September 21, 2011
Wisconsin State Journal
A different picture of last week’s student protest over UW admissions discrimination emerged from my vantage point inside the Doubletree Hotel press conference room compared to that of the author of Monday’s letter “Student protesters wrongly called a ‘mob’.”
The chanting and yelling coming from the lobby made it impossible for Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity to continue responding to questions, effectively shutting down the press conference. After protesters overcame hotel staff trying to prevent their entry to the press conference room, they surged in and surrounded me and Clegg. We headed for the exit only to find protesters blocking it.
After hotel staff cleared the way, we came into the lobby. Instructed to go to the elevator, we were followed by chanting protesters. Several tried to enter the elevator after us but were blocked by hotel staff. The protesters tried to prevent the doors from closing, but finally the hotel staff members pushed the protesters back so the elevator doors could close.
To describe the protesters as having “broken decorum” is a gross and misleading understatement. To describe their actions as “well-intentioned” is at odds with what should have been obvious to anyone in the lobby. The best single-word description of the protesters is they were a “mob” and acted like a “mob.”
— W. Lee Hansen, UW-Madison professor emeritus of economic