I started to go to the library and read novels then I started to write. I wanted to express feelings and explore the confusion in my mind about leaving home and having not really said a proper goodbye. I started to attend creative writing workshops and everybody was very encouraging. I started to send out stories to magazines here in Scotland and things took off from there.

Could you provide an overview of your book and your inspirations for writing it?

My biggest life event was moving from Sudan to Scotland with two children at the age of 26. Most of the novels I write are about women away from home. That became the subject that fascinated me and I got very interested in the work of Jean Rhys, who wrote about women drifting in Europe on their own. She’s most famous for “Wide Sargasso Sea.” She wrote the whole novel from the point of view of “The ‘Mad Woman’ in the Attic” from “Jane Eyre.”

She picked up a character from a classic and told us about this character — how she was a woman of color, how she came from the West Indies islands, and how she was exploited. Everybody who reads “Jane Eyre” sees her as an impediment in the plot, but

Sudan, so she and her brother are rescued by this young man working with her father. Akuany develops a crush on him, but to him she’s just a child.

The story follows her life, how she becomes enslaved by the governor’s wife and separated from her brother. The young man tries to get her back and he can’t because he doesn’t have enough money.

The novel follows this fictional plot while at the same time, there’s a lot of Sudan’s history that’s accurate. There is a man who claims to be the Messiah, and people believe him because the population is struggling. They follow him and he manages to unite all the tribes of Sudan against the government in the capital.

The novel tells this history through the point of view of the young girl, but also through many different characters.

It’s the kind of history that has always been told from a colonizer’s point of view, a British point of view. I wanted the Sudanese to be the main characters and for them to tell the story.

Are there any themes that you want students to take away from your book?

It’s to understand perspective and how a story could be told from Indigenous people’s point of view. It will be different from the story that the colonizer will tell.

When we listen to the voices in the archives, we can hear the voices of those who have been marginalized by history.

Mainstream history is very Eurocentric, written from a white, Christian perspective and a colonizer’s perspective. If there [are] gaps in the narrative, then there’s room for the fiction writer to creatively imagine these voices based on the research as well.

Were there any obstacles that you encountered in the process?

The writing was a joy. The obstacle is getting it out to people who are not used to this kind of novel. For example, the same period in history was covered by a Hollywood film in the 1960s called Khartoum. The figure of the Messiah who was Sudanese was played by Laurence Olivier in blackface.

This film got a huge budget. They couldn’t even be bothered to film it in Sudan. It’s all told from the perspective of the white man who’s the hero. My novel, on the other hand, is unlikely to get that kind of attention.

then Jean Rhys makes her into the heroine of her novel.

How did your main characters in “River Spirit” come to life?

We start off with an 11-year-old Akuany. She’s orphaned in a village raid in South

I want this history to be written from the point of view of women and the actual Sudanese, who lived these years. This was their country and this was their lives. That’s my little voice coming up against that big sense of tradition, I suppose.

“River Spirit” pushes readers to imagine history from Indigenous point of view.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LEILA ABOULELA

Editor’s Note: All Banter stories are satirical.

Help: I just drank a love potion and I saw the ghost of Adam Smith BANTER

by Jeremiah Frodl Banter Editor

Hello valued reader of The Badger Herald Banter Section, I come to you honestly, I come to you vulnerable and I come to you absolutely without the permission of The Badger Herald Editorial Board. I have accidentally fallen in love with long dead capitalismdaddy Adam Smith and desperately need your advice on turning my love into our love.

You see, the other day I had mixed a whimsical love potion for use in my quest to become a freeloading trophy husband. But alas, I forgot to label my Erlenmeyer flasks and accidentally downed the damned thing while I was trying to drink my morning cold brew.

The process is a lot like this but with more ritualistic sacrifice.

heart required to begin the brewing for an antidote, I messed up my binding mantras and accidentally tore a small hole in the metaphysical fabric between the living and the void.

Though it corrected itself in a brief moment, I glimpsed his beautiful form through the flickering portal. He was glorious.

— and just the thinnest British Smile. As the portal closed I realized that I had fallen madly in love.

Now completely crazy for my Adam, I realized that if I were to succeed with such an unattainable love quest, I would have to increase my value to him on the romantic market. My first step was taking double shifts at my three jobs in order to show Adam how hard I was willing to work for him and how motivated I was to build my own personal capital.

But, after four weeks on the wage worker grindset, I glimpsed again through the portal and found that Adam wasn’t waiting for me. Undeterred, I moved onto the next part of my plan — putting motivational quotes into photos of men in tuxedos and posting those on Instagram.

contacted for advice and unsolicited rants at 566-867-5309. We can also be emailed at bigdrako42069@hotmail.com.

This is my masterpiece, this is the one they’ll remember me for.

Worse still, as I prepared the dried animal

He stood there — chins tucked neatly in a row — stern eyes that said “wake up slacker it’s time to create value for shareholders”

After four more weeks of hard Instagramming, I checked the portal again and found it to again be absent of my Adam. So dear reader, I come to you for advice today. What should a man do to score the ghostly specter of a token symbol of an economic school of thought?

The Badger Herald Banter Section can be

Wisconsin lawmakers affirm landlord’s right to send leg breakers

by Jeremiah Frodl Banter Editor

Sept. 28, 2023, Wisconsin representatives will be introducing Wisconsin Cares Act 1337, otherwise known as the “Housing Repair and Relief Act.” The bill is designed to increase renting sustainability by lowering late renting fees, increasing support for housing renovations and allowing landlords to send leg breakers after anyone owing them money.

Rep. Nicole Breenaan, who sponsored the bill’s passage, caught up with The Badger Herald yesterday, excited to use her important legislative time to speak to student reporters.

“Wisconsin Cares Act 1337 is gonna be an absolute smash with the economy,” Breenaan said, sporting a wide grin bordering on bloodlust. “Firstly this will ensure that housing is cheaper and of higher quality. Secondly, it ensures that

there are dire consequences for anyone unwilling to shell out their dough right away.”

real skills or dreams — these people are perfect for training in the leg-breaking field,” Breenaan said. “Not only will their new skills allow them to contribute in the local economy by stimulating demand for medical services — but local sports stores are gonna be thrilled at the new demand for wooden baseball bats.”

Some have laid out complaints about the new rules. Certain members of the Wisconsin Legislature believe that the new law “allows for an unchecked militant arm of the already well-protected landlords.” But with a calm, balanced assessment of the benefits of the leg breakers, many of the Wisconsin State Representatives agreed that this is the best possible outcome — leading to a landslide passage.

Breenaan in a loving tone as we concluded our interview.

“There are multiple mouth-breathing, unemployable losers out there with no

“Finally a chance to correct the unbroken legs of the unwashed masses,” whispered