CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – We were told that faculty raises for the University of Wisconsin were critical. That we’d lose top professors, and the research dollars that they bring, to other schools if our compensation didn’t keep up.
And we were told that a new engineering building was also critical. Top students and faculty wouldn’t come to Madison if we didn’t have a shiny new building to wow them with.
And mean ole’ Assembly Speaker Robin Vos was holding up funding for both because he wanted the University of Wisconsin to get out of the Diversity, Equity ad Inclusion business. And this was a fight of the University’s choosing, when three years ago students were required to pass a DEI course; one credit of being taught that whites have privilege and that they are the oppressors of non-whites. We were told at the time that a UW degree would have no value in the real world if its graduates weren’t indoctrinated.
So a deal was offered. The pay raises and the engineering building would go through, but the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs would be frozen for two years and the 45 DEI employees would be reassigned to other areas of the University system.
Surely you realize what a lousy deal this is if you’re a skeptic of DEI, like me. The pay raises and the new building are permanent victories. The changes to the DEI program are temporary. I, for one, am shocked that DEI has more than 45 employees to begin with.
And yet, the deal, even with the supper of UW System President Jay Rothman, was voted down by the Board of Regents, 9-8.
The vote is revealing. You were told pay raises and the engineering building were critical to the University’s future. Of course that’s not true. The number one goal, on which there can be no compromise, is the indoctrination of students. The pay raises and the new building may never happen. One is the subject of a dubious lawsuit, the other will be subject to the whims of the next state budget cycle.
What’s the lesson here? That the false narrative of whites as masters and oppressors and and people of color as oppressed victims must continue to be taught, unabated, at all costs.
Chris Conley
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