UW President Jay Rothman Should Resign

Dear Gov. Tony Evers,

Jay Rothman is not qualified to run the University of Wisconsin system. If he does not follow through on his threat to resign then he should be removed by the Board of Regents.

It is obvious from his behavior before the Board of Regents in the vote to target students of color and their support infrastructure across the campuses of the state under his jurisdiction, that his willingness to side with wealthy corporate donors and in support of the racial targeting by Speaker Robin Vos and the Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu is further evidence of the ongoing Bradley Foundation attacks on institutions of education. Rothman said as much as broadcast by Spectrum News 1 after the rejection of the unworthy selling out of students of color in exchange for the 4% pay raise to the faculty and funding from the legislature for the engineering school.

My grandfather served in World War I in the United States Army. Upon his return to his home in Louisiana, he started a business. Its success led him to become a target of the Klan and forced him to move with my grandmother to Chicago. My father was born there, grew up in Louisiana, followed in my grandfather’s footsteps, and joined the US Army for service in World War II and later Korea. My father attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison and graduated. Other African Americans attending then included Vel Phillips and her husband Dale. Other famous black students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the 1950s were the great author Lorraine Hansberry, our neighbor from Capitol Drive in Milwaukee and later a university president Dr. Cornelius L. Golightly and Gwendolyn Brooks, the Rennebohm Visiting Professor and Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry. A student Chapter of the NAACP was formed on Campus in 1947, my father Horace participating. Harvard-educated Alain Locke was teaching Philosophy at Wisconsin when he became the first African American to receive the Rhodes Scholarship. The first African American who graduated from UW was William Smith Noland in 1875, 10 years after the end of the Civil War. The years after saw the rise of the Ku Klux Klan on campus from 1919 to 1926 (as documented by the University as reported on April 19, 2018). The university’s racially integrated baseball team was targeted for removal of black players in 1904 after winning the UW’s first Big Ten title in 1902.

After my father graduated from the University of Wisconsin, I graduated, as did my brother Gregory. So did my wife and my daughter, with a Ph.D. As a senator, I served as Joint Finance Committee chair, as well as on the Education Committee and the Legislative Committee for state employee raises. The idea that affirmative action efforts – so far less than effective – are the target of the UW President so “other” students can be included is a racist cover.

As reported in the fall of 2022, the University of Wisconsin in Madison includes only 2.4% of students who are black. That is 1,214 black students out of a total of 49,587 and another 4% identified with two or more races. The black population of Wisconsin according to a 2020 report was 367,889. That is 6.6% of the state population. The white population alone is 86.6%. So why are we such a threat? The history of the University of Wisconsin taking the land of the Ho-Chunk Nation is undisputed. The University in Madison on Bascom Hill occupies ancestral Ho-Chunk land, a place their nation has called Teejop since time immemorial. In an 1832 treaty, the Ho-Chunk were forced to cede this territory. It was justified I am sure as the Jay Rothman initiative is now… not that he would know, as I understand he never attended any UW System university nor understands our traditions.

Since becoming the university system president, Jay Rothman has followed a pattern of secrecy that I imagine he learned running the Foley and Lardner law firm. Closing campuses without adequate notice to the communities involved, including the counties that pay for the buildings that are being rented by the university, and asking for closed-door meetings as he has today to push through his agenda to target students of color are part of a pattern that I believe should be investigated by both the Wisconsin Attorney General and the Dane County District Attorney as a violation of the state open meetings law. My review of the Board of Regents records about his selection as president shows a similar pattern of a lack of public input. The Board of Regents did not adequately consult the faculty before he was selected and recently has gone so far as to block student government participation in decision-making. If the board votes today to reverse its 9 to 8 vote of last week this will be another dark chapter of insider and racial power politics that should be rejected openly by the Wisconsin news media and by thoughtful citizens.

Legislative Fiscal Bureau reports on minority participation in the University of Wisconsin System have shown not enough has been done over generations for fair participation levels. The taxpayers of the State have paid for that university System – not Jay Rothman nor Robin Vos.

Harvard University today with the overwhelming support of the faculty rejected the outside digital lynch mob to replace the African American President of Harvard. Governor Evers, you and the Board of Regents you appointed should not give in to the Ron DeSantis-inspired, Confederate-styled attack on Wisconsin’s students of color. You are the Education Governor and should stand fully with the policy decision of the Board and not just support them as your recent press release makes clear.

Very recently, Governor, you attended the funeral for Bishop Sedgwick Daniels in Milwaukee, of our largest Church of God in Christ. His brother, Atty. John Daniels, a previous leader of the Quarles Law Firm, attended. So did his sister, the most successful African-American businesswoman in Wisconsin, along with thousands more in attendance and a national and international broadcast audience. The black communities of Wisconsin are more than just what is represented daily in the general news media. We value education. We value our children’s future. As a result, we are invested in the University of Wisconsin, and we ask that you support us in every way and our desire for a better future. Rejecting Jay Rothman’s initiative is an important part of that.

Gary R. George served as a Wisconsin State Senator representing Milwaukee from 1981-2003.