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DEI golden calf worship faces minimal limits at University of Wisconsin

‘If people think we are imposing litmus tests on them at that stage in the employment process, we are not being inclusive,’ President Jay Rothman said

Applicants for jobs with the University of Wisconsin system will no longer be required to prostrate themselves and make an offering of wokeness to the golden calf of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” during the first stage of the process, President Jay Rothman announced recently. However, President Rothman kept the door open for interviewers to still use DEI statements to screen out applicants.

President Rothman (pictured) made the announcement last Thursday during a state Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities hearing about intellectual and political diversity.

“If people think we are imposing litmus tests on them at that stage in the employment process, we are not being inclusive,” he said, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. “We need to be inclusive.”

Intentional or not, “that stage,” underscores the gaping hole Rothman is leaving open to litmus steps at other stages.

“UW officials have no plans to back budget cuts for positions or programming dedicated to DEI, Rothman told reporters Thursday,” according to Wisconsin Public Radio. “He also said the elimination of DEI statements would not preclude university officials from asking about the promotion of diversity and inclusion during job interviews.”

The announcement follows a threat by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to cut funding for DEI positions. Vos recently “called for cutting about $14 million in funding for University of Wisconsin System positions focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, saying those workers are ‘burrowed in like a tick on every single college campus,’” the State Journal reported.

“Everybody should be allowed to succeed based on their merit, and the quality of the work that they produce,” Vos told radio host Jay Weber recently. “But what we’re doing instead on campus is we are instilling in kids, students, that the only criteria that matters to your success in society today is the color of your parents’ skin.”

The public university system has faced criticism for its lack of free speech and intellectual diversity on campus. The recent results of a free speech survey across the UW system found that students were not comfortable voicing their opinions in the classroom for fear of social retribution, as The College Fix previously reported.

“This survey confirms what we students have known since stepping on campus: the UW System and its faculty curate a culture in which conservative students are pressured to conform to the majority,” UW Madison College Republicans Chairwoman Ali Beneker told The Fix at the time.

MORE: UW-Whitewater president resigns over GOP free speech survey

IMAGE: University of Wisconsin/YouTube

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About the Author
Associate Editor
Matt has previously worked at Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action and Turning Point USA. While in college, he wrote for The College Fix as well as his college newspaper, The Loyola Phoenix. He holds a B.A. from Loyola University-Chicago and an M.A. from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He lives in northwest Indiana with his family.