University Failure and Student Response – Linking Today to the 1960s

Earlier this month, a horrific, hate-filled video of a UW-Madison student spouting racist slurs, threats, and a desire to own enslaved people began circulating around the UW-Madison community. It didn’t take long for the video and responses to it to go viral online, resulting in a petition for the expulsion of the students involved with the video amassing tens of thousands of signatures.

Always Been Here – Wisconsin’s History of LGBTQ+ Presence and Activism

In October of 2022, a well-known transphobic political commentator was invited to UW-Madison by a conservative student group and allowed to speak. What followed was an outraged student body, a clash of protestors and insults publicly thrown at university officials who spoke out for trans acceptance. The intensity of the event was felt throughout campus and sparked a discussion about LGBTQ+ presence and resistance throughout Wisconsin history, which this article explores.

Let My People Go: How an American Student Movement Helped Free Over a Million Soviet Jews

Emboldened by the various other grassroots civil rights movements of the 1960’s, young Jews in America banded together to demand the liberation of Soviet Jews. Their platform called for an end to government persecution of Jews, the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union, freedoms of cultural and religious expression, and other human rights.

Dr. Matthew Levin’s Cold War University and UW-Madison’s Legacy of Student Activism

Dr. Matthew Levin’s Cold War University offers a look at the circumstances that surrounded UW-Madison’s burst on to the national scene in the mid 20th century as one of the most politically active campuses in America. Through an interview with Dr. Levin himself and an analysis of his book, this article discusses how Wisconsin’s politically diverse climate, combined with the blending of in-state and out-of-state students informed what would become an epicenter of anti-war and Civil Rights protests.