Author: jplucas

The administration of Gov. Scott Walker hired the 27-year-old son of a veteran lobbyist then promoted him to an $81,500-per-year job overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees, despite his having no college degree and little management experience, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Monday. The newspaper reports that according to Brian Deschane?s resume, he attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for two years, worked for two Republican lawmakers and held part-time jobs with Wisconsin Builders Association and the Wisconsin Business Council before being hired by the state earlier this year.

The Wisconsin Republican Party has requested copies of certain emails sent by Professor William Cronon, of the University of Wisconsin.

Universities don?t seem to breed much civil courage these days. But the University of Wisconsin is a glorious exception to the rule. When the Republican Party of Wisconsin demanded e-mails sent by and to William Cronon, it was the university?which serves as the official ?record holder? for this purpose?rather than the individual professor that had to answer the request. It has now done so, with two lucid documents that show scrupulous concern for the rights of all involved.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) ? The chancellor of UW-Madison says she will release some of the emails from a history professor requested by the Republican Party of Wisconsin, but she?s withholding others to protect “academic freedom.”

Let?s keep this as simple as we possibly can: An open record is an open record is an open record.

In 1976, I was elected to the Berlin Area School Board. I ran because I believed that students from Berlin could have futures just as bright as students from anywhere else in Wisconsin. I was concerned that decisions made hundreds of miles away could hurt our kids. For the more than 20 years I served on the board, we strived to do what was best for Berlin?s students.

Recent efforts by conservative-leaning groups to obtain the e-mails of Michigan and Wisconsin public-university professors have shed light on this much: Citing a need to protect “academic freedom” is, in itself, unlikely to help the universities avoid complying with requests for e-mails under state open-records laws.

Last month, Stephan Thompson, deputy executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, filed a request under the state?s open-records law asking the University of Wisconsin at Madison to turn over copies of e-mails from William J. Cronon, a tenured professor of environmental history. The request appears to have been prompted by Cronon?s political activism, including a blog post and an op-ed essay in The New York Times. In both, he criticized Gov. Scott Walker and conservatives in general.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison said on Friday that it would release to the state?s Republican Party records a party official had sought from the e-mail account of a Madison professor who had criticized the governor and Republican-backed legislation to curtail the collective-bargaining rights of university and other public employees in the state.

If the Wisconsin Republican Partys perceived attack on the academic freedom of a prominent faculty member at the University of Wisconsin at Madison was seen as a test for Chancellor Carolyn A. Biddy Martin — with some wondering whether Governor Scott Walkers backing of the universitys push for autonomy would compel her to hold her tongue — she appears to have passed.

Wisconsin college students would have to pay more to attend the University of Minnesota under a proposal backed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker that his administration announced Thursday.