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dailycardinal.com
Tuesday, December 12, 2011
Federal court finds Wis. campaign finance law unconstitutional By Mckenna Kohlenberg and Rachel Fettig The Daily Cardinal
Grace liu/Cardinal file photo
Although UW reported over 10,000 degrees earned last year, some people question if graduates will be able to find jobs.
Record degrees, but job market still uncertain By Alex DiTullio The Daily Cardinal
While UW-Madison set a new university record last year by conferring more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and doctorate degrees, a poor economy could make it difficult for students to translate their degrees into jobs. In the 2010-11 academic year, the university distributed a total of 10,099 degrees: 6,579 bachelor’s, 2,105 master’s, 754 research doctorates and 661 professional and clinical doctorates.
“These indicators suggest and support the importance of higher education to our state and national economy,” Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Paul DeLuca said in a statement. “UW– Madison continues to perform at the highest level.” Despite DeLuca’s optimism, economics professor Christopher Taber said a bad economy could make it difficult for students to find a job after
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UW protects trademarks from porn According to UW-Madison, the best way (not) to beat it is to block it, as the university took preventative measures to protect the exploitation of its name by pornographic websites. The recent creation of the .xxx Internet domain name, meant exclusively for the pornography industry, has prompted companies and institutions to buy up .xxx domains to prevent any X-rated use. UW-Madison has opted to block rather than purchase a number of domainnamessuchas“UWMadison. xxx, UniversityOfWisconsin.xxx and WisconsinBadgers.xxx,” a measure that will keep the various domains unavailable to purchase for the next 10 years. According to Tricia Dickinson, marketing director for UW Communications, the block entailed putting the university’s intellectual trademarks off-limits.
“Basically there was a chance for any organization to file and say ‘hey, these are our federally protected trademarks,” Dickinson said. “If anyone says they want to create a website called Coca-Cola .xxx, for example, Coca-Cola would’ve already filed and said nope, nobody else can do that.” Dickinson conceded that the block has its limits in protecting the university’s image. Responding to a domain that sidesteps the blocked terms is more expensive and complex, involving the university’s legal action against any sites that do arise. “We couldn’t possibly predict all the ways someone could use our name,” she said. “For instance, if someone said, ‘Hey, I’m going to create a porn site called ‘Badgercoeds. xxx,’ there was no way we could know what all the possible variations could be.” —Ben Siegel
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that one of Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws prohibiting individuals from contributing more than $10,000 a year to issue-based political action committees is unconstitutional. Wisconsin Right to Life filed a complaint before 2010’s gubernatorial elections, noting the contribution limit violated First Amendment rights protected under the Citizens United federal court ruling that allows groups to donate unlimited amounts to political campaigns.
According to the ruling, the limit is only unconstitutional to the extent that it limits PACs like Wisconsin Right to Life “that only engage in independent spending for political speech,” or in other words, do not contribute money to political candidates’ campaigns. Wisconsin Right to Life Executive Director Barbara Lyons said the “victory” adds to the pro-life group’s reputation as a “significant contributor to state and national dialogue on speech.” But Mike McCabe, executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign said
the decision will give political action committees too much power in deciding elections. “You’ve got a special interest monologue in many elections where the candidates … and the voters don’t really matter much,” McCabe said. “It’s all about the interest groups duking it out and this ruling just aggravates that.” McCabe said the decision would still influence elections because of independent political action committees’ issue ads and other lobbying efforts, even though they cannot out-
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Kyriaki Chatzikyriakidou/the daily cardinal
Members of the ASM Legislative Affairs Committee presented the results of a Mifflin Street Block Party survey to the committee Monday.
Alcohol coordinator talks party policy By Anna Duffin The Daily Cardinal
Members of the student government Legislative Affairs Committee met with Madison Alcohol Policy Coordinator Mark Woulf to discuss a policy intended to prevent “nuisance” parties Monday. According to Woulf, the policy would allow police to fine landlords if their residents threw parties deemed “nuisances.” In order to qualify as a nuisance, the party must violate a specified number of city ordinances. “We’re trying to drive down the size and scope of private parties by getting at landlords,” Woulf said. “We’re giving police a tool to hold landlords more accountable by fining nuisance house parties that are posing threats.” Woulf said by encouraging
more entertainment downtown, city officials hope to offer a safer alternative to house parties. He said the legislation is intended to turn “out of control” parties into smaller ones. UW-Madison junior Damon Terrell said the policy “sets up a power dynamic” between the landlord and the resident. “Already students are kind of at a disadvantage going into a relationship with their landlord,” Terrell said. “I think it sets ups a paternalistic relationship with the landlord and the leasee.” Other students said they were concerned landlords would add stipulations into their leases allowing them to pass the fines onto the residents. Associated Students of Madison Legislative Affairs
Chair Hannah Somers said she fears the policy could make residents uncomfortable approaching their landlords. “I just think that this legislation can have consequences that are reaching further than we’re thinking,” Somers said. Also at the meeting, members discussed the results of a survey about the Mifflin Street Block Party that received over 7,000 student responses. The recommendations made to improve the party included limiting the number of visitors staying in the dorms and eliminating the open beverage policy implemented last year. According to ASM Rep. Maria Giannopolous, a majority of the respondents said Mifflin is “necessary” and plan to attend this year.
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”