Fearless Sifting

There are so many points I want to make in response to State Representative Steve Nass’ column in the Badger Herald that I almost don’t know where to begin. As good a place as any is the one spot where Nass manages to stop making absurd claims that can’t really be proven one way or the other and cite some actual examples

In the last couple of days, the people of Wisconsin were treated to a tantrum from outgoing Chancellor John Wiley alleging that the people’s desire to pay less in taxes was starving the public sector, especially UW-Madison.  Starving the public sector?

This is somewhat amusing because Wiley benefited from public housing during his tenure and now departs to his luxurious downtown Madison condo valued at more than $890,000.  How many starved public sector employees do you know who can so hypocritically chastise taxpayers and still make payments on a condo worth nearly $1 million?

What I find somewhat amusing is Nass lack of knowledge about the Chancellor’s residence. It’s a far cry from public housing and in fact the correct information can be found mere page turns away in the very same paper.

Originally owned by prominent Madison attorney John Myers Olin, the house was left to the university in 1924 under the condition it would be the formal residence of the university leader. If the chancellor is not residing there, the house reverts back to the J.M. Olin Trust.

I also find it quite disheartening that Nass chooses to criticize Wiley’s personal wealth. Not only is it an unneccessary personal attack, but it’s pretty worthless in my mind to attack man who worked a job for 8 years at a pay rate hundreds of thousands of dollars less than the job was worth for being too wealthy. Considering the debacle that Nass and his fellow Republican’s raised over Biddy Martin’s pay raise at the beginning of the summer, I’m quite certain that Nass is well aware of the issues concerning the chancellor’s pay. Besides, Wiley’s work as a professor brought in enough money to pay his chancellor’s salary for decades.

The irony was also not lost on me when immediately before criticizing Wiley’s recent remarks on the WMC and the state of partisan politics, spends the 3 paragraphs on Doyle’s interviews with the chancellor finalists blaming Democrats and claiming that Republicans never would have received the same treatment. I’ll let former Chancellor Wiley take it from here

I also had plenty of opportunities to meet with legislators. A depressingly large number of those meetings began with a monologue about how all the state’s problems were caused by the policies and positions of the other party, and how things would get better quickly if we just came out publicly in support of their own party’s position.

It might have been prudent to wait more than 2 weeks before proving him right, but maybe that’s just be me.

Then there was the bit on the much discussed state constitutional amendment:

Even though 60 percent voted to reaffirm the traditional definition of marriage, some in the UW System continue to view this ratification as an act of premeditated discrimination. Why are they so incensed with the people making the final decision?

I’m not really quite sure what exactly he was talking about there. I wasn’t aware that the UW System released statements taking a position for all of its employees on state political issues that have nothing to do with the UW. Or maybe he is just upset that some people who happen to work for the UW hold political opinions that differ from his own. That doesn’t mean that they are upset with the issue having been put to a vote, just that they disagree with the outcome. And if he is referencing domestic partnership benefits for UW faculty, that issue has nothing to do with marriage and in fact the public opinion is reversed on the issue.

However, the main point made by Nass in the article is same old argument that Nass and his fellow state legislators have made before: and seem to use to justify every one of their anti-UW statements or actions: that UW-Madison is becoming a place of politically correct liberal indoctrination rather than unbiased education. Now when I wrote about the implications of Sara Mikolajczak’s column, I didn’t realize that the very next issue of the BH would put that column to use. I don’t have to rebut Nass because Sara has already done it for me. Despite the best efforts of the Board of Regents and the UW-Madison administration to turn us all into Women’s Studies majors, according to the arguably most qualified student to judge the growth of conservatism on campus, it is indeed growing.

And if Sara’s opinion isn’t enough for you, this edition of the BH also includes the story of a specific case study. Smathers came to the UW as a self described “flaming liberal” and had his Madison experience turn him *gasp* more conservative.

I also think that Nass’ claim of a lack of a voice on campus for those with similar beliefs was hurt by the abundance of LTE’s making the same claim.