"A new report is shedding more light on why UW-Madison’s director of Division of Diversity, Equity & Educational Achievement lost his job."

"The report, which was released Friday, details how former DDEEA chief LaVar Charleston spent millions of dollars, handed out bonuses and raises, and never fully communicated any of it to anyone else at the school.... But perhaps the most damning part of the report came from what Charleston spent on training, travel, and events. Which totals over $2.5 million last year alone.... The report does not detail where those trips or training took place, or who was allowed to go. UW-Madison removed Charleston from his job at the DDEEA in January, but did not fire him. He’s currently on leave from his $133,000 job as a professor. He made over $300,000 as DEI boss. The report also details how the university’s governance system allowed Charleston to spend so much money without anyone knowing until afterwards...."

The MacIver Report reports.

Here's the Fox News report: "University of Wisconsin-Madison's ex-diversity officer scrutinized over spending, judgment amid DEI crackdown/Lavar Charleston was removed from his role as chief diversity officer in January, but continues to serve as a faculty member." 

Sunrise — at 7 — with the UW Marching Band.

It's "On, Wisconsin!" and then random music provided by the silhouetted couple's boombox:

Then the band was playing what to me sounds like random notes, and when I played the video on my desktop just now, Meade says "Send me that one," and I was puzzled....

I'm told it's "Hail Purdue," and I get it. Meade grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue is his original home team, and he wants to send the video to someone in West Lafayette. Don't you think it's nice that the band plays the enemy's fight song? It's a tradition, a welcome, played pre-game.

"The case has garnered national attention both for the salaciousness of a high-profile university official making pornographic movies and publicly talking about it..."

"... and the questions it raises about free speech rights. [Joe] Gow argued that his videos and two e-books he and his wife, Carmen, have published about their experiences in adult films are protected by the First Amendment. 'You don’t need the First Amendment to protect "The Star Spangled Banner,"' Gow’s attorney, Mark Leitner, told the committee. 'You don’t need the First Amendment to protect easy and comforting speech. It’s exactly the opposite. We need the First Amendment precisely when the danger of stifling, controversial, unpopular speech is at its highest. And that’s what we have here.'... The school is pushing to fire Gow for unethical conduct, insubordination for refusing to cooperate with an investigation and violating computer policies.... Gow has maintained that he and his wife produced the pornographic materials on their own time. He insists the videos and the books never mentioned UW-La Crosse or his role at the university...."

From "Porn-making former University of Wisconsin campus leader argues for keeping his teaching job" (AP)." Gow, formerly chancellor of UW-La Crosse, made his argument to the personnel committee of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.

I don't know if these free-speech arguments garnered the attention of the regents. We're told they "asked no questions."

At the Moral Urgency Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

The photo — showing the University of Wisconsin's central campus at night — was taken by my son Chris.

And here's another Chris pic that has an animal theme (see the kittycat?):

A new front in the battle against affirmative action?

I'm reading "Lawsuit: Northwestern’s law school is biased against White men in hiring/The complaint alleges that the private university’s law school gives hiring preference to 'mediocre' women and applicants of color" (WaPo).

A lawsuit filed Tuesday against Northwestern University opened a new front in the battle against affirmative action....

“For decades, left-wing faculty and administrators have been thumbing their noses at federal anti-discrimination statutes,” contends the suit, which was filed Tuesday in federal district court in Illinois. “They do this by hiring women and racial minorities with mediocre and undistinguished records over white men who have better credentials, better scholarship, and better teaching ability.”...

The suit names three White men it says were not hired despite strong qualifications, and names four Black women and one Black man who it alleges were offered faculty positions because of their race and/or gender, painting several of these academics in harshly unflattering terms.

This sounds not new but old to me, because I remember when the University of Wisconsin Law School was sued in exactly this way. The case went to trial, and I testified, because I'd served on the Appointments Committee. This was many years ago, and the jury found in our favor. It's very difficult to look at particular individuals who were hired and compare them to individuals who were not hired. This was decades ago, and the relevant case law has evolved since then.

Eugene Volokh is not one of the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit, but the complaint contains allegations about him.

"Despite a violent clash with police in Madison on Wednesday, pro-Palestinian encampments continued Thursday..."

"... at both the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at UW-Milwaukee.... Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have vowed to remain for as long as it takes until schools meet their demands. University leaders are balancing students’ right to protest with a desire to minimize disruptions to their campuses and enforce a state rule banning encampments."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Here's the statement put out yesterday by the UW-Madison chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin. It's painstakingly balanced. Excerpt:

At the top of The Washington Post website: "Police detain a demonstrator at University of Wisconsin-Madison."

 

The headline to the left of that photo goes to the article "Tension between protesters, police continues on campuses across U.S." Excerpt:

"The University of Wisconsin-Madison is at the center of another controversy this week over its diversity training program...."

"The controversy could not come at a worse time for the university, which recently agreed (after considerable debate and pushback) to cut down on its diversity-related materials in exchange for $800 million in funding from the state. The board originally refused the money rather than cut back on the training before finally yielding to the pressure. The immediate responsibility for the training material falls on the shoulders of [law school dean Daniel Tokaji] whose staff approved this mandatory training and presumably reviewed the material in advance. If they did not, they are equally at fault...."

Writes Jonathan Turley, in "Wisconsin-Madison Under Fire Over Mandatory Anti-Racism Training."

I've written about this controversy a couple times already — here and here — but I'm blogging it again for 2 reasons:

"It's totalitarian indoctrination, of course, and it's meant to be."

Writes Glenn Reynolds, about the mandatory DEI training for first-year law students at University of Wisconsin Law School (where I was a lawprof from 1984 to 2017).

Reynolds observes: "This sort of thing also creates a pervasively hostile educational environment on account of race, as courts are starting to notice."

He links to TaxProf Blog, which copies the text of Alan Rozenshtein at Volokh Conspiracy: "Mandatory DEI Trainings and Academic Freedom":

"You distance yourself from 'other' white people. You see only unapologetic bigots, card-carrying white supremacists and white people outside your own circle as 'real racists.'"

"You put other white people down, trash their work or behavior, or otherwise dismiss them. You righteously consider yourselves white people who have evolved beyond our racist conditioning. This is another level of denial. There are no 'exceptional white people.' You may have attended many anti-racism workshops; you may not be shouting racist epithets or actively discriminating against people of color, but you still experience privilege based on your white skin color. You benefit from this system of oppression and advantage no matter what your intentions are. This distancing serves only to divide you from potential allies and limit your own learning."

That's the "reality check" on item #21 of a DEI handout called "Common Racist Attitudes and Behaviors That Indicate a Detour or Wrong Turn into White Guilt, Denial or Defensiveness."

"My wife and I live in a country where we have a first amendment. We’re dealing with consensual adult sexuality. The regents are overreacting.”

"They’re certainly not adhering to their own commitment to free speech or the first amendment.... I got an email last night saying I was terminated. I wish I would have had the opportunity to have a hearing. When reasonable people understand what my wife and I are creating, it calms them down."

Said Former University of Wisconsin-La Crosse chancellor Joe Gow, quoted in "Wisconsin university chancellor claims he was fired for appearing in porn videos/Joe Gow says that his free speech rights were violated after the Universities of Wisconsin board of regents decided to fire him" (The Guardian).

"If you can’t bear walking past a rock someone called a dirty name 100 years ago, how are you going to deal with life?"

"It surely feels like being on the right side of social justice these days means shielding Black students even from all but nonexistent harms while essentially telling Jewish students, who are being actually assailed verbally, to just grow up. But to train young people, or any people, to think of themselves as weak is a form of abuse.... [A]nyone who has made the mistake of thinking that a healthy Jewish soul must endure ongoing calls for the extermination of Israel might at least consider that a healthy Black soul can endure a sour tweet, a talk by someone who has opposed racial preferences and even the Mandarin expression 'nèi ge.'"

Writes John McWhorter, in "Black Students Are Being Trained to Think They Can’t Handle Discomfort" (NYT).

The rock in question is that boulder the University of Wisconsin removed from Observatory Hill 2 years ago, which I blogged here. I said:

"An estimated 60 to 80 people were on the [UW Memorial Union] pier when it collapsed, police and fire officials said..."

"... but only those on the end of the pier, where it makes a 90-degree turn to the east, went into the water, said Debra Drewek, a retired nurse who happened to be at the Terrace taking pictures when the collapse occurred.... 'There were way too many kids on the piers. They were packed,' Drewek said. 'There was no warning. All of a sudden it went down and people were in the water.' Many swam to shore while others clung to the pier that had collapsed or to the pier that remained standing.... The video shows dozens of people falling into the water or riding the pier down as it collapsed.... 'A lot of kids were crying because they had laptops, wallets and phones underwater,' Drewek said."

From "Pier collapse at UW-Madison Union Terrace injures 20 and sends one to the hospital" (Kenosha News).

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"Wisconsin has long been unique in allowing graduates of its two law schools to become licensed to practice law without taking the bar exam..."

"... if they take a required set of courses. This 'diploma privilege' eliminates a significant barrier to entry–the bar exam–which disproportionately affects people from less advantaged backgrounds and historically underrepresented groups. UW Law graduates had a 100% bar admission rate in each of the last two years. Due to an obscure change in the methodology, however, our ranking in the bar admissions metric fell from No. 6 to No. 45 in 2022. We raised this issue with U.S News in November 2022, pointing out that this change unfairly hurts schools in states that provide greater access to the practice of law, but they have given no indication that they plan to fix the problem...."

From "UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL WILL NOT PARTICIPATE IN U.S. NEWS SURVEY," a statement from the dean, Dan Tokaji (at the Law School website).

Do you think Wisconsin is "unfairly hurt" by a methodology that mutes the effect of this unique privilege that our legislature has bestowed on our graduates? 

Notice that there are 2 aspects of this argument against the U.S. News ranking. One is that we're not getting enough advantage from the diploma privilege. The other is that the privilege is especially beneficial to "people from less advantaged backgrounds and historically underrepresented groups," who, it is suggested, tend to have more of a problem passing the bar exam. The idea is that we have the privilege and it should boost our rank because it's helping the right students, the ones whom life has not otherwise privileged. 

Do law professors at other schools agree that Wisconsin should get a great advantage in the rank because of the diploma privilege? Would they like their state to institute a diploma privilege?

The University of Wisconsin marching band plays the "Star-Spangled Banner" today, at 4:45, on the practice field by Lake Mendota.

 

Video by Meade.

"He started playing guitar at 13 and attended the University of Wisconsin, where he performed at coffeehouses."

"He was a student there when he met Bob Dylan, an itinerant folk singer traveling through. 'Dylan crashed with me for a few weeks in Madison on his way from Hibbing, Minnesota, to New York,' Mr. Kalb told AM New York in 2013. 'We had so much fun, I dropped out and followed him.'"

From "Danny Kalb, Guitarist Who Gave Blues-Rock an Edge, Dies at 80/His 1960s band, the Blues Project, won a following with a driving, experimental approach to traditional material that was anything but purist" (NYT).

"... Professor Dan Epps... hypothesized that Yale plans to make major changes to admissions in the wake of the expected Supreme Court affirmative action rulings, 'and they are doing this proactively'..."

"'... rather than dealing with any rankings implications later.' [Some] students [agreed and] speculated... that not having to worry about LSAT and GPA data dragging down its U.S. News rank will allow YLS to either (a) continue to use racial preferences in admissions or (b) water down its academic credentials. Furthermore... some sources suggested that Dean Gerken withdrew from the rankings because she feared that YLS was about to lose the #1 spot it has held for more than three decades—and she didn’t want that to happen on her watch.... One professor told me that... there was no sense within the faculty that YLS’s #1 ranking was at imminent risk. Instead... 'This is clearly part of a larger and deeper commitment on her part toward leadership in the law school industry when it comes to fairness, welfare, and equity.'"

From "Yale And Harvard Law To U.S. News: Drop Dead/Two leading law schools have withdrawn from the influential law school rankings; will others follow?" by David Lat (Substack).

I remember when U.S. News first started this ranking. It was 1987, and I was 3 years into teaching at the University of Wisconsin Law School. From day one, the professors at my school were hostile to the rankings. We had our values, and how dare U.S. News attempt to influence our choices. 

Here's how the rankings looked in 1987. We were #20 at that point — the point when the game began. A decade later we were struggling for position in the 30s and we currently stand at #43.

"Even a holiday which celebrates debauchery, irreverence, and immature or dark humor should have no place for words or actions of hate."

"This deranged individual was looking to create fear and anxiety. We don't believe that he is a student, rather an outside provocateur."

Said Rabbi Mendel Matusof said, quoted in "UW-Madison releases statement after Adolf Hitler costume seen on State Street" (WKOW).

Here's a Reddit discussion — replete with a photograph of the person wearing a Hilter costume on State Street. I found that via this other Reddit discussion, where somebody says, "If it's any consolation, I was told by a bartender on State Street that the dude got his ass kicked."

UPDATE: Channel 3000 quotes the police report, which makes 3 important points:

1. Wearing a Hitler costume is protected speech, so no crime has been reported. 

2. Even though "no reports received by MPD rise to the level of a prosecutable crime," it nevertheless identified the person and interviewed him. 

3. It turns out that this person "has a cognitive impairment due to a past traumatic brain injury."

ALSO: Who called the police on a guy in a bad costume? Did anyone call the police on the person who beat up this mentally impaired person?

A UW student from China was jumped and punched and kicked by "four tall men in athletic wear."

I'm reading in the student newspaper The Daily Cardinal, in "Updated: Asian international student assaulted near campus Tuesday, campus community rallies to #StopAsianHate." The quoted description comes from the Cardinal, and is based on this security camera photo. You can ask yourself why the newspaper chooses not to guess the race of the alleged attackers.

The Madison Police Department reported that the Tuesday night assault was the third of its kind to occur in the downtown area in the past week, though the two other incidents did not involve students and the “victims were from various backgrounds,” the university said in an email. 

The department suspects the same group of people were responsible for these attacks, which appear to be random in nature. In an incident report released Friday morning, the department stated that detectives do not have any evidence that leads them to conclude that the incidents were motivated by race.

The victim himself, Wentao Zhou, did characterize the attack in racial terms — when he posted on Weibo (Chinese social media). That post was shared — in translation — at Reddit, where I saw it 3 days ago:

Sunrise series.

As you can see in picture #3, I had a lot of company this morning. University students, I presume. There's lots of graduation activity in Madison today. Maybe these kids had been out all night, because they were firmly in place when I arrived at the location at 5:25. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop on them. I had AirPods in and music playing, but I couldn't help picking up that they were snacking on Cinnamon Toast Cheerios and discussing other cereals — specifically Cap'n Crunch and Lucky Charms.

Speaking of lucky and music and the sun, as I write this, I'm listening to...