Category: Opinion

DEI programs prepare UW students for the workforce. Cutting the UW System’s budget cripples Wisconsin’s economic engine.

The myriad crises we collectively face demand innovative and collaborative solutions. It is time for the expertise of teens and young adults to take center stage. Our future depends on it.

About the writer: Linnea Hjelm is a PhD Candidate at the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology. She has worked in violence prevention in high schools, colleges and nonprofit organizations with youth and adult leaders. This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

Letter to the editor: The quality of education and the standards for grading differ drastically from state to state and school to school forcing college admission offices to rely heavily on standardized tests like the ACT and the SAT. What most people fail to understand is that those popular measures are biased in favor of the majority American culture.

Letter to the editor: The football program understandably garners a large amount of attention and has had significant past success, of which UW fans can be proud, similar to men’s hockey. But when transitioning men’s teams overshadow equal or greater success by women’s team, as well as the individuals and coaches on those women’s teams, it seems like a missed opportunity.

The closure of Cardinal Stritch University and the headlines about UW-Platteville at Richland Center and UW-Milwaukee at Washington County are, unfortunately, just leading indicators of what’s to come for both public and private institutions.

We are delighted by these endorsements. And we look forward to the day when the Dads Caucus announces the Black Paternal Health Act and fellow members of Congress offer their endorsements for this much needed bill.

-Tova Walsh is an associate professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Alvin Thomas is an assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the host of the Black Fatherhood Podcast.  They are both members of the Scholars Strategy Network.

Letter to the editor: UW-Madison produces $27 for every dollar invested, according to research. By cutting funding for UW, Republicans are not making a fiscal decision (or they are really bad at fiscal decisions). Rather, they are seeking to limit the number of thoughtful, educated, contributing members of society who come from our institutions of higher education.

At the end of every school year, the dumpsters outside the dorms are filled with many reusable items that end up in landfills. This waste harms the environment and represents a missed opportunity to help others in the community.

According to a University of Wisconsin analysis, the Madison Legislature’s plan would have boosted capital investment by 1.5% and economic output by 1.25%. This would certainly help the Badger State amid a manufacturing slowdown. The Institute for Supply Management reported this week that its manufacturing index dropped to the lowest level since May 2020.

Vos has also been a vocal opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, referring to such programs within the University of Wisconsin System as “indoctrination” despite a racist incident at the Madison campus making headlines in the spring. Although Wisconsin is operating with a projected $7 billion budget surplus, Vos and Republicans in the state Legislature voted to cut $32 million from the UW System’s budget unless it agrees to use the funds for workforce development rather than DEI efforts. The GOP plan also seeks to cut nearly 200 DEI jobs on UW campuses.

Supporters of race-based admissions, rather than admit these errors, will contrive to preserve them in a variety of barely concealed forms.—Anika Horowitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison, economics

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

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.

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.

Letter to the editor: One who has already been indoctrinated wouldn’t see the indoctrination for what it is.

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.

Letter to the editor: Now comes a decision by the Legislature to dismantle efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion on UW campuses. It seems strange, when they are concerned with greater freedom of expression and exposure to a wider range of views, that legislators have targeted DEI initiatives for cuts.

Letter to the editor: In this current budget cycle, Wisconsin has a very large surplus. But instead of using the surplus to support one of our great economic engines, the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin GOP wants to cut millions of dollars from its budget.

Letter to the editor: The decision of the Republicans on the state Joint Finance Committee to withhold $32 million from the University of Wisconsin System for diversity, equity and inclusion could be a very good decision — if the funds are properly reallocated.

Letter to the editor: I’m sure many readers reacted with disbelief to the decision of UW-Madison’s Music School to axe the Choral Union, the 130-year-old partnership of students, alumni and community members, ostensibly to maximize “opportunities for UW students.”

No, Robin, I think it’s the other way around. I suspect that thousands of my fellow UW grads are embarrassed that our alma mater saw fit to grant you a degree. After four years of college, you’d think a little bit of human compassion would have rubbed off on even the most narrow-minded student at UW-Whitewater.

Republicans on the committee voted down the long-anticipated and much-needed new engineering building on the UW Madison campus. Not so long ago that would have been a slam dunk Republican priority.

Letter to the editor: The 130-year-old UW Choral Union will no longer be a part of the School of Music outreach to the community. I am so very disappointed.

Aware of this risk, in 2021 the University of Wisconsin studied this issue and found that the dumping of subsidized Chinese amino acids into the U.S. could destroy nearly 30,000 American jobs and reduce U.S. GDP by $15 billion per year.

Letter to the editor: One of the finest aspects of UW-Madison is its diversity, equity and inclusion. All are now under attack by GOP legislators who seek to defund efforts for these worthy goals toward enriching lives and fostering understanding.

Republican political strategists have a new target. They are going after the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that are making colleges and universities across the country more welcoming to faculty, staff and students from all backgrounds.

Advice for taking the road less traveled.

My hope is that I can be an advocate for all Indigenous college students to receive the support they need to thrive in college and beyond.

-Gresham D. Collom is a research affiliate at University of Wisconsin at Madison, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and an incoming assistant professor of higher education administration at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.

I hope our Legislature revisits correcting this putting education where it belongs: ahead of sports.