Wisconsin

Wisconsin Biographies

  • William Proxmire

    Wisconsin’s Class I senate seat has been filled with history in the last century... Yet between McCarthy and Herb Kohl, the man who lends his namesake to the Kohl Center here at UW, the seat was held by William Proxmire, a man who played a leading role in the anti-genocide movement in America.

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Wisconsin Protests

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Sifting and Reckoning – Unmasking Madison’s Façade of a Liberal Utopia

    The Fall 2022 semester at UW-Madison saw the installation and opening of the Public History Project’s Sifting and Reckoning exhibit. Sanctioned by former Chancellor Rebecca Blank in 2019, the Public History Project aims to “uncover and give voice to those who experienced and challenged bigotry and exclusion on campus.”

  • The Overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Role of Activism for the Future

    Since the decision of Roe v Wade in 1973, many cases narrowed the scope of this decision but never overturned it completely. This all changed in May 2022 when a draft of a majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, was leaked to political news sources.

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