David Michael Miller
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank thinks her faculty Senate is making a big mistake.
A committee of the Senate is pressing forward with a resolution condemning UW System President Ray Cross and the Board of Regents for what they perceive to be — not without justification — an abandonment of the faculty as well as the best interests of the university. The full Senate will decide on the resolution at a meeting May 2.
In the last state budget, the UW System took a $250 million budget hit, and tenure and shared governance were weakened. Cross and Blank argue that pointing this out will only further raise the hackles of the Walker administration and like-minded legislators, who may want to hit the UW even harder next year. And, in fact, Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna) called professors pushing the resolution “arrogant.” Sen. Steven Nass (R-Whitewater), predictably, charged the “radical faculty” with “backhanding the middle-class families who are pleading for controls on tuition and an end to wasteful spending in the UW System.”
Faculty Senate leaders argue that it doesn’t matter what they say, so they might just as well be honest about it. The evidence seems to support their point of view. Despite Cross’ Republican ties, generally amiable manner and caution in criticizing those who were attacking his institution, the UW took it on the chin. In this case a nice guy finished last.
The debate reflects a tension that is going on all over the place right now. It’s the same principle that divides Hillary Clinton supporters from Bernie Sanders partisans and the establishment Republicans from Donald Trump. The question is: Is it more effective to work within the system in the hopes of achieving incremental change (or less damage) or to “tell it like it is,” laying out strong positions, consequences be damned?
My own view is that good leaders shouldn’t apply their own style to the situation but rather adapt their approach to what’s needed at the time. And it seems to me that this is a time to let ’er rip.
Cross’ approach accomplished very little. A $300 million cut became a $250 million cut, which might have been what was planned by the Walker administration and Republican legislators from the start. Tenure and shared governance were substantially weakened. An attempt to rip the Wisconsin Idea right out of the statutes was stopped, but Walker’s view that the university should essentially be a big technical school is what’s prevailing right now.
Clinton might be more successful with her incremental approach if she wins the presidency, as seems likely right at the moment. But we’ll never get single-payer health insurance or a $15 minimum wage, for example, if we don’t put these things on the agenda. (Clinton has been for a $12 minimum, with caveats galore.)
This is clearly a moment in history when there is substantial public restiveness about business as usual. In fact, it’s a moment when the public recognizes that virtually every politician and public official who swears not to practice “business as usual” is bound to do exactly that. We’re peeling the onion of cynicism and we’re down to the layer where we recognize that rhetoric from mainstream leaders about changing the system is, in itself, a kind of cynical exploitation of a genuine desire for change. Establishment types like Clinton who adopt the language of more genuine movements for, say, a “political revolution,” only feed that cynicism. She would be better off not even going there.
And as for Donald Trump, well, the one good thing you might say about him is that he is blowing up the unholy alliance between cynical establishment Republicans, who only wanted more tax breaks and still weaker government, and blue-collar white voters, who thought the GOP would actually deliver on conservative social policies.
So, I agree with the radical professors who want to tell Cross and the regents that they have no confidence in their leadership. It will have no more political fallout than saying nothing, and it has the added advantage of being true. And even in this cynical season, there’s still some hope that, in the end, truth will matter.
