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\u201cEducation is a right. Not just for the rich and white. We\u2019re defending DEI,\u201d chanted University of Wisconsin\u2013Milwaukee (UWM) students on a bitterly cold afternoon in February 2026. They were protesting the proposed merging of eight of its student centers\u2014intended for women, Black students, Latine students, Southeast Asian students, LGBTQ+ students, veterans and military-enrolled students, commuters, and first-generation college students, respectively\u2014into a single resource hub.<\/p>\n
Protesting students were concerned that the move would dilute the culturally-specific services each center provides and diminish these students\u2019 sense of belonging on campus. During the protest, UW\u2013Milwaukee student Juan Luis Flores put the proposed consolidation in the context of the school\u2019s 5 percent tuition increase<\/a>: \u201cYou cannot have more money this year taken directly from student pockets and then claim you do not have the money to fund these centers.\u201d<\/p>\n Rachel Buff, professor of history at UW\u2013Milwaukee Rachel Buff who has written previously<\/a> for The Progressive<\/em>, says students stood up for the centers at the listening sessions. They described how the Roberto Hern\u00e1ndez Center<\/a> helped their parents translate immigration paperwork and the Women’s Center gave them space to talk about sexual assault. But instead of seeing the unique importance of each center, the UW system prioritizes efficiency.. \u201cIn general, this is about alignment with corporate prerogatives which come from the [University of Wisconsin] System and the consultants they pay so much money to,\u201d Buff says. \u201cMy students are worried about the grocery bill, so to take it out on them is really unethical.\u201d<\/p>\n UW\u2013Milwaukee\u2019s\u00a0 cultural centers, including the Roberto Hern\u00e1ndez Center<\/a> which was founded in 1970 to serve the Latine community, were created by and for students. The reason the university takes issue with these centers, Buff says, is that \u201cthey\u2019re essentially bottom-up because students have demanded them. They\u2019re democratic in a way that the university is not comfortable with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Abigail Nye, the reference & instruction archivist at UW\u2013Milwaukee, says the consolidation is \u201can erasure of the history of activism\u201d that led to the formation of the cultural centers. \u201cI have the benefit of having all of the photographs, newspaper articles, video footage, and all the other documentation<\/a> that shows how the students, for the past fifty years, have really fought for these centers, fought for their services, fought for the legitimacy of the centers within the institution.\u201d Nye says the consolidation \u201cfeels like an institutional betrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n In May, after months of listening sessions and community input, the school announced the merger would be delayed<\/a> until fall 2027. Elise Texidor, a UW-Milwaukee student who attended one of these sessions, says school administration cited \u201cfederal pressures\u201d as one of the reasons for their decision to ultimately move forward with the consolidation.<\/p>\n Employees like Buff and Nye have watched the slow erosion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and the corporatization of the UW system<\/a> for decades. But since President Donald Trump took office for a second term, the UW system has accelerated its disinvestment from DEI programs, scholarships, and initiatives. These changes across the UW system\u2019s thirteen campuses, are shrinking students\u2019 educational opportunities, eroding academic freedom, and, as several UW faculty and staff tell The Progressive<\/em>, effectively \u201ccomplying in advance\u201d with the Trump Administration\u2019s all-out attack on DEI and public education.<\/p>\n \u201cMuch like Act 10<\/a>, where Wisconsin was a test case for getting rid of collective bargaining for public unions, what\u2019s happening now is a test case again for how the right can engage in backdoor attacks in purple states to undermine academic freedom,\u201d says a faculty member at UW\u2013Eau Claire who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. Wisconsin\u2019s Act 10<\/a> was a controversial 2011 law that greatly reduced<\/a> the bargaining power of most public employee unions in the state by narrowing what they were allowed to negotiate down to only base wages, excluding health insurance, pension contributions, and other workplace policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many college students and faculty are troubled by the ways that Wisconsin schools are starting to increasingly look like those in Florida and Texas. In Florida, DEI initiatives were banned<\/a> from the state college system. The University of Texas at Austin restructured<\/a> race, ethnic, and gender studies programs to a single department and the system\u2019s Board of Regents approved limits on teaching topics deemed \u201cunnecessary controversial subjects<\/a>\u201d by conservative politicians\u2014a term left undefined in the policy, but speculated to encompass race, sexuality, and gender orientation.<\/p>\n In Wisconsin, a Republican-backed constitutional amendment on the ballot this November<\/a> would remove DEI from all state agencies. The constitutional amendment adds urgency to what is already a contentious race for Wisconsin governor, and, if approved, would \u201csend us back to the pre-Civil Rights eara, possibly further\u201d State Senator Dora Drake, a Democrat from Milwaukee, told<\/a> the Wisconsin Examiner<\/em>. Republican legislators have increasingly turned to constitutional amendments to circumvent the veto power of Democratic Governor Tony Evers, and they\u2019ve been successful in cutting DEI through other anti-democratic means.\u00a0<\/p>\n To more fully understand the political climate around DEI in the UW system, \u201cyou need to take it back to 2023 and the deal that Jay Rothman cut with Robin Vos,\u201d Jon Shelton, a professor at UW\u2013Green Bay and president of the Wisconsin division of the American Federation of Teachers, tells The Progressive<\/em>. In December 2023, Rothman, president of the UW Board of Regents, and Vos, the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, orchestrated what\u2019s known as \u201cthe DEI deal.\u201d The agreement eliminated<\/a> DEI positions across the system in exchange for staff pay raises that had already been signed<\/a> into law several months prior.<\/p>\n Vos called<\/a> the decision \u201cjust the first step in what will be our continuing efforts to eliminate these cancerous DEI practices on UW campuses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat was really the first moment where you could see the state legislature drive that political wedge between people in the state of Wisconsin,\u201d says Shelton. \u201cRothman capitulated, [even though] this was money that had already been allocated [in the budget].\u201d The DEI deal came on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s decision<\/a> in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard<\/em> to end race-based college admissions<\/a>. \u201cAll of the attacks on DEI at the federal level have just made it easier for actors like Vos to try and push for this,\u201d Shelton adds.<\/p>\n Since 2023, UW faculty and staff have reported growing hostility from administrators regarding any programs or initiatives that serve diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. One former employee of the Department of Equity, Inclusion, and Employee Wellbeing (EIEW) within UW\u2013Madison\u2019s Office of Human Resources describes being forced out of their job before the entire department was sunset<\/a> in October 2025.<\/p>\n UW-Madison\u2019s EIEW worked to improve retention of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and LGBTQ+ employees through initiatives like monthly gatherings for BIPOC employees and compiled annual well-being reports from participants. The latest numbers from 2024 show that faculty and staff of color made up only 19.6 percent of the employee population<\/a> at UW\u2013Madison. In 2020, only 3.2 percent of faculty members were Black, a disparity that professor emerita Gloria Ladson Billings has attributed<\/a> to the lack of a retention policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the DEI deal, the former staff member with the EIEW told The Progressive<\/em> they received messages from vulnerable employees concerned the DEI programs would be cut. In April 2025, the monthly meetings for BIPOC and women of color were indeed canceled<\/a> and the EIEW web page devoted to defining terms like racism, sexism, and belonging was deleted. They watched as coworkers resigned because of a hostile environment created by leadership who would \u201cquestion our competence, our dignity, our schooling, our experience on our resumes.\u201d Last fall, UW-Madison shut down the entire EIEW department.<\/p>\n Administrators are now reorganizing departments \u201cwith surgical care,\u201d says Brandon Thomas, an associate professor of psychology at UW\u2013Whitewater. In October 2023, just two months before the DEI deal, the school dissolved its Office of Student Diversity, Engagement, and Success<\/a>. Later, Thomas says a seemingly benign initiative called the Underrepresented Faculty Mentorship Program was rebranded to the Faculty Mentorship Program.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thomas, who is mixed-race, says he has benefited from the university\u2019s DEI-related programs.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s really difficult to see opportunities that I had, some even twenty years ago, that no longer exist for students,\u201d he says. \u201cIt feels like there are all these doors closing behind me. There aren\u2019t a lot of people from underrepresented groups here. The institution tends to spit out people from underrepresented groups pretty quickly, and it\u2019s an often uphill battle to get people to care.\u201d<\/p>\n Though some of these changes have made local news, many things go unreported, like the unannounced cancellation of diversity awards and training programs. In 2025, the UW system stopped granting the P.B. Poorman Award<\/a> for outstanding achievement on behalf of LGBTQ+ people. The annual award was established in 2008 in honor of Poorman, who taught at UW\u2013Whitewater and played a key role in supporting LGBTQ+ inclusion efforts within the university system. There was no money attached to this award\u2014just institutional recognition for good work.<\/p>\n William Dirienzo, who teaches physics at UW\u2013Green Bay and received<\/a> the P.B. Poorman Award in 2024, says the elimination of the award \u201cseemed like a pretty thinly veiled excuse\u201d for not wanting to \u201cdraw negative attention\u201d to the school by granting a DEI award. The award was a small way of \u201crecognizing people\u2019s work when so many people across all of our universities go way over and above job descriptions and aren\u2019t appropriately compensated for that,\u201d says Dirienzo.<\/p>\n The anonymous non-tenured instructor at UW\u2013Eau Claire describes how there are shrinking opportunities for teaching and professional development related to DEI. UW\u2013Eau Claire, they say, is one of the few schools in the country where every employee is evaluated<\/a> based on their contributions to what the school calls Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) goals. Jodi Thesing-Ritter<\/a> ran the Center for EDI Training, Development, and Education, but after she retired, the role was never refilled. \u201cI found those trainings very valuable for me as a tool to improve my teaching, and I mourn their loss,\u201d the anonymous instructor reflects.<\/p>\n In the past year, campuses have canceled events like UW\u2013Madison\u2019s Diversity Forum<\/a>, a conference on equity and inclusion that had been running for more than twenty years. There are fears the system-wide Women\u2019s and Gender Studies Consortium<\/a> will be gutted. Each loss carries with it the decades of labor and care that faculty, staff, and students have put into making their workplace and educational experiences more robust, welcoming, and forward-thinking.<\/p>\n The most sweeping change to DEI will go into effect this fall with the UW\u2019s new general education requirements. Last summer, the Wisconsin legislature passed Act 15<\/a> to create a transferability policy across its campuses by recategorizing courses and limiting the maximum number of general education credits that schools can require. Though there is not a demonstrable problem with transfer credits, the procedural change became an opportunity to dramatically restructure credit requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n Notably missing from the new general education requirements are courses in categories like \u201cAmerican Cultural Diversity\u201d or \u201cGlobal Awareness\u201d that were once mandatory at different campuses. \u201cI think what this will lead to is less of an institutional investment in the kinds of courses that bring some of these ideas to students,\u201d says Shelton.<\/p>\n At UW\u2013Stevens Point, a campus known for its conservation work, the category of environmental responsibility was eliminated and will no longer apply to courses as of this fall. A faculty member at Stevens Point who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation reports that students are concerned that they won\u2019t be able to take classes that reflect the school\u2019s \u201cunique campus character.\u201d Students also wonder if their minor in women\u2019s and gender studies or certificates in Native American and Indigenous studies or social justice and equity will disappear.<\/p>\n Neil Kraus, a professor of political science at UW\u2013River Falls and president of the university\u2019s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, says there were \u201cnearly unanimous\u201d votes against the change from the faculty senate\u2014the legislative and governing body of the faculty that is responsible for shared governance, academic policies, and faculty welfare at the university. Although supporters claim there will be minimal disruption as current courses will get shuffled into other categories, Kraus says that \u201cunderneath the UW system rules, American Cultural Diversity courses, for example, will have to compete\u00a0with other classes, which, by definition, means that fewer students will be enrolling in them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou won\u2019t see an immediate, massive reduction in offerings, but a gradual decline,\u201d says Kraus. \u201cInstructional academic staff\u2014who make up about 50 percent of all faculty\u2014have jobs completely dependent on enrollments. So if a class on a diversity-related subject has only eight or ten students enrolled, the Dean might say, \u2018We\u2019re just not going to run this class.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The fear of low enrollment and canceled classes extends beyond adjunct faculty to tenured folks as well, especially in the humanities and social sciences. \u201cIt\u2019s a sneaky way to scale back what we can offer and a frontal assault on diversity-related classes,\u201d says Kraus.\u00a0<\/p>\n As the 2026 fall term approaches, faculty and staff are exhausted from fighting too many fires\u2014from curricular changes to the threat of immigration raids on their campuses. In January, when UW\u2013Green Bay sent out a campus email<\/a> about the university\u2019s response to potential U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions on campus, a conservative TikTok account claimed<\/a> the university was refusing to cooperate with ICE and actively \u201cprotect[ing] illegal student aliens.\u201d\u00a0 When the school clarified the original message saying<\/a> \u201cNowhere did [the email] say campus police wouldn\u2019t cooperate,\u201d some students and staff felt \u201cthe university does not have their back,\u201d says Dirienzo.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n