Although much of the discussion at the last Terrific Tuesday focused on campus climate after Sept. 11 (and justly so), I want to point out the situation for students of color prior to the attacks was not much better. In fact, in some ways it was worse because so many students and staff refused to even acknowledge that UW-Madison had a problem with racism on campus.
This particular Terrific Tuesday panel was not originally created as a response to increased racial hatred after the Sept. 11 attacks. We came up with the topic of campus safety for students of color after learning that the weekend before school started, two UW-Madison students, Daniel and Michael Cheung (of no relation to each other) were beaten up and called “n