TRY A DIFFERENT MESSAGE.

A student strike at the University of Wisconsin, fifty years ago, sounds contemporary.

From the Black Student Strike of 1969 to the present-day social justice movement on campus, Black student protesters see their story at UW as one continuous fight that has shifted in form, but not cause.

As current students make a renewed call for the university to address the grievances of BIPOC students, protesters from 1969 and today reconcile their generational differences for that same cause — justice and equity for Black students on the UW campus.

I'm not sure what those "generational differences" are. It's the same sort of grievance mongering and tinkering with the curriculum.

Despite the shockwaves it created in Madison at the time, the Black Student Strike of 1969 is not a well-known event among UW students. Launched amid a growing Black Power movement in the year following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a group of students organized under the Black People’s Alliance to protest for a series of 13 demands.

The demands centered around recruitment of more minority students and faculty, the creation of a Black Studies department and other accountability initiatives for Black students to attain autonomy over matters relating to their UW experience and education.

You mean fifty years of investment in affinity centers and area studies departments and legions of diversity deanlets yielded ... nothing?

More than 50 years later, UW junior Juliana Bennett sat on a Zoom call with Dean of Students Christina Olstad. Along with several other members of the UW BIPOC Coalition and Associated Students of Madison student council, Bennett hoped to discuss the COVID-19 Student Relief Fund — a piece of ASM legislation designed to aid underrepresented students struggling financially due to the pandemic.

Olstad told Bennett and the others present that they were “disgraceful,”claiming their efforts were misleading students. Despite a strained admin-student relationship, the battle over financial aid persists along with the fight for other BIPOC student demands made in the wake of the reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement in Madison.

Might part of the problem be that the diversity, inclusion, and equity deanlets are recruiting for show, rather than for building human capital?

Bennett said she felt isolated within her first few hours at the university as a freshman. As one of 60 students of color in the business school, Bennett said it was a “huge culture shock” to be a student of color in a sea of white faces.

When Bennett and other students of color in the Business Emerging Leaders Program — dedicated to bringing people of diverse backgrounds to the business school — were shuffled to the front of the class’s first group photo, she said her fears were realized.

“That was my first introduction to what it means to be a student of color here,” Bennett said. “It doesn’t matter if we feel welcomed, if we feel safe — it just matters that our faces are there to pretend that we’re being diverse.”

[Current student Jordan] Kennedy said years of advocacy and controversy led to the current climate. In the fall of 2019, UW came under fire due to a Homecoming video that did not feature any students of color. The controversy caused campus-wide pushback, attracted national coverage and ignited the formation of the Student Inclusion Coalition, an organization dedicated to racial justice on campus. Still, Kennedy and Bennett said this summer’s protests revealed a glaring hole at UW that had not been filled.

What is a Morale Conditioner to do?  Put together candid shots of collegians enjoying homecoming and take stick because he didn't come across a suitably mixed party?  Or ask a suitably mixed batch of collegians to act like they're doing homecoming and take stick for creating Potemkin diversity?

Apparently removing the statue of Abraham Lincoln from Bascom Hill is now one of the non-negotiable demands.  Whether any of the students currently protesting will make a name with opinion television or the national magazines or go on to a competent middle-class adulthood remains to be seen.