The Final Days... of My McNair Journey

5/2/22

Finishing The Research

This is officially my last blog post for the McNair program. My research paper, “Are Window Display Bans at Public Universities Constitutional?”, is now complete and soon to be published in the Astra Journal. In the final few days of the deadline I finished my conclusion and came to some conclusive results regarding the constitutionality across various campuses in the UW System. I found that several policies were unconstitutional and even the policies that were constitutional could create some issues. After examining case law, a policy must pass the strict scrutiny test. The test involves several parts. It must be content-neutral, serve a significant government interest, and be narrowly tailored so that opinions can still be expressed. UW-Eau Claire and UW-La Crosse both pass strict scrutiny. The only issue these policies could then experience is on the enforcement side of it. If the policy is not being enforced for everyone that creates a constitutional issue.

CERCA

While I was at CERCA, I was greeted by several people who shared their thoughts on window display ban policies. One person expressed that a friend of theirs was told to remove something from their window. With policies that pass the strict scrutiny test, the only thing that can make UW-Eau Claire’s policy unconstitutional is the enforcement. This moment confirmed that it was being enforced by some members of Housing and Residence Life. The problem is the pictures from my poster were all window displays at UW-Eau Claire. This shows that the enforcement was not happening equally this year. It was an awesome experience to see my research be referenced and the work I put forth validated.

After CERCA

After CERCA was the best moment of my life to date. I walked out of the ballroom with my girlfriend and got to leave the Davies Center with my fiance. The whole day I was nervous, but it was not presenting my research I was nervous about. What was already a fairly good day became something so much better.

Post-Program Plan

After this semester ends, my time with the McNair program will officially end. That does not mean that I will be graduating after this semester. I will be finishing up my education program next year. First, I will enter my block semester and get all of the important education classes completed. Then, I will student teach in the 2023 spring semester. I am excited to see what happens after that. I will have my better half at my side and hopefully, we can both find good jobs in the post-college world.

(Below is a Photo of me in front of my poster the day before CERCA)

(Below is a photo of me proposing to my now fiancé)