“The video on my 14-year-old daughter’s cell phone played in an endless loop: kids protesting outside Madison East High School, outraged by allegations of a sexual assault at a party after Homecoming this year, and by the school administration’s failure to muster a response. As the students in the crowd got more and more worked up, one of them pointed at the principal. The crowd parted, exposing him as he stood in the middle of the sidewalk. A student confronted him, screaming curse words: “F— you Mr. Leavy!” The principal stood mute, expression hidden by his mask, absorbing the attack.
What was my daughter, a freshman, to make of this? Brand new to high school, excited to finally have in-person classes with her peers, she is full of school spirit. She came to the protest to support her friends, some of whom told their own tales of sexual abuse at home. It was a lot to take in…”
Ruth Conniff is Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner. She formerly served as Editor-in-chief of The Progressive Magazine where she worked for many years from both Madison and Washington, DC. Shortly after Donald Trump took office she moved with her family to Oaxaca, Mexico, and covered U.S./Mexico relations, the migrant caravan, and Mexico’s efforts to grapple with Trump. Conniff is a frequent guest on MSNBC and has appeared on Good Morning America, Democracy Now!, Wisconsin Public Radio, CNN, Fox News and many other radio and television outlets. She has also written for The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, among other publications. She graduated from Yale University in 1990, where she ran track and edited the campus magazine The New Journal. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband and three daughters.