Student Pressure Is Building Up As U. of Wisc. Braces for Revolt

The University of Wisconsin totters today on the brink of what may be its biggest student revolt since early last Fall, when over 1000 students clashed with Madison police in a Dow Chemical protest which left 65 students injured.

Over the last two weeks, student radicals have mobilized behind three major issues which are expected to reach a climax this week. In conjunction with the national SDS "Strike Back," the Wisconsin SDS and Draft Resistance Union (WDRU) are planning to march on the Capitol building tonight and return to the Student Union, where they hope to control the building through the night.

The election protest today, however, has become only a part of a larger protest against a return Dow visit on Thursday and Friday. If enough support can be mobilized, students will seize an administrative building on Thursday and hold it in a "non-obstructive way" until Dow leaves the campus.

The Wisconsin Board of Regents, which governs the University of Wisconsin in much the same way that the California Regents control Berkeley, met over the weekend and passed a resolution condemning the Daily Cardinal for using "obscene and abusive language." The Regents have threatened to close down the Cardinal presses--which are in the University School of Journalism--unless the Cardinal submits a statement of policy acceptable to the Regents that will serve as a control over further Cardinal language.

Today the Cardinal will publish a special issue with a front page editorial challenging the Regents to try to make good their demands. Already SDS and the WDRU have volunteered to work together in a student coalition to demonstrate general defiance of University control.

"The election, the Dow issue, and now this Cardinal thing are all linked," Greg A. Graze, Editor-in-Chief of the Cardinal said yesterday. "It has come down to a question of where power lies in the University and where it is being exerted."

"The return of Dow represents our own powerless on two levels," a pamphlet said yesterday. "First, despite the scale of our protests, we do not yet have power over University policies like recruitment. Second, the link between the University of Wisconsin and Dow demonstrates the 'service station' role that this University plays."

The true test of the extent of student unrest at Wisconsin will come tonight when SDS tries to keep the Student Union open for discussions throughout the night. The University has increased its police force in order to cope with student demonstrations and tonight's Union confrontation will be the first time that the University has met student protest head-on.