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.
One in four women at UW-Madison who responded to a 2015 national survey reported having been the victim of sexual assault and misconduct. One in 10 experienced penetrative sex to which they did not consent.
Trans people live in Wisconsin, and they are valuable members of our communities. If the Wisconsin Idea drives our fine university to benefit the people of this great state, then the work at the Trans Research Lab is the Wisconsin Idea in practice.
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.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a major new case about partisan gerrymandering. The case began just days after the Nov. 8 election, when a federal court struck down a Republican-drawn legislative map in Wisconsin for being too partisan. Because of special rules for some voting rights cases, the Supreme Court is required to hear the case.
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.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has never really had a front door, an obvious entry spot with a “Welcome” mat and a bowl of hard candy on a little table when you walk in. I suspect a great many folks start their visit to the ever-more-sprawling campus at the Memorial Union. But that’s really more like a rec room leading out to the patio and the backyard. Bascom Hall is a kind of elegant grand entry, but the building is primarily offices.
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?
Column: [B}ased on my research about the skills employers seek in today’s job applicants, it is clear that Republican hostility to these courses is detrimental to Wisconsin’s ability to educate and train a competitive workforce. In fact, opposition to multicultural education in the state’s public colleges and universities will negatively impact one company in particular: Foxconn.
Republicans can and will quibble with the mostly left-leaning UW-Madison over what its professors teach, what kinds of activism its students engage in, and which speakers are welcomed to campus and which draw protests.
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.
“There still have been no known instances of humans contracting CWD, but hunters should know the new study demonstrates the risk isn’t nonexistent,” Keith Poulsen, of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told the Wisconsin State Journal last week. CWD is related to incurable illnesses, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease found in humans, which can cause dementia and death.
Universities including UW-Madison are stressing entrepreneurial skills across campus, which will help young people move promising ideas into the marketplace. Technical colleges are partnering with employers on internships and incentives for targeted fields, and trying to eliminate waiting lists for popular programs. The University of Wisconsin System must redouble its efforts to connect graduates with businesses here. And the Legislature should consider financial incentives for students who stay.
In their latest attack on the eggheads, Wisconsin Republicans have revived Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to force the University of Wisconsin System to keep track of the time professors spend teaching and to reward those “who teach more than a standard academic load.”
Among the non-fiscal items the finance committee added to the budget are: Looser qualifications for UW System leaders; A mandate for UW to report and reward the time professors spend teaching.
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.
Noted: Patz is director of the Global Health Institute at UW-Madison
Noted: These actions were initiated based on mathematical models utilizing data generated by techniques and technologies substantially developed at UW-Madison.
Noted: Jonathan Patz, M.D., MPH, is John P Holton Chair of Health and the Environment and director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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.
Letter to the editor from Downs, a UW-Madison professor emeritus of political science and First Amendment scholar, and Underwood, a retired Madison attorney.
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 series does come with concerns, however. As much as I like the idea of UW and Notre Dame meeting for the first time since 1964, there is something disquieting about the Badgers playing yet another big-time non-conference opponent somewhere other than Camp Randall Stadium.
Noted: Author Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD, FAAP, is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and also holds master’s degrees in public health and children’s librarianship.
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.
The divide between urban and rural communities, which has existed essentially everywhere for centuries, took on a singular importance to many of us when Donald Trump was elected last November. In her new book, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, political scientist Katherine J. Cramer looks at what happened in 2016 through the lens of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s rural popularity, despite policies that would endanger his rural and working-class constituents.
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.
There are 75,000 graduates produced each year by the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System and the state’s private colleges and universities. That’s a likely source for some of the workers who will eventually fill Foxconn’s Wisconsin labor force. Wisconsin colleges and universities are also home to a research and development structure that rivals what can be found in most states – although it’s time to reinvest in that asset before quality wanes.
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.
More than two years after his office was created within the University of Wisconsin System and more than a year after he was hired, the czar has yet to authorize a single charter school. His office doesn’t even have a website. Education reformers can have some confidence he hasn’t just been loafing around these last 16 months, even as state education data suggest the popularity of charters could be waning.
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.
The Michigan Legislature, like the U.S. Senate, is a safe space for right-wing groupthink. That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn from a recent flurry of activity on the manufactured crisis of “campus free speech” in Lansing and Washington, D.C.
It is clear that lawmakers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are attempting to achieve politically neutral college campuses in the name of “protecting” free speech — campuses where all speech is considered equally valuable, no matter how morally repugnant, intellectually empty and psychologically dangerous.
President Trump and Senate Democrats are steadfastly opposed to one another over judicial nominees. Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., are now threatening to “blue-slip” Trump’s nomination of Joan Larsen to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Other senators are making similar threats. With Republicans poised to reform the blue slip, now seems an appropriate time to discuss what it is and how it works in practice.
Letter to the editor: Any claims that UW is partisan are just reactions to something the critics don’t want to hear.
Letter to the editor: Given the high status and high salaries of many of these positions, the new preferred hiring pool would likely be heads of major corporations, who would expect CEO-type salaries when they become provosts and chancellors. This is a dangerous path.
Letter to the editor: Oscar Mayer allowed UW departments to collect tissue samples that led to innovation. An example was the use of pig heart valves to pioneer “bird cage” heart valves for humans. The company’s unpublished discoveries and inventions have been applied throughout the meat industry.
Column: Right now there there are 664 African-Americans out of 31,407 undergraduates at UW-Madison. In the entire UW System, there are 4,640 African-Americans out of 151,895 undergraduate students. Yet rather than asking why the percentage of African-American students is so alarmingly low, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, is fast-tracking a bill to create safe spaces on Wisconsin campuses for right-wing purveyors of racism, misogyny and xenophobia.
Of course, Tommy Thompson deserves to be honored with a University of Wisconsin center that is named for him — and that explores his fascination with politics and the innovative policymaking that can and should extend from the electoral process. But the center must not get bogged down in the petty politics of the moment.
As a person of color studying at the overwhelmingly white University of Wisconsin-Madison, I believe policymakers also ought to hear my story and consider my experience, and the stories and experience of other students of color, before telling us whose voices are and aren’t being heard.
