Report: UW-Madison Alums Threatened to Pull Support if School Removed Campus Lincoln Statue

Report: UW-Madison Alums Threatened to Pull Support if School Removed Campus Lincoln Statue

This was a hot topic last spring when the left was on a statue-destroying spree. It’s good to know that alums stepped in and made their voices heard.

The College Fix reports:

UW-Madison alumni threatened to pull support if campus moved embattled Lincoln statue, emails show

As mobs tore down statues all over America last summer to protest the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd at the hands of police, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank’s inbox filled up with messages from angry alumni demanding she keep a statue of Abraham Lincoln on campus.

Between June and November, Blank’s office received 192 emails, 80 percent of which supported keeping the UW’s landmark Lincoln statue on Bascom Hill, according to a review of the emails obtained by The College Fix through a public records act request.

Blank has consistently said, despite Lincoln’s “complex” legacy, which “contains actions which, 150 years later, appear flawed,” she opposes removing the statue.

“Chancellor Blank considers a wide range of factors when considering an issue like this, including input from current students, faculty, staff, alumni and others,” university spokeswoman Meredith McGlone told The College Fix in an email.

Of the emailers supporting Lincoln, two dozen specifically threatened to withhold donations or other sorts of funds from the university if it were to give in to demands of activist students who called for the Lincoln statue to be removed.

“I will cease immediately all donations to the university and its student organizations” if the statue were to be removed, wrote one alumnus, adding, “I will also cancel my season tickets to the UW football and men’s basketball teams. And finally, I will engage in a very public and messy campaign to encourage my fellow alumni to do the same.”

“Should you give in, that will end my support of the UW, much as that action would break my heart,” wrote another emailer. “My donations are done,” wrote another. “Only shutting off the money flow causes University leadership to listen.”

Others threatened to withhold support of sports teams.

“My wife and I will immediately discontinue our support of the Wisconsin football program and indeed will have spent the last dollar we will ever spend in the city of Madison,” emailer Greg Sinner wrote. “Moreover, we will become vocal advocates for taking the same actions among our friends and associates, many of whom are Wisconsin season ticket holders.”

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