9 years later, former students settle with UW-Milwaukee in student government case

Two former College of Wisconsin-Milwaukee college students who waged a yearslong courtroom battle towards the college have settled almost a decade after a contested scholar authorities election, their lawyer mentioned.

Mohammad Samir Siddique was a senior in faculty in 2013 when he says he was elected president of UW-Milwaukee’s scholar authorities. The college’s administration refused to acknowledge the election, favoring as a substitute a separate scholar authorities physique arrange by administration.

In 2014, a college committee disciplined Siddique, discovering that he’d falsely represented himself as scholar physique president and ordering him to confess this to a gaggle of greater than 1,000 college students who had supported his scholar authorities group moderately than the administration’s. 

That dispute kicked off a collection of lawsuits in state and federal courtroom that proceeded in some kind till final week. In a press release, Milwaukee legal professional Gary Grass mentioned Siddique and one other scholar, Taylor Q. Scott, had accepted a “six-figure settlement” from the college. Scott was the final of about 40 college students who filed an motion towards the college in 2014, Grass mentioned.

“They actually informed us that our actions had not been in useless and that it had resulted in coverage modifications, after which they apologized to us for what we had gone via,” Scott mentioned in a current interview with Grass on a Milwaukee neighborhood radio station. 

Siddique and Scott mentioned the unique battle over the coed authorities election was a battle about management over scholar charges they mentioned belonged with college students below Wisconsin’s shared governance legislation. That legislation was modified in 2015 below former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. 

An earlier lawsuit by Siddique alleging that the college violated his First Modification rights failed in courtroom, as did different civil rights claims. The case has additionally been topic to open conferences and public data complaints, a few of that are ongoing. Siddique alleges that the college wrongly destroyed data regarding its institution of a brand new scholar authorities. 

After profitable a 2014 case that permitted him to attend courses whereas his case was in courtroom, Siddique graduated from UW-Milwaukee and now works as an legal professional in Milwaukee. Scott, who mentioned his enrollment was positioned on maintain amid the dispute, didn’t graduate. He works as an editor of a southwest Wisconsin information web site, the Valley Sentinel.