Leave College Time Alone

As we get ready to vote in the recall election on Tuesday, the accusations and speculations are flying fast and furious. The candidates are accused of manipulating numbers, misrepresenting the things they've done well, being either unclear about they  would do differently or digging their heels into what they've done that led to this whole mess in the first place.

I think Scott Walker is a bad governor. He operates on the "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" principle, and then forgets about the whole "asking forgiveness" part. He tramples on process to do what he wants to do. He pits the citizens of Wisconsin against each other, as though taxpayers and public employees are completely different populations. Regardless of Tuesday's outcome, he has damaged this state in ways we may never recover from.

People are holding a magnifying glass to Walker's entire life, including his time as a student at Marquette University.We've already heard about dirty campaigning for a student government position. I've heard rumors of academic dishonesty through my academic circles. And now this morning, I'm reading an article that claims that Walker fathered a child while in college.

We are pointing back at his time as a young adult and saying, "Look! He hasn't changed at all. He lied/cheated/abandoned back then, so we can't trust him at all now."

And that's where I have some problems with all this. I've spent a lot of years with college students--first being one and then, for the past 24 years, working with them. And now I have two 20-year-olds and two 17-year-olds living in my home. I think it's fair to say that I have a lot of experience with young people. Not to put too fine a point on it, young adults do dumb things. Being stupid and making bad choices are part of the developmental process of becoming an adult, no less than the way a toddler takes a few steps and falls down while learning to walk.

I cringe to think of how some of my young adult decisions could be used against me now. There are things I'm ashamed of and things that hurt me. It's true that those experiences shaped me, just as Scott Walker's college experiences surely shaped him. But I think it's completely unfair to claim that those young adult experiences and choices represent who someone is 25 years later.

Indeed, this is a critical time in the recall--but these are cheap shots and they don't speak well of us. I want him out of that office, too. His "divide and conquer" strategy caused problem in my home, with my Republican husband and me arguing heatedly about politics for the first time in our marriage. I had to leave a state job I loved because my family couldn't handle the hit to our income. There's part of me that wants to do whatever it takes to get Walker supporters to change their minds--but I just don't think this is the right way.