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Students try to stop Halliburton

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Also by Pedro Oliveira Jr. and Laura Sexauer:

by Pedro Oliveira Jr. and Laura Sexauer

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Several University of Wisconsin students were stopped short of protesting the presence of Halliburton on campus Tuesday.

Student members of the Campus Antiwar Network attempted to enter the Halliburton informational session and ask the company's representatives about Halliburton's connections to the Iraq war, according to UW senior and CAN member Zach Heise.

The informational session, however, was only open to invited students, and CAN members were forbidden to enter the room. A representative from the College of Engineering checked students' IDs and compared their names to a list of invitees.

"We weren't planning on having a protest, we weren't planning on being loud or disrespectful, we were just going to ask [Halliburton] questions," Heise said.

CAN has accused Halliburton of making billions of dollars off the Iraq war. The organization has conducted several demonstrations in efforts to forbid the company from setting foot on university grounds. They recently discussed with Chancellor John Wiley the possibility of having a campuswide referendum to ban the company from UW.

"We wanted the other engineering students in the room to hear exactly what the allegations that had been brought up against Halliburton were," Heise said.

One CAN member, however, was able to enter the meeting and stay for a few minutes.

UW senior Paul Pryse said nobody was checking IDs when he attempted to enter the room, and he proceeded without further problems.

"I just sat down, the Halliburton recruiters actually offered me some pizza and a bottle of water — which I took," Pryse said.

According to Assistant Dean of Students Kipp Cox, a representative from the College of Engineering notified him there was a student who entered the room before the presentation started. Cox then asked Pryse to leave, yet he refused to and instead asked Cox what the consequences of staying would be.

UW Police Department Detective Cheryl Radzinski and Sergeant John Lind responded to a call from Cox, and said they could arrest the student for refusing to leave the room.

Pryse finally chose to leave, Radzinski said, and police escorted him out of the room.

"He could be [in the building], just not in the room because it was an invitation-only event," Radzinski said.

UW junior Rob Lewis — who also attempted to enter the information session — said CAN will continue its campaign to create a campuswide referendum in efforts to forbid Halliburton from holding recruiting sessions at UW.

"We want to increase awareness," Lewis said. "We want to make sure [Halliburton's] image is known."

Halliburton was not available for comment as of press time.

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Anonymous (October 10, 2007 @ 6:58am):

Why would a student so opposed to Halliburton take a gift from a company that he finds evil? That sounds like hypocrisy to me.

Anonymous (October 10, 2007 @ 9:48am):

Hey, we're poor college students. If Hitler offered me pizza and a bottle of water I might take it.

Anonymous (October 10, 2007 @ 10:21am):

So the guy from CAN took a piece of pizza and water from Halliburton?? Isnt he protesting the money they are getting from the IRAQ war? Well how do you think they paid for the pizza and water for him to have. That kid is a joke and so is CAN. Lets have a campus wide referendum to kick them off campus!

Anonymous (October 10, 2007 @ 10:51am):

The idea of a campuswide referendum on Halliburton's presence at such recruiting events bothers me--why should 43,000 students have the opportunity to decide on the presence of a corporation at recruiting events targeted only at engineering students? If this issue merits any referendum, let it be from those actually affected by the issues, not social science majors with too much time on their hands.

Anonymous (October 10, 2007 @ 11:57am):

"We weren't planning on having a protest, we weren't planning on being loud or disrespectful, we were just going to ask [Halliburton] questions,"

Prior history of "Liberal" shouting down anyone they disagree with give the lie to this.

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

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