In a big win for the future of our state and education system on Tuesday, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced that the university's Division of Diversity, Equity and Education Achievement will close.

For years, Assembly Republicans have vowed to work to eliminate DEI from our university system. Our message is the same now as it was back in 2023 when we froze UW from hiring more DEI positions. As I said in 2023: Our caucus objective has always been aimed at dismantling the bureaucracy and division related to DEI and reprioritizing our universities towards an emphasis on what matters — student success and achievement.

This win is especially important after the shocking audit from this past April, where we discovered the University of Wisconsin System campuses do not track how much they spend on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, or whether the millions spent on these initiatives pay off - therefore proving to be a waste of taxpayer money.

I applaud the decision by Chancellor Mnookin and I am glad to see the UW System finally getting rid of this awful waste of taxpayer dollars. We need less indoctrination and more effort to provide students with usable skills and knowledge to help them get a good paying job.

Full Story: UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin to close DEI division, move programming elsewhere

In the budget, we provided only a fraction of the funding requested by Gov. Evers and secured other critical reforms to the UW System such as:

• Position Cap — Full time positions at UW System have increased over time even as enrollment has declined. This provision puts a permanent cap on position creation at the system.
• Transfer Credits — Requires UW to implement policies to allow all credits for core general educational courses to be transferable between institutions in UW System.
• Faculty Credit Hours — Requires UW faculty to teach a minimum number of credit hours.