Two thousand students walk out, fill State Street

For immediate release
Contact:
Alex Hanna, 765-404-6996
Kevin Gibbons, 813-466-0952

Hundreds of students, chanting “Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!” filled State Street at 10 a.m. They marched to the Capitol for the beginning of the Senate session that will consider the union-busting budget repair bill at 11 a.m.

The call for a “teach-out” went out last night after a vote by the membership of the Teaching Assistant Association. It was organized by both undergraduate and graduate students, and received endorsements from many departments on campus. The aim was not to stop learning on campus, but to move campus activities to outside locations or to reschedule them, in a bid to speak out with one voice against the bill.

After the organized march, dozens continued to trickle up the street, joining the student protestors and thousands of workers from around the state at the Capitol building. Schools in Madison, Monona Grove, Verona, Oregon, Middleton Waunakee, Deforest, and Oshkosh were closed, and teachers and other workers pored into the Capitol.