Author: gbump

In 1999, the pressure on Nike intensified after student activists took over buildings at Duke University, Georgetown University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin, and staged sit-ins at many other schools. Just before Christmas in 2000, student carolers strode through the halls of Harvard University’s administrative buildings singing “Away in a Sweatshop.”

After the failure of the Fisher case, Blum found new targets: Harvard, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He formed websites like harvardnotfair.org, inviting students who believed they had been denied admission to the three universities based on their race to get in touch.

That same year he also removed from state law tenure protections for University of Wisconsin professors, a move that educators warned would hurt the school’s ability to retain and attract talented faculty.

Both grew up in Janesville, a blue-collar city of 50,000 about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Madison, and attend the same Catholic church. Both hail from prominent families. Ryan’s father was a federal prosecutor; Steil’s grandfather served as a University of Wisconsin System regent and as the first chairman of the state lottery board.

And even when schools verify misconduct, if the offender has been hired elsewhere, many opt not to notify the new employer for fear of a defamation suit. Only recently have some started drafting policies requiring such disclosure, including the University of Wisconsin.

Boyden and Andrews both have gender dysphoria and both identify as women, although they were born male. Boyden is a graduate student and teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin and Andrews is an associate researcher in the Carbone Cancer Center at UW Hospitals and Clinics.

Shannon supervises a cancer research lab at the University of Wisconsin. Like other state employees, she gets health care insurance through the state.

Boyden is a graduate student and teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Andrews is an associate researcher at the Carbone Cancer Center at UW Hospitals & Clinics focused on cancer research, according to the ACLU. Both were denied medical insurance coverage by their state employer on the basis of their transgender status.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of Shannon Andrews, a cancer researcher at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and Alina Boyden, a University of Wisconsin graduate student.