Oct. 24, 2023
The current state budget included a pay raise for University of Wisconsin employees. They’ll get it as soon as the university eliminates its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusions (DEI) programs.
The UW, however, is not budging. Meanwhile, lawmakers are under pressure to approve the pay raises anyway. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is offering a compromise.
.@UWsystem refuses to eliminate #DEI in exchange for faculty pay raises. @SpeakerVos says he’s willing to compromise. Give the legislature authority over creating new university positions (like it has with all other agencies), and it’s willing to approve the raises. #WIright pic.twitter.com/e38uV7IOKU
— MacIver News Service (@NewsMacIver) October 17, 2023
Right now, the UW is the only state agency that gets to create new positions without any oversight from the legislature. That’s how it ended up with so many DEI positions in the first place, and why the number of administrators has doubled over the past 15 years.
Vos says if the UW needed the legislature’s approval to create new positions, just like all other state agencies, then lawmakers could be convinced to approve the pay raises even with current DEI programs in place.
Unfortunately, the UW does not seem interested. In fact, it plans to increase DEI with or without the raises.