It was reported last week that an art exhibit planned for Madison at the end of March had been indefinitely postponed. The exhibit, entitled “Art in Protest”, was to have been organized with assistance from the Wisconsin School for Workers, which is part of the University of Wisconsin Extension. The school dropped the project after being pressured by Republican State Representative Steve Nass, who apparently did not approve of the subject matter.

As reported by The Progressive, Nass’s chief of staff Mike Mikalsen pressured officials at the school to cancel the exhibit: “…the consequences of that kind of activity would fall on the extension. They would have to own it.”

Mikalsen denies that he out-and-out threatened to defund the School of Workers, though he says he told Olson that this is a “very tense time,” and that an exhibit likes this “makes it very difficult” to cooperate with the university. “If something were to occur that would anger the Republican side or conservatives around the state, it would make it hard to continue to work cooperatively…”

Nass should know better than to try to stop angry badgers from exercising their Constitutional rights. Organizers have now, of course, rescheduled the event. It will likely draw two to three times the number of attendees that it would have if Nass had kept his mouth shut.