Why don’t UW employees get a raise? We’re just pawns in GOP’s war against DEI. | Opinion

When I learned that a Wisconsin legislative committee approved a pay raise for every state employee except UW-System employees, I found myself filled with the feeling normally reserved for NFC Championship games featuring the Packers and whoever beats them. Why not me? I asked. The answer, it turns out, was simple: I’m part of the “problem.”

You see, I’m a professor who works, and will continue to, until retirement, at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Republican leaders believe people like me are secretly teaching white students to feel bad about themselves. They believe our state universities are using “diversity” programs to waste taxpayer money on … well, that’s where this gets a little murky.

None of them actually gives any examples of which diversity, equity and inclusion programs they have such a problem with. Is it our commitment to ensuring disabled students can achieve success in our courses? Is it our efforts to develop campus programs that help every student feel supported and respected, regardless of their skin color?

Wisconsin Republicans want to erase DEI from education

Here’s the bottom line: for the Wisconsin GOP, diversity, equity and inclusion are dangerous words that must be eradicated from education.

In order to achieve this goal, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Republicans have decided the best approach is to deny a hard-earned raise of 4%, not even enough to cover last year’s inflation, to not just professors, but everyone who works in higher education.

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That means our custodial staff (Joel: thank you for letting me into my office when I forgot my keys!) do not get a raise. Our administrative assistants do not get a raise (hello, Tanja, you are wonderful and I appreciate all your work!). Our advisors, who help your children navigate courses and student loans, do not get a raise (Sara, Keith, Stacy, and all the rest: you are incredible at what you do).

And here’s the wildest part. Ready? Tanja, our hard-working administrative assistant, who does everything and more on our campus? She’s not involved in DEI programs. Tom, our building technician? He doesn’t have time to poison your children’s minds because he’s already working his butt off because the 10-years-long UW System tuition freeze effectively cut our budget on top of state budget cuts.

As for me, I’m just a composition teacher who occasionally gets a Creative Writing class. I’m more focused on helping students read and write at the college level. To be honest? If I could indoctrinate your children, I would use that power to make sure every single student always conducts thorough research before they believe anything they see on Twitter. I think we can all at the very least agree that Twitter – sorry, now it’s called X – is garbage.

UW employees merely a pawn in culture war

Some people don’t care about all this, and I get that. We live in a state that’s grown pretty accustomed to Republicans doing whatever the heck they want. But what drives me crazy is that all of this is a political stunt, and we all just pretend like it’s not. Vos isn’t denying us a raise because he actually thinks universities are wasteful. Most of the Republicans running our state graduated from a UW university! The truth is that Vos is using our highly respected universities as political pawns to wage a culture war.

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It’s all he has. It’s all the Wisconsin GOP has. They will not fund education (Gov. Tony Evers did that himself with a line-item veto). They will not address the critical childcare shortage. They will not fund any sort of paid family leave for new parents who want to return to the workforce.

Instead, the GOP manipulates voters because Vos and his colleagues are intellectually bankrupt. Right now, their priorities are laws against transgender people, attacks on democratically elected Supreme Court justices, abortion bans, book bans, word bans, and public feuds with any other boogeyman-of-the-moment they can trot out. They do this because they do not respect you enough to offer real ideas to make Wisconsin better.

And it’s not enough to deny us raises. Now, Robin Vos and the GOP want everyone to believe what they’re really concerned about isn’t DEI at all … it’s our rogue “ideological agenda,” which sounds nice and scary. Republicans are manipulating Wisconsinites into hating me, hating Tanja and Joel and Stacy and everyone else who proudly calls the Universities of Wisconsin our home.

Ken Brosky is an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.