The U.S. Supreme Court on June 29 ruled race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC) unlawful in a decision that overruled decades of precedent protecting affirmative action programs at colleges and universities across the country.
Author: gbump
Opinion | Supreme Court decision to ignore inequality is as unjust as it is dishonest
Wisconsin’s representatives should back Bowman’s legislation and join him in recognizing that, “All students deserve an equitable opportunity to gain admission to institutions of higher education, but students whose parents didn’t attend or donate to a university are often overlooked in the admissions process due to the historically classist and racist legacy and donor admissions practices at many schools across the country.”
Opinion | Sick of the dirty air? Because of inaction, you might have to get used to it
Column by Jonathan Patz, the John P. Holton chair of Health and the Environment and professor in the Nelson Institute and Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Letting 14-year-olds serve alcohol not a big change, legislators say
Timothy Smeeding, a labor economist and social welfare policy analyst at the University of Wisconsin-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs, said the bill could bring up concerns if young people actually had to serve alcohol at the bar. However, he said that if they’re already serving food at a restaurant, allowing them to carry alcohol shouldn’t make a big difference.
Letter | DEI represents nation’s ideals
Letter to the editor: Over the years, I worked with farm students who needed classes that started after the morning milking, bilingual Latino students who were the linguistic bridge for their families, returning adult students who supported aging parents, students with disabilities who needed accommodations, refugee students and veterans who had seen too much, LGBTQ students who struggled with families that disowned them, African American students who wanted to see themselves reflected in the curriculum, students who struggled with depression after family trauma, liberal and conservative students, well-to-do and homeless students, and students with many other unique backgrounds. DEI initiatives helped me understand who our students were, and that is a good thing.
Claudia Traisman Ward
Working in a UW toxicology lab, she was part of a team that researched the harmful effects of Agent Orange, which was used during the Vietnam War. Their work was cited when the U.S. banned the chemical in 1971 and is still referenced today. She also worked as a lecturer teaching entomology, or the study of insects, to undergraduate students.
UW-Madison IceCube researchers produce first neutrino image of Milky Way
New data from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s IceCube neutrino detector has led to the first ever image of our Milky Way galaxy using the subatomic “ghost particles.” An international team of researchers also found the Milky way is a neutrino desert compared to others.
Want to protect trees from caterpillars? Madison is looking for volunteers
The insects will need to be crushed and brushed into soapy water. Volunteers can refer to instructions posted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison for instructions on how to destroy the caterpillars.
U.S. Supreme Court kills student loan forgiveness for 465k Wisconsinites
In a significant blow to President Joe Biden’s agenda, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his long-awaited student loan debt relief plan Friday, halting a key promise made during his campaign and leaving millions of Americans who expected thousands of dollars in financial relief stuck in uncertainty.
Nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites will be impacted by rejected student loan forgiveness
“The median loan payment in Wisconsin is $152 a month. So, it kind of gives a little bit of a sense of how big this is,” Nick Hillman, Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis at UW-Madison said. “So, what a quarter, one in four people you see walking down the street are now gonna have to pay probably about 150 a month that they haven’t been paying for the past few years.”
Wisconsin football’s second-leading tackler suspended
The University of Wisconsin football program announced Friday that a key member has been suspended.
Russ Castronovo: What Wisconsin understands about the Declaration of Independence
Column by Russ Castronovo, director of the Center for the Humanities and the Tom Paine professor of English at UW-Madison.
Madison project helps Black women build financial literacy, wealth
“As research extensively documents, racial disparities in wealth accumulation are systemic, of which historic public policies and private practices sustain,” said Melody Harvey, UW-Madison assistant professor of consumer science in the School of Human Ecology.
Black communities are likely to be what Harvey called “banking deserts,” meaning there are few, if any, mainstream financial institutions. They are also more likely to have concentrations of high-cost alternative financial services such as payday and auto title lenders, Harvey explained, asking “Where does one begin when even the most basic of financial services may not be readily available and accessible?”
Student Loan Borrowers React to Supreme Court Decision
Mr. Reed, who is 74, took out $3,300 in loans in the early 1970s to fund his studies at the University of Wisconsin. He worked for decades as a journalist, musician and fund-raiser for nonprofits, cobbling together a living off what were often low-income jobs. He paid $9,000 on his loans over the years — but interest and fees kept his balances ballooning, preventing him paying off his debt. Now, half a century after his college years, he owes $4,600 — more than he originally borrowed.
Wisconsin suspends LB Jordan Turner for violation of athletic department’s discipline policy
“My parents raised me to do the right things in life and unfortunately this time, I didn’t,” Turner said. “I made the wrong decision. I’m very disappointed and embarrassed and I want to personally apologize to my parents, my teammates, my coaches, the fans and the University of Wisconsin.
Scientists Find Ghostly Neutrino Particles From the Milky Way
“Only cosmic rays make neutrinos, so if you see neutrinos, you see cosmic ray sources,” Francis Halzen, a member of the IceCube team and physicist at the University of Wisconsin, tells Popular Science. “The goal of neutrino physics, the prime goal, is to solve the 100-year-old cosmic ray problem.”
Some Colleges Will No Longer Consider Race in Awarding Student Scholarships
The University of Wisconsin at Madison, the flagship, said on its website that it is assessing whether the Supreme Court’s decision will affect scholarships and financial aid.
2 Leading Theories of Consciousness Square Off
Dr. Melanie Boly, a neurologist at the University of Wisconsin, came onstage to explain the other contender: the Integrated Information Theory. What makes consciousness special, Dr. Boly argued, is the way it manages to feel at once rich and unified over time.
North Dakota education officials worried about losing revenue due to implications of new MN free tuition plan
Minnesota’s move hasn’t sparked the same fears in other neighboring states. University of Wisconsin officials are expanding a free tuition program that started at its flagship Madison campus to 12 more schools this fall.
A.I. Is Coming for Mathematics, Too
These days there is no shortage of gadgetry for optimizing our lives — diet, sleep, exercise. “We like to attach stuff to ourselves to make it a little easier to get things right,” Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said during a workshop break. A.I. gadgetry might do the same for mathematics, he added: “It’s very clear that the question is, What can machines do for us, not what will machines do to us.”
Madison Common Council rejects housing development proposal, preserves affordable housing
Under the proposal, affordable rental units at 437-445 W. Johnson St., 430-444 W. Dayton St. and 215-221 N. Bassett St. would be demolished. District 8 Alder and University of Wisconsin student MGR Govindarajan voted against the proposal, due to the displacement of students it would cause.
The air over Madison is clearing, but does the future hold more air quality concerns?
Dr. Tracey Holloway, a professor at UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, says we likely haven’t seen the last of smoky skies from Canada this year.
“Since usually we have more smoke in July and August, where we’re just getting into that part of the year, it would not be surprising to have more smoky days ahead,” Dr. Holloway said.
Student loan forgiveness rejection hits 685,000 Wisconsin borrowers
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled Biden’s $400 billion loan forgiveness plan overstepped his authority as president. Hours after the ruling, the president announced he will try to enact a different student debt relief program under the 1965 Higher Education Act, calling the new path “legally sound.”
UW-Madison researchers’ 3D-printed electric motor may revolutionize the industry
UW-Madison researchers have successfully developed an electric motor using 3D printing technology, paving the way for future electric motors to more efficiently use electricity without sacrificing power.
U.S. Supreme Court kills student loan forgiveness for 465k Wisconsinites
In a significant blow to President Joe Biden’s agenda, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his long-awaited student loan debt relief plan Friday, halting a key promise made during his campaign and leaving millions of Americans who expected thousands of dollars in financial relief stuck in uncertainty.
John Robert Palmer
He was on the faculty at Illinois from 1960 until he received an offer from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1966. He was a professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Educational Policy Studies, and History. He served as Dean of the School of Education for 17 years and retired from the University in 1995.
‘Extraordinarily ambiguous standard:’ SCOTUS decision on affirmative action leaves many with questions
Professor of Political Science Emeritus at UW-Madison Howard Schweber referred to Thursday’s decision as a ‘sweeping giant statement principle.’ But he says an exception is equally notable.
“The giant loophole comes quite close to the end of the opinion when Chief Justice Roberts says ‘of course, a college or university may still continue race as it applies to a particular student’s individual life story described in their application essay.’ So what really happened here is a shift from one way to think about it is a shift from race consciousness in admissions to race consciousness in application,” Dr. Schweber said.
Assembly sends Tony Evers a state budget that includes tax cuts, an education spending boost and a cut to UW
Evers previously said he would not sign a state budget that includes tax cuts for wealthy residents or maintains a $32 million cut to defund diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the UW System.
Both measures were included in the budget passed Thursday, but Evers has since softened his position and signaled he could support the UW provision because Republicans on the budget-writing committee included a companion provision that allows UW officials to request for the funding to be restored if the committee approves their plans for it.
Opinion | Evers must veto GOP budget and its assault on UW System
Guest column: But perhaps the worst part of the proposal is the Republican plan to cut UW System funding using the pretext that campuses must eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
Evers now wrestles with GOP-approved budget that trims his priorities
The budget does not include state funds for a new engineering building on UW-Madison’s campus, a top priority for the university. A new building would replace the College of Engineering’s 83-year-old facility, adding over 1,000 engineering students per year.
What is affirmative action? The SCOTUS decision affecting college admissions, explained
At the University of Wisconsin Madison, where the acceptance rate is about 60 percent, the admissions website states that the school’s holistic application process is designed to help identify “remarkable students” and “diversity in personal background and experience” and does not use “formulas or charts.”
Neutrinos from the Milky Way finally detected
In 2013, IceCube detected the first cosmic neutrinos. In the years since, they’ve been able to narrow neutrino sources down to individual galaxies. “We have been detecting extragalactic neutrinos for 10 years now,” says Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the IceCube collaboration.
Astronomers Just Detected An Important High-Energy Particle In the Milky Way for the First Time
“We now hope to have established the multi-messenger techniques that will allow us to pinpoint the cosmic ray sources in the galaxy which, arguably, represents one of the oldest problems in astronomy,” Francis Halzen, IceCube principal investigator and physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, tells Inverse.
IceCube detector finds neutrinos from the Milky Way for the first time
“It took us 10 years to find the galactic plane in neutrinos,” says IceCube head Francis Halzen at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s totally counterintuitive. It’s like if you went outside at night and saw a sky bright in active, distant galaxies but no Milky Way.”
In a First, Scientists See Neutrinos Emitted by the Milky Way
IceCube had already definitively detected neutrinos streaming in from outside the Milky Way, but it couldn’t be said with certainty that any of them came from within the galaxy, says Francis Halzen, lead investigator of the project and a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This was rather strange, considering the proximity of the Milky Way’s disk (in fact, our solar system is embedded in it) and the high likelihood that neutrinos form there.
Wisconsin Republicans’ spending plan sent to Democratic governor
Evers previously threatened to veto the entire budget over the University of Wisconsin’s $32 million cut, funding that Republicans identified as going toward diversity, equity, or DEI, programming and staff. But the budget would allow for the university to get the funding later if it could show it would go toward workforce development and not DEI.
‘Woke’ indoctrination on campus is hard to recognize — Craig Schultz
Letter to the editor: One who has already been indoctrinated wouldn’t see the indoctrination for what it is.
A ‘loneliness loop’: How the American culture of busyness can increase isolation
Christine Whelan, clinical professor of Consumer Science at the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says an individual’s work ethic is at the core of what it means to be an American. You demonstrate to other people you are pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and are busy, indicating a sense of success. “Affluence and busyness seem to go together as status symbols,” Whelan said in a telephone interview. “It is easy to criticize it, but the culture demands it from us. We need to be careful about individual actions versus cultural norms.”
$99 billion Wisconsin budget heads to Tony Evers after Assembly approval
Despite Evers’ recent call for the Legislature to make significant changes to the budget to ensure that he signs it into law, neither chamber this week made substantive changes to the document before passing it. He opposed the significant tax cut for the wealthiest Wisconsinites as well as the proposed cuts to the UW System’s diversity programs. Both remain in the proposal.
UW-Madison alum returns sunburst chair she stole in 1992
For one UW-Madison alum, the return of a chair has absolved 31 years of guilt.
Many Black residents have been shut out of house market — one realtor is trying to change that
Kurt Paulsen, professor of urban planning at UW-Madison, wouldn’t say that Dane County has made true progress in the last decade in terms of how people of color experience mortgage and rent cost burdens compared to their white counterparts.
It’s more like “slightly less bad but measured from a very bad starting point,” he said.
In private email, Devin LeMahieu says Senate has ‘no power’ to dump top election official before reappointment
“The Senate’s attempt to initiate a confirmation hearing for Wolfe does seem to rest on very shaky legal ground,” UW-Madison Law School associate professor Robert Yablon said.
“When the commission met earlier this week, only three of members voted to re-appoint Wolfe,” Yablon said. “Notably, after this vote, the commission didn’t take the position that it had successfully reappointed her. It’s odd for the Senate to claim there’s been an appointment that the commission itself didn’t purport to make.”
Letter | Why DEI is important
Letter to the editor: Since 1988, I have mentored many hundreds of students, had a great scientific and professional career and gotten to know many other Latino Ph.D. graduates in STEM. We know Albert(a) Einstein can be anywhere, if welcomed and given a chance, and diversity at UW is how valuable careers begin.
Former UW grad student charged with making threats found incompetent, will be hospitalized
Afederal judge on Thursday ordered that a former UW-Madison graduate student charged with making threats against people at the university be hospitalized for mental health treatment until he’s deemed competent enough to assist in his own defense.
Supreme Court rules against affirmative action in universities
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ended a Harvard and University of North Carolina policy of considering a student’s race when accepting applications. We talk with a UW-Madison Law professor about what the ruling means for Wisconsin’s public and private universities.
Affirmative action ruling will affect UW-Madison’s admissions policies
Thursday’s ruling struck down the longstanding use of race in admissions practices, as the Supreme Court considered two cases brought by conservative legal action group Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The lawsuits argued the schools discriminated against applicants of Asian heritage, and UNC additionally discriminated against white applicants, as part of its admissions policy.
UW would have to admit Wisconsin’s top high schoolers under GOP bill
Under a Republican-led bill, Wisconsin high schoolers who graduate in the top 5% of their class would receive automatic admission to University of Wisconsin System schools, including UW-Madison.
UW Health Kids encourages supervising kids around fireworks
Rishelle Eithun, with UW Health Kids, says American Family Children’s Hospital sees fireworks-related injuries every July— including burns, loss of fingers or limbs, and other serious trauma. She says sparklers are especially dangerous for children younger than five.
Carbone Cancer Center recognized as best cancer hospital in Wisconsin by Newsweek
UW Health revealed Wednesday that Carbone Cancer Center was included in Newsweek’s inaugural list of America’s Best Cancer Hospitals 2023. It was ranked highest in Wisconsin and #30 in the nation.
What the SCOTUS decision on affirmative action means for UW
It’s a seemingly simple decision, but UW-Madison political science professor Howard Schweber says the repercussions are a lot more complicated.
Affirmative action ruling hits just as UW-Madison improves diversity
In Wisconsin, the decision will likely have the largest effect on the University of Wisconsin System’s most selective campus, UW-Madison. While the school has long struggled to attract students of color, it recently ushered in its most diverse freshman class in the institution’s history. About one-third of last fall’s freshmen, or 2,695 total, identified as students of color.
Cancer drug shortages could put chemo patient treatment at risk
“We had to make some decisions about who we were going to prioritize during this difficult time,” said oncologist Dr. Kari Wisinski with the University of Wisconsin Health, who told CBS News she had never seen a shortage this serious.
Phonics mandate: What to know about a new Wisconsin reading bill
In December 2020, the district and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education announced an Early Literacy Task Force to look at how to teach students how to read and how to prepare teachers to do so. That task force published a 104-page report in December 2021 outlining 28 recommendations for the future of early literacy instruction in MMSD and in UW-Madison’s teaching preparation program.
Doulas could help reduce death rates of Black and Latino babies in Wisconsin
Roots4Change, a Madison-based cooperative of Latina or indigenous doulas that started in 2018, has received grants from the state and the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to expand its services, train new doulas and help medical providers better understand various Latino cultures. Another UW medical school grant has helped families get fresh food.
2-year budget for Wisconsin receives Senate approval, heads to Assembly
Another contentious spending provision in the budget the Senate approved Wednesday is Republicans’ plan to cut the University of Wisconsin System’s budget by $32 million in an attempt to force the school officials to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion offices and programming.
How Wisconsin volleyball’s growing popularity led to an NCAA record
The University of Wisconsin volleyball team may have fallen short of its lofty goal of repeating as NCAA champions during the 2022 season, but the Badgers turned in plenty of thrilling performances, and there was no shortage of fans eager to catch the reigning champs in action.
Former UW student faces more sex crime charges
Police in Madison also confirmed to ABC News on Tuesday they are working with Boston police and “reviewing old cases to see if there is any connection” to Nilo, who attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Carbone Cancer Center named best cancer hospital in Wisconsin
UW Health’s Carbone Cancer Center was named the best cancer hospital in Wisconsin and one of the best in the country, according to Newsweek.
‘You don’t want to mess around with breathing’; How poor air quality impacts pets
Dr. Erin Lashnits, a clinical assistant professor with the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, said if the air quality is bothering you, chances are your pet is feeling the same way.
UW Health Carbone Cancer Center named among nation’s best cancer hospitals
The center ranked as No. 1 in Wisconsin and No. 30 nationwide on the inaugural list. A total of 175 hospitals were ranked.