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| Wisconsin Greens Express Support for UW Students' Hunger Strike. |
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Wisconsin Green Party March 7, 2005 Contacts: Wisconsin Greens Express Support for UW Students' Hunger Strike The Wisconsin Green Party today offered its support for more than 30 students, professors, and teaching assistants throughout the University of Wisconsin system who are going on a three-day hunger strike in protest of Governor Doyle's recent budget proposal. Students and staff at UW-Madison, UW-Eau Claire, and UW-LaCrosse, including several Wisconsin Greens, are participating in the strike, which begins on Monday March 7th at 10am, and will conclude on Thursday March 10th at 10am. "The purpose of this strike is to demand a tuition rollback to 2003 levels, after the state government hiked tuition $1400 a year over a two year period," said Bill Anderson, an undergraduate at UW-Madison, and 2nd Congressional District representative to the Wisconsin Green Party Coordinating Council. "The current budget proposal includes a 14% increase - nearly $1000 - over the next two year period. Tuition is a regressive tax, and this needs to end." The strikers will still be going to class, wearing shirts signifying their participation in the strike. Students in Madison will take shifts during the day, staying at the capital building while doing homework, to demonstrate their dedication to education. "The University is gradually being privatized, and turned into a business corporation," said Alex Gallagher, an undergraduate at UW-Madison. "The Wisconsin Idea guaranteed that the UW system should remain a public institution, but the doors of higher education are being closed to students from lower and working class backgrounds. Wealth is increasingly replacing merit as a determinative factor in the makeup of the student body." The average UW-Madison student comes from a family earning $94,000 a year, whereas the mean family income was just over $50,000 a decade ago. Greens support tuition-free collegiate and vocational public education. Access to education for all is necessary in order to attain social justice. "There is no reason that in America, the richest nation on earth, we cannot guarantee every individual an education for little or no cost," said Paul Schmidt, a UW-Oshkosh undergraduate. "The state government has continually put corporate interests ahead of human interests, and this needs to change. Big business lobbyists should not be more important than the people of Wisconsin." Wisconsin currently has the second lowest corporate tax rate in the United States. The Wisconsin Green Party stands for tax justice, and shifting the tax burden away from work and unto wealth through a fair system of progressive taxation. "I'm graduating from the UW-Madison this May with a debt load approaching $70,000. Given my line of work - public interest law - I know that it will take decades for me to climb out of this hole," said UW-Madison Law student Ben Manski. "What's worse is that in this respect, I am not unique. While my situation is normal for this generation of students, no previous generation of Wisconsinites has faced anything remotely close to the kind of debt load and college costs we confront today." Greens promote that until tuition-free schooling is available to all, student loans should be available to all students attending college, and should be repayable as a proportion of future earnings rather than at a fixed rate. _____ Bill Anderson, Alex Gallagher, Ben Manski, and Emily Paulson, all Wisconsin Greens, are participating in the three-day hunger strike. They will drink only water and take vitamin pills for nutrition while on strike. Supporters are encouraged to visit the capital building to show solidarity with the strikers, and to contact their legislators to demand new budget priorities. The Wisconsin Green Party is affiliated with the Green Party of the United States, and stands on the four pillars of Social & Economic Justice, Grassroots Democracy, Nonviolence, and Ecological Wisdom. For more information, visit http://www.wisconsingreenparty.org . The Green Party of the United States' website is http://www.gp.org.
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