Milwaukee, WI – On April 4, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Milwaukee for a stop on her “blue collar-oriented” tour of the Midwest. While here, she toured the UWM research institute working on renewable energy and held a roundtable to discuss the Biden administration’s infrastructure plan. This plan is intended to help unemployed people by creating jobs and therefore supporting communities.

Students for a Democratic Society members at UW-Milwaukee were outside to remind people that Vice President Harris’ history as a prosecutor contradicts this present, apparent desire to “support communities.” SDS members, who are currently working to defund campus police and refund programs that support students, held signs that read “VP Harris protects killer cops” at the intersection by the UWM research facility Harris toured near Capitol Drive.

“It’s frustrating but not surprising that our administrators don’t notify students when politicians visit campus. Neither of them actually wants to deal with people calling for solutions. Vice President Harris has a record of protecting killer cops, and then she wants to talk about building up communities here in Milwaukee without acknowledging how police violence destroys them and how they’ve sucked up half of our city’s budget,” said UWM SDS member Rory Donovan.

Donovan continued, “It sounds like Chancellor Mone, who justifies campus police using violence, pretends that their $3 million budget is small even though it is the largest in the UW system, and then thinks that he can host discussion panels and create powerless police advisory boards to appease us. It’s not real change, and we’re not going to stop fighting until we win real change.”

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