More than 150 students and community members rallied on Bascom Hall yesterday and and confronted Biddy Martin with a list of demands regarding the future of UW-Madison.
The Chancellor has staked her reputation on the New Badger Partnership, and so the heavy opposition to the plan from groups like the TAA and SLAC, among others, can’t be encouraging. While some astroturf and blogosphere support has arisen for the NBP in recent weeks, yesterday’s protest shows that the vast majority of students engaged on this issue are opposed to the proposal.
In an effort to defuse the efforts of the protesters, who were mostly prepared to occupy the building to force a real dialogue, the Chancellor stepped out of her office and agreed to answer some questions from the crowd. Her usual air-tight PR persona notwithstanding, I was shocked at how poorly her talking points held up when exposed to real scrutiny. Among the points raised during the discussion:
- Issues of accessibility. Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab, who has recently been subjected to a right-wing smear campaign for her efforts, was particularly poignant in pointing out that similar models have universally failed to increase financial aid to offset tuition hikes. Biddy was essentially forced to concede that most students will end up paying more for an education if her plan passes, making the university even less accessible to working-class people.
- Solidarity with other universities. By breaking off from the UW system, the state’s higher education institutions will no longer be able to effectively band together in fighting for their interests. When an MATC student asked Biddy about this issue, the Chancellor insisted that MATC students are also among the “best and the brightest” and make for great transfer students, which of course had nothing to do with the question.
- Solidarity within the university. Currently, students, staff and instructors at UW-Madison can mostly view their relationship with the state with a single pair of eyes – ie more aid benefits everyone. But as grad student Kaja Rebane stated during the discussion, the NBP makes it so that salary increases mostly come from increased tuition. Biddy decided that the only alternative is the status quo, where “instructors don’t get any raises.”
- The Chancellor’s priorities. It was repeatedly pointed out that Biddy has used almost none of her clout to pressure the state against making cuts, instead using her political capital to advocate for the NBP. Xander Gieryn of SLAC asked the Chancellor how she felt justified emailing students requesting that they lobby their legislators for the NBP and not for increased aid for the university. It’s also worth wondering to what degree Walker’s inclusion of the NBP in the state budget gave him cover to cut $250 million from the UW system.
- The politics of the NBP. While it may seem obvious to most people that the Chancellor’s privatization plan fits very nicely into the Walker/austerity agenda of gutting state services and crushing unions, the Chancellor insisted this wasn’t the case and stated that we should instead view the conservative zeitgeist as an “opportunity” for the university. She then stated that advocating for higher taxes on the rich and more than 0 taxes on corporations was a “political issue,” regardless of the positive impact it would have on higher education. She also repeated the right-wing line that the state is “broke” and in a fiscal crisis. (I tend to think we’re in more of a revenue crisis, but I guess that would be “politicizing” the discussion.)
Max Love also makes some astute points about the protest and implications of the plan.
Ultimately, it’s hard to see how the Chancellor’s patronizing tone (“You’re a very good speaker,” she said to one student) really did much for her case. Regardless of her political skills, her plan, at its core, is privatization.
It’s very encouraging to see that a large group of students have rejected the politics of privilege on which Biddy’s argument relies. UW-Madison students are NOT better than the students from other universities – only wealthier, whiter and with greater access to means of advancement. It is certainly appalling to witness how the same group of Good Ol’ Boys clustered around the student government leadership and campus media fawn over the Chancellor’s plan, but they simply don’t represent the values of most UW-Madison students. We need a politics of solidarity and unity to fight against the attacks on education and other public institutions, and this is precisely what yesterday’s protesters embody.
On a positive note, protesters were able to pressure Biddy into calling for a public forum with the opposition this Friday at 4:00 at Bascom. Because UW-Madison is a public institution that is designed to serve the entire community, everyone is encouraged to attend with their questions and concerns.
