Tatiana Bobrowicz, a junior who runs the chapter, told Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) that her group set up a table Tuesday morning on the outdoor campus mall with permission from the university to support conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel.
She told the outlet that “a man came up to our table and said, ‘What are you doing?' I hadn’t even finished when he said, ‘The time for this is over,’ and just flipped the table.”
Bobrowicz said in a statement posted to the UW-Eau Claire College Republicans' Instagram account on Tuesday, “The university has since confirmed that this attacker was the chair of the university’s English Department. Once again, this type of violent attack will not be tolerated.”
A video of the aftermath of the incident went viral on social media.
Bobrowicz contacted campus police, and the suspect was identified as Professor José Felipe Alvergue.
She told WPR, “We have students who are afraid to go to classes today because they are associated with our club, or they believe what we believe. This individual does not speak for all professors, but there is a type of example that he set and there are students celebrating his actions.”
In a statement to the media, UW-Eau Claire Interim Provost Michael Carney said, “I am deeply concerned that our students’ peaceful effort to share information on campus on election day was disrupted. UW-Eau Claire strongly supports every person’s right to free speech and free expression, and the university remains committed to ensuring that campus is a place where a wide variety of opinions and beliefs can be shared and celebrated.”
Carney added that “civil dialogue is a critical part of the university experience, and peaceful engagement is fundamental to learning itself.”
He noted that the campus is now working with the University of Wisconsin and the Office of General Counsel to conduct an investigation, adding that Alvergue has been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation.
According to Alvergue’s personal website and staff bio, he was born in El Salvador and immigrated with his family to the US at the beginning of El Salvador’s civil war and grew up on the US-Mexico border.
His personal statement on his website reads, “Now as a parent, as a partner, as a teacher, a voter, a neighbor, it has become ever more imperative for me to find new ways of clarifying where the self begins and ends, and tending to the clarity of one’s love for an other.”
He wrote in his staff biography, “I believe that we can’t unlock the empathy hidden behind words if we don’t understand what is at stake in the risk writers and artists take when they decide to transform the matter which makes up the world around them into the story words communicate.”
