On Wisconsin

[LDAHL]

After a long battle, the Wisconsin legislature has scored a significant victory over the DEI gatekeepers in the university system. In order to get the money they wanted for buildings and pay increases, the system will have to eliminate “diversity statements” in the application process, automatically accept students in the top 10% of their high school class (5% for the flagship school) regardless of ethnicity and lower the resources available for DEI programs and personnel. This infuriated the Governor, who was unable to use Wisconsin’s bizarre line item veto to appropriate additional funds. I imagine we will see some lawsuits in the near future.

I read this morning that a bill is being proposed in the US House that would prohibit federal funding to schools that require diversity statements.

[littlebittybobby]

Ehhhh---day eat too much cheese up dere. Yup .

[jp1]

Maybe you should move to Florida. What you describe sounds like amateur hour in comparison.

[Rogar]

I had to look up what DEI is. The story I get is that the legislation freed up 800 million in staff raises and 32 million for a building project at the sacrifice of DEI functions with in the University, in line with the Supreme Court ruling on Students for Fair Admissions. Of course, the details are veiled in political word smithing, "At the same time, the deal reads that the UW “will not increase from the level currently in effect the aggregate number of positions that serve … core DEI functions,” and that “normal attrition” and “active restructuring and re-imagining” of DEI jobs will take place over two years. In short, there may be some different titles and some fewer jobs, but the idea of helping all students succeed endures."

I can't say I find any problem with anything.

[LDAHL]

Maybe you should move to Florida. What you describe sounds like amateur hour in comparison.

Well, the Wis Supreme Court also declined to hear a suit alleging that the State’s school voucher program is unconstitutional last week. The people fighting against the scourge of school choice will need to work through the Circuit and Appellate Courts as if they were common litigants.

I do think Florida jumps the shark occasionally in it’s battles with the DEI clerisy.

[jp1]

I do think Florida jumps the shark occasionally in it’s battles with the DEI clerisy.

You really are the all time master at understatement.

[Yppej]

I don’t know why they don’t do preferential admissions based on class instead. It would have largely the same effect except also help some poor whites who would then be less likely to be swayed by Trump’s politics of grievance. Can’t admit they’re wrong I guess.

[LDAHL]

I don’t know why they don’t do preferential admissions based on class instead. It would have largely the same effect except also help some poor whites who would then be less likely to be swayed by Trump’s politics of grievance. Can’t admit they’re wrong I guess.

So you think immersion in the grievance-free culture of higher education will inoculate students from Trump’s blandishments?

[LDAHL]

You really are the all time master at understatement.

To my mind, a little excess might be understandable in limiting the power of a growing profession that wants to control who gets to teach, who gets to learn and what they are taught. But I do think modern American conservatism can do better than simply combat the silliest ideological manifestations.

[Simone]

I don’t know why they don’t do preferential admissions based on class instead.

As our country seems to be tearing apart along class lines, and since class so often correlates with race, I wonder along with you. As a start, I would like to see low SES children get the best possible educations in grades PK-12, using voucher systems if necessary. After that, and at the least, they then should have the same number of legs up through preferential admission as legacy students do.

[iris lilies]

I can’t imagine how we would define “class “in any reasonable way for purposes of handing out, well, anything including matriculation tickets.


Colleges all over the country are experiencing grave drops in enrollment. They are begging for students and our closing departments, laying off long-term employees, etc. I am not at all concerned about competitive enrollment in the tiny percentage of colleges that are Ivy League and upper echelon. It’s just not something that I think affects America all that much, although if we were going to really do it right, it would be a merit-based system, that would be for the good of the country.


Economically disadvantaged students have plenty of opportunity to attend college, a decent college, one that provides a solid education. There’s nothing wrong with state schools. Small liberal arts colleges can be pretty decent.


All of the striving for those competitive few spots at Harvard and etc. isn’t something that concerns me much.

[LDAHL]

I can’t imagine how we would define “class “in any reasonable way for purposes of handing out, well, anything including matriculation tickets.




More difficult than racial reductionism on the face of it, but still doable given the imagined stakes. Think AP courses in Marxist/Leninist Theory. Rich kids writing application essays about their summer working in the slaughterhouse. Steel toe boots as cultural appropriation. DEI administrators replaced by Teamster organizers. Hollywood types photoshopping their kids into coal mines instead of rowing shells. Plastic surgery to add callouses. Elizabeth Warren claiming to be a welder. Stuff like that.