University of Wisconsin Regents Would Rather Lose $800 Million of Funding Than Submit to DEI Reforms – UPDATE: Deal Approved
“In a shocking turn of events, the board rejected the proposal 9 to 8, leaving over $800 million on the table”
*Scroll to bottom for update*
Republicans in Wisconsin have been negotiating with officials at the University of Wisconsin to scale back DEI policies at the various schools. Just a few days ago, it looked like they had a deal, but it apparently fell through at the last minute.
The Board of Regents rejected the deal in a vote of 9 to 8. This means that the school is going to lose out on $800 million in funding that was meant for salaries and raises for faculty.
Inside Higher Ed reports:
No End to Wisconsin’s Higher Ed Budget Standoff
A nearly six-month standoff between the Universities of Wisconsin and the Republican-led state Legislature over diversity, equity and inclusion spending seemed poised to end Saturday morning. The Board of Regents had agreed to vote on a deal between system leaders and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos that would freeze and cap DEI hiring in exchange for funding held up by the Legislature.
But in a shocking turn of events, the board rejected the proposal 9 to 8 , leaving over $800 million on the table and the future of the system’s DEI offices in limbo. The board also voted not to table the vote for further discussion, effectively killing the deal.
On Friday, UW system president Jay Rothman and UW Madison chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced they’d reached a deal with Vos after weeks of secret negotiations. The system would make significant concessions on DEI initiatives and staffing in exchange for a release on much-needed funding for pay raises, utilities and construction projects—including a new engineering building at UW Madison—which the Legislature rejected last month.
“The agreement we’ve reached is the result of an arduous process,” Rothman said during a press conference Friday afternoon. “While it funds UW, it also makes compromises to get there.”…
Representative Dora Drake, a Democrat and member of the House’s Black caucus, told Inside Higher Ed that she did not expect the proposal to be defeated, but she was heartened.
“I was very surprised, but I feel very good about the board’s decision,” she said. “We’re making sure students of color feel welcome and protected at our universities.”
This is how obsessed progressives are with DEI policies. They’ll leave hundreds of millions of dollars on the table before they’ll let it go.
UPDATE: “In a shocking turn of events, the board rejected the proposal 9 to 8, leaving over $800 million on the table and the future of the system’s DEI offices in limbo. The board also voted not to table the vote for further discussion, effectively killing the deal.”… https://t.co/K08LBbRTFy
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) December 10, 2023
This is where we are — a major public university will walk away from $800 million and raises for all employees rather than restructure their DEI departments.
That’s so ideologically extreme, I’m not sure it can be fixed. https://t.co/CxaWIKTxxM
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) December 10, 2023
Just amazing. Here’s a video report:
UPDATE – 12/14/23: The Board of Regents has now accepted the deal.
The Associated Press reports:
University of Wisconsin regents back GOP deal for funding in exchange for limiting diversity efforts
In a surprising about-face, the Universities of Wisconsin regents approved a deal Wednesday evening with Republican legislators to limit diversity positions at the system’s two dozen campuses in exchange for money to cover staff raises and construction projects.
Assembly Republican Speaker Robin Vos, who brokered the deal with Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman, tweeted that the plan is the first step in a continuing GOP effort “to eliminate these cancerous DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) practices on UW campuses.”
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers issued a lengthy statement after the vote saying the regents’ decision has left him disappointed and frustrated. He accused Vos of negotiating by bullying, saying the entire affair was motivated by his disdain for public education at every level. The governor promised that he would “make damn sure” that UW campuses work for everyone.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
So, okay: no agreement, no money. Time for invertebrate Republicans in the Wisconsin assembly to make a stand.
Absolutely. The Univ of Wisconsin has delivered their terms and they seem acceptable in the short term. For the longer term gonna need to rein in excess public funding for rogue Univ Boards by requiring tuition and donations to meet 100% of their funding needs. Up the ante every legislative session until the Boards figure out they can’t get students to willingly pay full costs.
What’s the difference between paranoid-schizophrenics and the UW Board of Regents?
The paranoid-schizophrenics have a better grasp on reality.
At the end of their miserable lives they are going to look back and say, “Sacrifing millions to save DEI was worth every penny.”
They will
Madison is the epic center of Woke in the entire Midwest
I’m from Wisconsin, it’s always been that way
Think of Breitbart at the Capital as the woke in tens of thousands broke into the capital building ( if you think Jan6, it was worse), paraded around the streets in droves against Walker and the cut backs
It was only temporary sanity
That’s where I fell in love with Breitbart the man…
His lose has been. Great and he was irreplaceable
Much like Rush
I feel like we are floundering a lot
I remember that “demonstration.” They were bearting drums, screwaming, making lots of noise. It was intimidating. One Republican State Congressman got caught outside the building, trying to leave I believe, and it was looking pretty bad for him, as the crowd was building itself up for an attack. Luckily, a Democrat inside the building saw him and ran to a door to let him in. I don’t believe anyone was arrested for that incident. Very, very different from the J6 “uprising.”
I recommend checking in at Althouse Blog in the next day or so for an update. She is a former Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and she has a pretty good read on the political pulse in Madison and in Wisconsin.
College professors are seriously underpaid. Adjuncts may make as little as a few thousand dollars per semester (in addition to working some other job full time). Did the Board ask these people for their opinion?
What does it matter? They knew they would never actually see any of it.
Both of those assertions are incorrect. College professors do fine and adjuncts are only instructors and get paid per course. They tend to get paid decent amounts per course and for not very much work, generally.
Here is a link to salary comparison: https://uwmadison.app.box.com/s/bnbrr2ernj00rghngqq924cmc6lq5vsx
All the proof you need to know its not about education.
Never negotiate with ideologues. Just defund and then defund again.
Too many people in positions of authority have decided to put political agendas above all else, at all cost. The dynamic we’re seeing play out in Wisconsin is the exact same dynamic we’re seeing from the Boardrooms in places like AB InBev and Disney.
“school is going to lose out on $800 million in funding”
If they can afford to do this, then then can afford much larger cuts.
Bing! Bing! Bing! We have a winner!
Don’t fix it, let it die. There are other universities, and eventually Madison may come back, although probably not to what it was in its heyday. But that’s gone, don’t throw good money after bad.
It’s not lost money. It’s just wasted on something else instead.
“Your terms are acceptable.”
Enjoy the decline.
The Board of Regents rejected the deal in a vote of 9 to 8.
Good for them. The legislature needs to cut more money out of the system. The legislature needs to cut enough money out of the UoW system until they cannot afford any DEI offices or positions. And then they need to cut more money until all of the joke departments (where the large marxist concentrations are) are defunded and wither away, too. No school needs any BS gender studies fake academician or any of the myriad related joke sociology offshoots.
At this rate they’ll starve the engineering school while continuing to fund DEI. So be it. There are other good state universities with engineering schools.
These Dhimmi-crats are religious fanatics, following the dictates of their corrosive, “woke,” totalitarian religion. No dissent from Leftist orthodoxies is allowed.
Should cut the university’s share of taxpayer money by a few billion more. Save the taxpayers even more money.
As I repeatedly say, “Defund the universities.”
Universities: “Your terms are acceptable.”
How much university will $800 million fund?
Asking for a state suddenly in a state of education budget surplus.
My alma mater. Nothing new there. The University will simply jack up the tuition, so the Republican parents from small Wisconsin towns will be forced to pay for their kids to have even more indoctrination forced on them.
That, and admit more Chinese and Middle Eastern students, who will pay the much higher out-of-state tuition.
Rinse and repeat, as they always have done.
That’s because they already have billions of dollars in hand that the legislature is too timid to threaten. WTF are the Republicans even “negotiating” for? Does the legislature control the budget or not? Issue the ultimatum and follow through, and do the same with any other state executive department that thinks they are independent fiefdoms.
Time to thin the Board of Regents. They serve for no pay so shouldn’t be too hard to get rid of them when they come up for renomination. The Senate can finally do it’s job and start rejecting the Gov’s nominations.
UW regents don’t want to accept funding that would force them to change their DIE religion? No problem. Cut all state funding, let them keep preaching and teaching what they like, so long as pupils, or their parents, are prepared to pay for it. That should save taxpayers, and the state, which can either lower taxes, or offer residents something with the now available funds.
If you attend college outside the USA , then you can save an enormous amount of money. And you’ll have a more interesting life than your former peers.
If you attend college in Puerto Rico, USA, then you’ll save a lot of money and you’ll also become C1/C2 fluent in Spanish. And you’ll have a more interesting life than your former peers.
If you attend U of Wisconsin, then let’s face it: For the rest of your life, everyone including potential employers will know that with all the options available to you —> your family and you opted for U of Wisconsin.
And you and your mommy can sip your beers lamenting that nobody finds you particularly interesting with anything particularly unique to offer.
Serious question though. How much credibility would an engineering degree from Puerto Rico have? Engineering is not a prestige oriented field, it’s not like law or even medicine, so “good enough” is plenty. Is PR good enough to produce basically competent graduates? That’s a hard thing by the way. It typically doesn’t exist outside the first world.
““I was very surprised, but I feel very good about the board’s decision,” she said. “We’re making sure students of color feel welcome and protected at our universities.”
Apparently ‘protection” doesn’t apply to any other race.
All qualified students should be welcome, that means at least a 110-20 IQ, lower than that is not college material.
A school that admits all 120 IQ applicants is below the level I would have expected from the better state flagships. And there would be too many students for the available facilities. I could see 130.
I didn’t know one went to university for protection. What benefit is there to spending time protected? What does one need classes for, if one is protected from dangerous stuff that could come up in them?
What is a state legislature negotiating with a bunch of leftist ideologues? Just pass a university funding measure that bars funds from being used to pay for the DEI commissars or any of their activities.
Ayn Rand just spit coffee out her nose laughing.
Presume the Board thinks the Legislature will be Democrat after the next election and this is temporary.
when do they start dipping into their
enrollment funds ….