The College Fix

UW-Madison political scientist skeptical the professor will be friendly to conservative views, if even hired at all

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is working on its promise to secure funding and hire a “conservative political thought” professor.” However, it did not “have updates to share at this time” when asked by The College Fix.

Spokesman John Lucas said via email the school “is actively working on creation of the endowed chair.”

The flagship campus agreed to the deal as part of a broader $800 million funding deal between the regents for the University of Wisconsin system and state legislative leaders that also included cuts to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programming.

In exchange, the university system received money for pay raises and UW-Madison specifically received $347 million for a new engineering building.

The deal, first passed in Dec. 2023, requires the university to create an “endowed chair to focus on conservative political thought, classical economic theory, or classical liberalism.”

Lucas also said the university has “additional time” to complete this priority according to the agreement. The Fix asked specifically about what efforts have been made to create an endowed chair, if a donor had been secured, and a timeline of the hiring process.

However, a political science professor who has knowledge of the hiring process is skeptical that it will occur, and if it does, if the hire will be friendly to center-right views.

Political science Professor Alexander Tahk has been made aware of some “preliminary efforts” to find a chair but believes “the university has not yet raised the necessary funds for the chair.”

“Relevant departments were asked to submit names of the sort of people we might like to hire for such a position,” Tahk told The Fix via email. “But the actual hiring process for such a position has not begun.”

“I’m not sure how likely it is that the endowed chair will actually be created,” Tahk told The Fix. “If it is and depending on how the process were to work, I think it’s quite possible that a scholar hired for this endowed chair would be a critic of conservatism.”

Tahk co-authored a study on political donations among university faculty, finding that 99 percent went to Democrats or liberal groups, as The Fix previously reported.

Some of the DEI cuts have already been enacted – for example, the “Target of Opportunity” program has been eliminated.

It largely excluded non-white faculty applicants from participation, instead limiting it to “historically underrepresented groups, with a particular emphasis on race, ethnicity and gender (in disciplines where women are underrepresented).”

Chancellor Rebecca Blank unveiled the initiative in 2018 at the annual “Faculty of Color” reception. It has since been eliminated.

According to the agreement, the university system must reassign at least one-third of its employees in DEI related roles to positions focused on “academic and student success.”

University system said it is ‘in compliance’ with ban on affirmative action

The Fix reached out to University of Wisconsin Systems Media Relations Director Mark Pitsch to ask how many of these roles have been restructured so far.

“The agreement provides two years to restructure the 43 positions,” Pitsch told The Fix via email. “We are on track to do so during this period.”

Pitsch also said University of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman eliminated the use of both required and optional diversity statements on all university-designed admission applications.

The agreement requires the university’s admissions selection process to be in “strict compliance” with the Supreme Court decision against affirmative action.

“We are in compliance with the Harvard/UNC ruling,” Pitsch said when asked what changes have been made to the university’s admissions process to ensure compliance with the ruling.

The university has implemented several requirements outlined in the agreement including the creation of a module about freedom of expression, guaranteed admissions for students in the state that meet eligibility requirements and the introduction of a merit-based hiring program.

The Fix reached out via email to Republican Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly Robin Vos, who has advocated for the removal of DEI from college campuses, to ask if the legislature has put any accountability measures in place.

He did not respond to an email nor a message left with a staffer in the past two weeks from The Fix.

MORE: New research identifies more than 1,100 DEI jobs at UMichigan

IMAGE: Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin

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