Category: Opinion

As a new student at UW-Milwaukee, I know college is an exciting time. I graduated as valedictorian from Delavan-Darien High School in May looking forward to this fall.

Restrictive gun laws not proven to decrease gun violence, disproving liberal cries for stricter regulations

UW-Stevens Point has a 123-year history of change. Evolution has been a constant since we opened our doors in 1894 as a State Normal School.

MADISON, Wis. — About as many Democrats live in Wisconsin as Republicans do. But you wouldn’t know it from the Wisconsin State Assembly, where Republicans hold 65 percent of the seats, a bigger majority than Republican legislators enjoy in conservative states like Texas and Kentucky.

MADISON, Wis. — About as many Democrats live in Wisconsin as Republicans do. But you wouldn’t know it from the Wisconsin State Assembly, where Republicans hold 65 percent of the seats, a bigger majority than Republican legislators enjoy in conservative states like Texas and Kentucky.

The work of Dr. Budge has made a significant impact on the field of transgender psychology. Her work is often lauded as being cutting edge and addressing the day-to-day challenges faced by gender diverse people.

As a longtime professor of Wisconsin constitutional law and government, I have been lamenting that Wisconsin’s constitution and institutions have been largely absent from the Wisconsin redistricting case just argued in the U.S. Supreme Court. Simply put, the case should have gone through the state court system using state constitutional arguments.

arlier this week, professors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison made national news, including a story in the New York Times, with the claim that that nearly 17,000 potential Wisconsin voters had been “deterred” by the state’s voter-ID law. All the usual suspects responded on cue, repeating all the expected talking points, with the clerk of Milwaukee County suggesting that the survey shows that “Jim Crow laws are alive and well.”

Are the Nobel prizes sexist? If they are, then perhaps some are more sexist than others. The prize for literature has been awarded to 14 women and 95 men. The peace prize has gone to 16 women and 81 men. Of the others, female laureates number 12 in medicine/physiology, four in chemistry, two in physics, and just one in economics.

Taken as a whole, just 5 per cent of the 911 winners have been female, and in our opinion pages this week, Janet Shibley Hyde, director of the Center for Research on Gender and Women at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, considers why this might be.

Column: How is it that it remains virtually unimaginable that the governor of this state, a governor confirmed three times by Wisconsin voters, cannot appear at the state’s flagship institution to address the most consequential legislation in the state’s history without a potential riot?

Imagine, for a moment, that climate change was not synonymous with doomsday scenarios, but rather presented an opportunity to radically transform society for the better. This is not an attempt to downplay the seriousness of the risks facing our climate. Rather, it is about reframing the choice we face, away from the prospect of bleak minimalism often associated with a low-carbon future.

Let’s talk about the lack of inclusivity in a space that is supposed to be diverse and serve as a resource to those who need it: The (outdated and non-inclusive in naming, although that is a whole other issue) LGBT Campus Center.

Noted: Will Kramer is in his second year at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Nation’s core principles mean respect for the Constitution and rule of law, and should not be compromised.

When so many obviously intelligent and well-educated Americans claim that global warming is a “hoax”; when we seem obsessed with vilifying an entire, fourteen centuries-old religious tradition simply because of recent heinous actions of terrorists who profess to act in its name; when, nearly a century after the Scopes Trial, there is still significant public resistance to the theory of evolution, with one recent poll revealing that 34% of the population rejects evolution — over one third of the country! — and when voters elect a man so obviously unprepared and unfit to be president, I begin seriously to worry that we Americans are exhibiting greater and greater stupidity.

As freshmen, we often experience some culture shock in our first two weeks of class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For some of us, the school is bigger than anything we’ve ever seen. For others, classes are harder than we expected. But, for a lot of students, especially minority students and members of historically disadvantaged communities, the obvious lack of diversity comes as a big hit.

The bashing of academics because they are believed to be underachieving and lazy must stop.

Not quite a century ago, on January 7, 1929, newspaper readers across America were captivated by a brand-new comic strip, “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.” It offered the country its first images of space-age death rays, atomic explosions, and inter-planetary travel.

The Badger Herald will be launching its own Discover Channel this fall.

On Aug. 27, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales ordered the immediate expulsion of the head of the U.N. Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, Iván Velásquez. Within hours, the country’s Constitutional Court had blocked the move. (Rachel A. Schwartz is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.)

If you’ve held a supervisory position in the 21st century, chances are good you’ve been given this instruction by your supervisor: Document everything. Any kind of serious conflict or incident involving someone you supervise, write it down and date it, including actions taken by the company.

Every so often there is an action that has a perfect reaction. And so it is for an old friend, professor Bassam Shakhashiri. He is the 2018 recipient of the prestigious Grady-Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public.

Last week, Erik Iverson, the managing director of UW-Madison’s patent, licensing and research support engine, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, said WARF plans to spend $60 million over the next roughly half-dozen years or so on seed and venture funding to grow young companies.

The sight of white supremacists marching through the heart of the University of Virginia, carrying flaming Tiki torches and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” — followed by the killing of a counterprotester at a rally in downtown Charlottesville the next day — may put the brakes on state efforts to strengthen campus free speech protections.

The rampant sexism in the tech world was put on full display this week after an internal memo from a Google software engineer went viral on the Internet. If we are to believe the memo’s author — who was fired from the company Monday — women are more prone to “neuroticism” and less likely to pursue leadership roles in the tech industry because of “biological differences.” (Marie Hicks is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing.”)

Affirmative action is back in the news, as The New York Times reported that the Trump administration is taking a look at the pending case against Harvard University’s affirmative action admissions policies.

MADISON — After lawmakers finished grilling members of the Walker administration over the details of a proposed incentive package to bring Foxconn Technology Group to Wisconsin, the mood in Thursday’s public hearing audibly changed.

UW-Madison Engineering Dean Ian Robertson talked about the need for engineering graduates to fill Foxconn-related jobs, either directly or indirectly, and noted the college must add faculty to meet those demands over time.

Dear Editor: Introduced in April, a bill written by Rep. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, would prohibit faculty from training resident physicians in performing abortions. Critics of the proposed measure fear for the loss of UW-Madison’s national accreditation in training OBGYNs. Others fear for a future further down the line that results in decreasing access to OBGYN professionals throughout the state.

Foxconn, which makes liquid display panels for computers, televisions and other devices, also has expressed an interest in UW-Madison research, which could further expand the company’s positive economic impact across the state. This week’s announcement is exciting and welcome, given that several other states had hoped to land the technology manufacturer and its 20 million-square-foot campus on at least 1,000 acres. But Wisconsin taxpayers still need convincing that the governor’s incentive package is worth its steep price.

Emergency: You need more disposable diapers, right away. You hop into your car and trust your ride will be a safe one. Thanks to your phone’s GPS and the microchips that run it, you map out how to get to the store fast. Once there, the barcode on the package lets you accurately check out your purchase and run. Each step in this process owes a debt to the universities, researchers, students and the federal funding support that got these products and technologies rolling in the first place.

Letter to the editor: The bill proposed by Rep. Andre Jacque to prohibit UW physicians from performing abortions and training others to do so is short-sighted and punitive.

Letter to the editor: As state lawmakers push to recruit university leaders from outside academia, we should consider what it means to employ the “business model” to higher education.

Jul 21 each year marks Racial Harmony Day. Ho Li-Ching explores whether students should be encouraged to discuss controversial issues related to race in the classroom and what’s stopping teachers from doing so. Ho Li-Ching is president of the Singapore Association for Social Studies Education and associate professor of social studies education at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

GOP state representative Andre Jacque has introduced a bill that would bar medical residents at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from learning how to perform abortions. It’s a move that would do a lot more than hurt abortion access — though that alone is a reason to oppose it. It would also chip away at women’s access to all forms of gynecological and obstetric care, particularly in the state of Wisconsin.

Celebrating 100 years of public radio.

It is good that Wisconsin lawmakers are concerned about free speech. But it makes no sense to protect free speech by limiting free speech. But that is exactly what the Wisconsin Assembly has done in approving legislation that threatens those who dare speak their mind on college campuses.

Letter to the editor: This Tuesday, July 18, there is a public hearing on a uniquely dangerous bill. This legislation if passed will do irreparable damage to the University of Wisconsin System and the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority, while attacking health care access for Wisconsin women.