MADISON, Wis. — As the Joint Finance Committee, which is in the process of rewriting the governor’s state budget, prepares to take what could be some of its final votes this week, cuts are looming for the University of Wisconsin System.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said he wants to cut $32 million from the UW System in the two-year budget, which the Republican leader said matches the amount the system spends on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
UW System President Jay Rothman, who went before the Senate Committee on Universities and Revenue on Monday, told lawmakers to win the war on talent in Wisconsin, the system — financially — cannot cut its way to a better future.
“If we are going to have a vibrant Wisconsin, we need to invest in the UW System,” Rothman explained.
Though Rothman did not specifically mention DEI when cautioning against possible cuts Monday, he did address the topic head-on when asked by a Republican lawmaker.
“I am supportive of it, but I also understand that there are some issues related to it that we need to work on,” Rothman said. “We really need to ensure that we are welcoming, where each of our students can come on campuses and feel as though they belong because if we are going to attract the number of students that we need in state, we are going to have to have people that feel they belong, and that could be anything from socioeconomic status to religion to political ideology and so forth.”
State Sen. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, challenged some of those initiatives as a cover to promote certain ideologies.
“Collectively, it impacts the public’s perception of the university, and that’s where they’re saying to me, ‘Don’t give them a dime.’ I’m serious, and so when they see these things, that gets attention," Nass said.
Rothman explained to lawmakers that DEI encompasses a broad range of issues.
“Are we really going to look at and say we don’t want a women in STEM program?” Rothman asked rhetorically. “Are we really going to say that we don’t want a veteran’s program that allows our veterans to transition from a regimented military regime to a much more flexible regime — which is a bigger challenge than I understood it to be, until I talked to them? Are we really not going to have programming to assist our first-generation students, who have more courage than I could possibly imagine, to take that plunge? Those are all issues that DEI cover.”
During a press conference last week, Vos told reporters that DEI programs amount to what he believes is an “ideology.”
“For people on the left, it’s become their new religion,” Vos explained. “They no longer go to church on Sunday, but boy are they trying to make sure everybody is evangelized on campus so that there’s only one acceptable viewpoint. That’s not what I think taxpayers should be funding.”
As the Joint Finance Committee was expected to vote on the UW System budget last week, Democrat Gov. Tony Evers took to Twitter to call the potential cuts “disastrous” for the system, as he also accused Republicans of not having real or meaningful solutions to the state’s workforce struggles.
The vote, however, was delayed indefinitely. Even so, last Wednesday, the governor upped the pressure when he threatened to not sign the state budget if Republicans were to ultimately make cuts, according to a report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Republicans, who control the Legislature, have said if the governor were to veto the budget, they would likely wait until later this fall to begin work on a new spending plan.
“If, for some reason, which I can’t imagine that he would veto the largest investments in public schools, the largest investments in generations for our local governments, more money for, you know, just about every priority he has, if he would choose to veto the budget we would probably come back sometime in October, and we would take up the budget in October, and he would be the one that would have to explain to people why they are going months without the dollars coming in,” Vos told reporters during a second press conference last Wednesday ahead of the vote on a shared revenue deal.
Given the timetable legislative leaders would like to pass the budget by, it is anticipated decisions on whether to make the cuts to UW System could come later this week.