The UW Needs to Change

Happy Monday. Turns out all the Packers needed was to move up padded drills to Wednesday from Thursday. Who knew? Maybe Luke Fickell should give that a try.

Speaking of the UW, that’s today’s topic. Most universities — definitely including the UW — are overbuilt and uber left. Those things have combined to push higher education — outside of a handful of very well-endowed elite schools — into a fiscal death spiral. They can’t tear down the buildings, but they can moderate campus politics.

In a November 4th post, New York Times center-right columnist Ross Douthat cites two trends that have brought so many universities to fiscal crisis: “The first trend hitting its limit is the big higher-ed expansion — more buildings, more amenities, more administrators — that was made possible by a glut of students, in the millennial generation and from overseas, and also by easy credit and low interest rates. The second trend is the ideological transformation within the liberal university and the liberal arts — the shift from an environment where left-of-center ideas predominated but with a certain degree of diversity and free debate, to the Trump-era environment of default progressivism and D.E.I. loyalty oaths in hiring. These two trends have created a situation where colleges are overbuilt for an age of declining birthrates and increasing global tensions, and much more out of step with crucial financial sources of support: for private schools, their donors; for public universities, Republican state legislators.”

It may be too harsh to call it a death spiral, but the University of Wisconsin System is in trouble. Consider what’s happening. 

• Assembly Speaker Robin Vos nixed a 6% pay raise for UW System employees while allowing it to go through for other state employees. He’s trying to put pressure on the UW to discontinue its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. 

• For the same reason, legislative Republicans cut over $30 million from the UW System budget, money that they allege funds positions dedicated to DEI. 

• The system is closing three two-year campuses in mostly rural parts of the state, including one in our neck of the woods in Richland Center. 

• Several UW campuses are struggling with deficits. At least two, Platteville and Oshkosh, have announced significant staff layoffs. 

• A much-needed new engineering building on the Madison campus, strongly supported by the state’s business community, has been denied once again by Republicans. (A lot of recent building has been over the top, but the engineering building would be a net producer of jobs and wealth for the state.)

And in response to all this, System President Jay Rothman has announced that the UW System shall henceforth be known as the Universities of Wisconsin. I guess the idea is a little bit of misdirection. Emphasize the plural (“universities”) just as you’re becoming less so. 

The war on the UW started in earnest under Gov. Scott Walker and continued for eight long years. Democrat Tony Evers is a friend to higher education, but he is stymied by a Republican Legislature that is openly hostile to it. The governor can veto things, but he can’t unilaterally provide more money.

I thought the Regents made a brilliant move when they hired former Gov. Tommy Thompson to be interim system president. But even the Republican icon and enthusiastic cheerleader couldn’t do much to stem the tide. This breed of right-wing populist Republican legislator couldn’t care less what an old-line conservative like Thompson or the business community might think. They hate the UW for what they believe it is: a factory for leftist thought and politics. 

Fairer legislative district maps might help some. The new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court will probably end up producing maps that give Republicans a projected 55-44 edge in the Assembly, down from their current 63-36 super majority. That should create more competitive districts, which might have the effect of producing more moderate legislators from each party. In turn, their caucuses should want to cater to their moderates because keeping those seats will be key to maintaining their majorities. 

Rothman could help by taking meaningful actions, not just renaming the Titanic. For example, he could compromise on DEI, a concept that I have problems with myself. Instead of just absorbing the $30 million cut and refusing to touch DEI positions, he could call for a Legislative Audit Bureau study. DEI is a diverse and complicated animal. Let’s understand how it is really being implemented before we get going slashing away at it. But let’s also admit that if it encompasses the “anti-racist” theories of Ibram X. Kendi or critical race theory, those are unpopular concepts well out of the mainstream and so that’s a problem that should be addressed. 

Rothman could also come down hard in favor of free speech while condemning (but not banning) actions that the broader public finds repulsive, like the pro-Hamas rally on Library Mall where the demonstrators chanted, “Glory to the martyrs.” The damage to the UW done by that incident alone is incalculable. You can’t and shouldn’t stop it, but you can denounce it in the strongest terms and you can do some soul-searching to try to understand how an institution that is supposed to be committed to classical liberal values can produce students who would do something like that. 

Finally, the UW could adopt the Chicago Principles, a simple and strong restatement of dedication to classical liberal ideas, including free speech, reason, merit and respectful and productive disagreement.

And we can start by just being honest with ourselves. While I strongly disagree with Republican populists defunding and attacking the state’s most powerful economic engine and my own beloved alma mater, they’re not wrong when they see it as a place where leftist views are strong and conservative ideas are, at best, unwelcome. Rothman should do everything he can to promote a true diversity of opinion on his campuses, whether that’s creating a hiring process that doesn’t self-select for liberals or promoting a speaker program that features conservative ideas. 

The Republican war on the UW is short-sighted and counter-productive, but it’s not irrational. The institution is, in fact, hostile to their world view. Why would they want to support it? If the UW tilted toward Tucker Carlson would Democrats support it? 

The UW leadership needs to grapple with that because it’s the root of their problem and, fair maps or not, Republican majorities are not going away any time soon. They need to realize that they have a problem that won’t be solved by a name change. 

A version of this piece originally appeared in Isthmus.