Beginning in 1969, the Mifflin Street Block Party in Madison, Wisconsin provided students at the University of Wisconsin with a place to engage in political speech, namely to protest the Vietnam War. Over the years, the block party progressed from a centralized place to express political views to just another college party, where friends reunited and underage students drank too much. Decades passed with rela- tively no adverse effects from the annual event. However, in the late 2000s, the event's non-violent nature took a turn for the worse, and in 2011, two stabbings, three sexual assaults, and several injured police officers resulted from the chaotic partying. While a student at the University of Wisconsin, Paul Soglin ("Soglin") attended the first Mifflin Street Block Party whose theme he described as "taking a sharp stick and poking it in the eye of authority."3 Now, as the seventh term Mayor of Madison, he has decided to crack down on the event and attempt to end it for good.
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