University of Wisconsin Students Protest Reparations Advertisement - Brief Article

Black Issues in Higher Education, March 29, 2001

MADISON, WIS.

University of Wisconsin students marched to the offices of one of the campus newspapers earlier this month to protest an advertisement that criticizes calls for slavery reparations.

The ad, which said reparations for Blacks is a bad idea, appeared in The Badger Herald.

Conservative author David Horowitz placed the ad, which argues Blacks already have benefited from the labors of American slaves.

For years, U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., has called for a commission to examine slavery's legacy and possible compensation.

A California student newspaper was criticized for running the advertisement recently and immediately issued an apology.

Badger Herald editors defended their decision, saying in an editorial that apologizing for running the ad would compromise the First Amendment.

The protesters called the newspaper's editors racist and asked its editor in chief Julie Bosman to resign. "That's not going to happen," Bosman says.

The newspaper offered to print letters from readers responding to the ad.