Conservative icon and University of Wisconsin-Madison alumnus David Keene passed away on March 8, 2026, leaving behind a remarkable legacy on campus and within the conservative movement.

Keene was born on May 20, 1945 in Rockford, Illinois and grew up in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. In high school, Keene became a conservative after being given a copy of The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek. He later went on to attend UW-Madison as a political science major before graduating law school at the same institution.

During his undergraduate years, Keene started a chapter of Young Americans for Freedom– a conservative organization founded at the home of William F. Buckley Jr. in 1960.

Later, Keene served as YAF’s national chairman, helping Buckley promote the organization, expand its popularity, and gain influence nationwide. As a Wisconsin alumnus, Keene’s efforts greatly impacted and improved opportunities for conservative college students, and he left a large impact on UW-Madison through his involvement in grassroots organizations.

Throughout his illustrious career, Keene worked for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Senator James Buckley. Keene was also a prominent conservative political activist and lobbyist, serving as chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU) from 1984 to 2011 and president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) from 2011 to 2013.

In addition to promoting conservatism on college campuses, Keene was a major force behind the liberty movement through his involvement with the ACU and NRA. Keene expanded his political career to be one of the prominent promoters of modern conservatism and libertarianism. He promoted individual freedom and limited government involvement in both the economy and individuals’ lives through his organizations.

Conservative fiscal ideology and libertarian principles promoted by Keene gained major government backing throughout the late 20th and early 21st century. Through his work on the campaign and as chair of the ACU, Keene helped secure 12 years of conservative control in the federal government under the Reagan and Bush administrations. Both were strong promoters of free speech, laissez faire economics, and tough on crime rhetoric, all of which Keene stood for.

Later conservative victories in the 21st century were also driven by Keene’s advocacy in groups such as the NRA, leading to huge libertarian wins for gun rights at the Supreme Court and in popular culture.

Among his many accolades, he was known for being an editor and columnist in The Washington Times. He wrote in the opinion section while being a staunch advocate for individual liberties and second amendment rights, and he was especially known for challenging progressive views on gun control.

Stephen Dinan, a journalist with The Washington Times, wrote in Keene’s tribute that he was a “towering figure in the growth of the modern conservative movement who was equally comfortable in the weeds of grassroots politics and in the corridors of power in Washington.”

Keene’s legacy continues to live on through UW-Madison’s YAF chapter, which actively works to discuss and promote conservative values. YAF’s national organization awarded Keene the Legends of YAF Distinguished Alumni Award in 2017 for his “lifelong commitment to freedom.”

YAF released a statement praising Keene, saying that his “dedication to advancing conservative ideas and encouraging young people to stand boldly for their beliefs leaves a lasting legacy.”

The views expressed in this article are solely those of its author. All University of Wisconsin-Madison students and faculty are welcome to submit op-eds or pitches to madisonfederalist@gmail.com.

I am a man who loves other men. I believe everyone should be accepting of who they are and who others are, which is why it pains me to see the continued existence of conversion therapy in our society. Conversion therapy is a stain on the history of American healthcare, and states have an important role in prohibiting it. That is precisely why the Supreme Court’s decision in Chiles v. Salazar deserves a more careful reading than it has received. The ruling has been enveloped in a whirlwind of misunderstanding and misinformation regarding its actual content.

Many have alleged that the Court ruled that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy was unconstitutional, or that it ruled that states do not have any power to ban conversion therapy. The reality is far more mundane—and far more nuanced.

The Supreme Court did not decide whether Colorado’s law is constitutional. The majority in Salazar ruled only that the lower Court of Appeals had applied the wrong legal test and ordered that the case be reargued. In the opinion of the Court, Justice Gorsuch writes, “The judgment of the Tenth Circuit is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.” In plain terms, the Court overturned the lower court’s reasoning and instructed it to try again using the correct standard. Constitutional law depends on rulings like these, ensuring the correct standard is applied to balance the interests of states and the rights of citizens of the United States.

The obvious question, then, is what standard the Court required. The answer, strict scrutiny, is the most demanding form of constitutional review we have. There are several levels of scrutiny federal courts use in evaluating the constitutionality of legislation, with strict scrutiny being the most demanding, and rational basis review the most lenient. Strict scrutiny requires Colorado to prove that it had a “compelling governmental interest” in passing this law, that the law was “narrowly tailored” in its scope, and that it was the “least restrictive means” the state could have used to achieve its goal. The Court did not rule on whether the law would pass strict scrutiny; that question remains open.

The Tenth Circuit originally upheld the law using rational basis review, reasoning that it interpreted the Colorado law as “regulating professional conduct and… regulat[ing] speech only incidentally.” That distinction matters. Laws that merely touch on speech indirectly are given broad deference, but laws that regulate speech on the basis of content or viewpoint trigger the Constitution’s highest level of protection.

The Supreme Court found that Colorado’s law crosses that line. As Justice Gorsuch explains, “Colorado’s law does not just regulate the content of Ms. Chiles’s speech. It goes a step further, prescribing what views she may and may not express.” The law itself prohibits “any practice or treatment by a licensee… that attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” The key point of contention in this case is the prohibition of “any practice or treatment,” which, in the case of Ms. Chiles (the therapist suing the state of Colorado), includes the things she says to her patients.

Citing the language of the Colorado law, the Court further elaborates that “Ms. Chiles may express ‘[a]cceptance, support, and understanding for the facilitation of . . . identity exploration.’... But if a gay or transgender client seeks her counsel in the hope of changing his sexual orientation or gender identity, Ms. Chiles cannot provide it.” The argument is a straightforward one: Ms. Chiles is not only limited in what she can say, but she is also required to only express a certain viewpoint on a client’s identity regardless of the client’s desires.

Even if a client who suffers from gender dysphoria seeks assistance in conforming with their biological sex, therapists cannot offer such counseling. No matter what, the state of Colorado requires that therapists advance an affirming viewpoint in their conversations with patients. A law that permits one side of a conversation while prohibiting the other is not merely regulating conduct; it is regulating viewpoints. Because of this distinction between censoring one viewpoint and compelling another, a higher standard of review must be used. That does not mean the Court has ruled on whether this legislation is constitutional; that is for the lower court to decide.

If this law is deemed unconstitutional, it will be only on very narrow grounds. The question at hand in Chiles v. Salazar is not whether a state can ban conversion therapy altogether, but whether the state has a compelling interest in regulating “talk therapy” aimed at changing a client’s sexuality, and whether the current means Colorado has used to meet these interests are not more restrictive than what’s needed. Ultimately, that question will be up to the lower courts. “The question before us is a narrow one,” Gorsuch writes “[Ms. Chiles] does not take issue with the State’s effort to prohibit what she herself calls ‘long-abandoned, aversive’ physical interventions.” The opinion of the Court even suggests that Colorado has the right to ban “conduct—such as aversive physical interventions,” because such interventions are considered conduct rather than speech, with the former having much fewer constitutional protections than the latter.

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Nothing in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chiles v. Salazar determines that Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy is unconstitutional or guarantees that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals will determine it to be unconstitutional when the case is reargued, but that is not the point. The Supreme Court did not endorse conversion therapy, nor did it strip states of their authority to regulate it. It simply reaffirmed the longstanding principle that when the government regulates speech on the basis of viewpoint—no matter how misguided that viewpoint—it must meet the Constitution’s highest standard.

As we approach the semiquincentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I find it necessary to examine the many ways that we have strayed from the original “American Experiment” that our Founding Fathers intended.

In comparing modern politics to those of our founding, we have seen a much more democratized government, rather than the compound republic that was our intended purpose. The average empire survives for 250 years, and we are now three months away from that critical tipping point for the nation. In order to maintain American dominance around the globe, we must analyze our present system compared to the original that was created to last ad infinitum.

An unwavering national spirit, opposition to tyranny in its many forms and a passionate desire to improve the lives of the citizenry have consistently been the chief objectives of our leaders, even when strong policy disagreements have led to a ferocious polarization of the people. Intense, fundamental and philosophical feuds have been constant throughout the relatively short life of the United States, so when an overwhelming consensus is found in our accomplished past, it becomes incumbent upon us to understand the political philosophy and to examine our reasonings for altering that system of governance.

In short, Federalism is the idea that Federal and State governments enter into an agreement of shared powers to promote the safety and general welfare of the people. James Madison describes this agreement in Federalist No. 45 as, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

This concept allowed for the passing of the United States Constitution under the Connecticut Compromise that gave us the House of Representatives being proportional to population and the Senate equally representing the states. This allowed for the people to hold the power of the purse in the House, while the states could debate laws in the Senate. The Senate has been famously dubbed as the “cooling saucer” meant to cool the “hot tea” legislation passed in the House and thoroughly examine the ramifications of the proposed bills.

The Senate is an essential aspect to the idea of Federalism, and it is also the primary example of how we have strayed from that grand philosophy.

In 1913, the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, altering Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution changing “The Senate of the United States shall be … chosen by the Legislature thereof” to “elected by the people thereof,” completely altering the structure of the United States government. This allows United States Senators to be elected by popular vote, rather than the original system of being appointed by the state legislators.

I see the 17th Amendment as not only diametrically opposed to our system of governance, but the point where the Senate completely lost its original purpose. State legislatures are elected by their constituents and are held responsible in their own respective elections, so it becomes the duty of the people in that state to elect representatives that will appoint Senators to represent their state’s interests.

By turning Senate elections to a popular vote, it diminishes the nonhereditary, yet aristocratic foundation of the Senate and transforms who the Senators represent, which becomes the people rather than the state. With this new system, we have seen nationalized corruption in campaign donations, propaganda that makes people vote against their interests and a Senate that has become a smaller House of Representatives. Then, there is James Madison’s vision in Federalist No. 10 and those “who possess the most attractive merit, and the most diffusive and established characters.”

Of course, many would suggest that this idea of a respected, intelligent and virtuous Senate is an unreasonable demand on the basis of understanding basic human nature. However, when this corruption is seen by the people, they would be far more motivated to spark local and statewide change in their representatives that would appoint their Senator, rather than focus on one national race and forget about the importance and power in local elections.

It may seem that corruption is inevitable because it was the leading factor in the passage and ratification of the 17th Amendment. However, in the former system, corruption was far more visible and localized, so it can be quashed much easier. But now the monster of corruption has been nationalized, with Senators being at the mercy of large campaign financiers and taking bribes from foreign nations, with former Senator Bob Menendez being a prime example of blatant corruption in our modern system. This has taken power from the states and has become so embedded in our political system that it is becoming nearly impossible to reform.

The Federalist system was intended to protect the mutual relationship between the federal and state governments, to protect the people from a tyrannical government overreach, and also to limit the well known defects in democracy. Creating that balance is an impossible task, and it is no surprise that it degenerates into either an authoritarian state or shifts towards a direct democracy.

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We are slowly becoming a direct democracy, and that is horrifying. Alexander Hamilton spoke of this at the New York Ratifying Convention when he said, “It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved, that no position in politics is more false than this.”

The Founding Fathers knew of the grand failures of the Ancient Greek states, and our intense partisan divide, grand corruption in the highest halls of power, and an uninformed electorate constantly voting for the “lesser of two evils” is a horrific example of the failures in our governmental shifts. This is why it is so necessary to examine political systems and seek a return to Federalism and our nation’s grand purpose.

A version of this article was originally published by the MacIver Institute.

The Tommy G. Thompson Center for Public Leadership released a survey on March 8, titled “Faculty Perspectives on Academic Freedom, Free Expression, and Campus Climate at UW-Madison.” The results yielded interesting insights about the severity of the ideological diversity problem that Wisconsin’s biggest university faces.

The survey was led by the director of the Tommy G. Thompson Center and professor of political science, Alex Tahk, and collected answers from 633 tenure-track and tenured faculty members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison across a wide variety of colleges and departments.

This survey comes after great concern about First Amendment rights and the lack of ideological diversity at Wisconsin’s public universities. An analysis also conducted by Professor Alex Tahk and his former colleague, Ryan Owens, in 2024 found that over 99 percent of political donations from UW-Madison in the last decade went to Democratic candidates or left-wing groups.

The Thompson Center’s recent faculty survey delves further into this analysis to discover faculty attitudes surrounding free speech, ideological diversity, and conservative viewpoints.

Overall, the survey found that 70 percent of faculty members at UW-Madison identify as some kind of liberal. Only 9 percent of faculty members identify as some kind of conservative, with the vast majority describing themselves as being only “slightly conservative.” Altogether, only 3 percent of UW-Madison consider themselves to be “conservative” or “extremely conservative.”

The survey notes that this ideological distribution is vastly different from that of the rest of the country, where 28 percent of the U.S. population identifies their views as being “conservative” or “extremely conservative.”

A common critique from progressives on why there are not many conservative faculty in higher education is that there are just far fewer conservatives pursuing doctoral degrees than liberals. However, the data suggests that this cannot fully explain the ideological imbalance at UW-Madison given that 12 percent of Americans who have doctoral degrees identify as being “conservative” or “extremely conservative” compared to only 3 percent of faculty at UW-Madison.

The survey also found that the area of study with the highest proportion of liberal faculty was the humanities, with 74 percent identifying as liberal and only 6 percent identifying as conservative. The area of study with the highest proportion of conservative faculty was economics, with 24 percent of faculty describing themselves as some form of conservative.

When looking at political party affiliation, the imbalance becomes even more apparent. 96 percent of the liberal faculty lean towards the Democratic Party, while only 64 percent of the conservative faculty lean toward the Republican Party. This is likely due to the fact that most faculty who identify as conservative only consider themselves to be “slightly conservative.”

Another interesting aspect of this survey was that it analyzed potential hiring biases among faculty members at UW-Madison. The survey asked faculty if they would be less likely to hire a candidate based upon a political statement that they made. Survey respondents were randomly assigned either a liberal or a conservative statement made by the imaginary candidate on the topics of abortion, immigration, affirmative action, and transgender sports.

The results showed that across all four topics, many UW-Madison faculty reported that they would be less likely to hire the candidate who expressed the conservative view point at higher rates than the candidates who expressed the liberal view point.

The topic with the biggest difference was immigration. The liberal statement was “The U.S. should allow immigrants without legal status to remain in the U.S. and offer a path to citizenship,” and the conservative statement was “The U.S. should strictly limit immigration and deport those who are here illegally.”

Forty-five percent of faculty given the conservative statement said it would make them less likely to hire the job candidate. Only 7 percent of faculty who received the liberal statement said the same.

For the abortion question, only 3 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to hire a candidate if they expressed their view that “abortion is a basic human right and should be available on demand.” However, 29 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to hire a faculty candidate if they expressed the view that “abortion is the taking of a human life and should be illegal in most cases.”

This poses a problem when most new faculty at UW-Madison are hired through the shared governance process, which gives current faculty members primary jurisdiction over searching for and reviewing candidates for new faculty positions. If a significant portion of faculty are less willing to hire candidates who express certain political views, it raises a concern that conservatives will be less likely to get hired in the first place, further tipping the ideological imbalance on campus.

The campus climate for conservative views was also not rated well by faculty. The vast majority of liberal faculty members agreed that the campus environment was at most “somewhat” welcoming to conservatives. The vast majority of liberal faculty also said the campus climate was “very” to “extremely” welcoming to progressives. This shows that the hostility of the campus climate toward conservative ideas is recognized by most faculty regardless of their political leanings.

Out of all the conservative faculty members in the survey, not a single one said UW-Madison’s campus environment was “very” or “extremely” welcoming to conservatives.

Liberal professors also showed a gap between whether they believed that the inclusion of different racial groups or conservative viewpoints was important. No faculty said that the inclusion of different racial groups was “not at all” important, and only a very slim number rated it as being “a little” or “somewhat” important.

However, when asked the same questions about the inclusion of conservative viewpoints, some liberal faculty did say it was “not at all important,” and even more said it was only “a little” or “somewhat” important.

It is worth noting that a majority of liberal faculty still rated the inclusion of conservative viewpoints as being “very” or “extremely important.”

Unsurprisingly, the survey also found a huge gap in conservative and liberal faculty’s comfortability in expressing controversial views. While 55 percent of liberal faculty said they felt “very” or “extremely” comfortable expressing controversial views on campus, only 23 percent of conservative faculty said the same.

In fact, 77 percent of conservative faculty reported that they are “not at all” to only “somewhat” comfortable discussing controversial topics with other faculty members.

Conservative faculty also reported feeling less comfortable on specific topics, particularly transgender issues, where 69 percent report feeling “not at all” or only “a little” comfortable expressing their views, compared to 36 percent of liberal faculty.

Many conservative faculty also felt like their First Amendment rights were less protected on campus than their liberal colleagues’. Only 42 percent of conservative faculty said they felt their First Amendment rights were “quite a bit” or “a great deal” protected, compared to 63 percent of liberal faculty when answering the same question.

The survey also examined if there were differences between liberal and conservative faculty facing punishments after expressing a controversial view. The data showed that while liberal faculty members were far more likely to express controversial opinions, conservative faculty members were far more likely to face negative consequences for doing so.

Among faculty who shared controversial views on social media, 30 percent of conservative faculty reported institutional repercussions, compared to 8 percent of liberal faculty. Additionally, among faculty who expressed a controversial view in the classroom, 20 percent of conservatives said they faced an institutional consequence versus only 1 percent of liberals.

There is also growing concern that universities will continue to become more liberal as time goes on. Data from the survey provides some evidence for this given that junior faculty at UW-Madison were more likely to identify as liberal than senior faculty.

The difference is significant, with nearly two-thirds of junior faculty self-identifying as “liberal” or “extremely liberal,” compared to less than half of tenured faculty. While this phenomenon could be explained by faculty moderating over time, another possible explanation could be that UW-Madison’s faculty cohorts are slowly shifting further left due to hiring more progressive candidates.

Tahk told The Madison Federalist, “This report should be highly relevant to the UW–Madison community” because it “replaces anecdotal concerns with concrete, empirical data.”

“For faculty governance, for administrators making policy around diversity and inclusion, and for students trying to understand the intellectual environment they're learning in, this is the kind of institutional self-examination that can be genuinely useful.”

Many of his study’s conclusions mirror the findings in the UW System Student Views on Freedom of Speech survey, which was conducted in the fall of 2022 across all of Wisconsin’s public universities. The UW System’s survey found that many students, particularly conservative students, did not feel comfortable expressing their views on campus out of fear of social and academic consequences.

The UW System survey found that 67 percent of Republican students at UW’s campuses said that they were uncomfortable expressing their views on transgender issues, and 55 percent of Republican students said they were uncomfortable sharing their views on abortion.

This is comparable to the Tommy G. Thompson Center’s survey, which found that 69 percent of conservative faculty reported feeling “not at all” or only “a little” comfortable expressing their views on transgender issues, and nearly 70 percent of conservative faculty reported feeling “not at all” or only “a little” comfortable sharing their views on abortion.

The UW System survey also shed light on the fact that many students, particularly on the left, did not feel like Wisconsin’s public universities should be places of completely free and open speech. 33 percent of Democrat students at UW system schools believe that administrators should ban the expression of views that they feel cause harm. Only 9.5 percent of Republican students agreed with this. 45 percent of Democrat students in the UW system also think that views they find to be “offensive” are an act of violence toward vulnerable people.

Similarly, the Tommy G. Thompson Center’s survey found that 45 percent of faculty respondents believe the University of Wisconsin-Madison should prohibit hate speech, even though it is protected at public universities under the First Amendment.

The survey from the Tommy G. Thompson Center gives valuable insight into the climate surrounding free speech and political discourse at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

University spokesman John Lucas told The Federalist via email, “The Thompson Center survey will inform the university’s efforts toward greater viewpoint diversity and constructive dialogue on campus.”

“UW–Madison does not maintain data about the political affiliation of its employees and it is illegal to ask about political affiliation during the hiring process,” he wrote. “That said, university leadership has made a concerted effort to amplify the institution’s support for viewpoint diversity to encourage broader applicant pools.”

He pointed to the Wisconsin Exchange, which is “a collection of programs and opportunities for students, staff and faculty that build skills for meaningful dialogue and understanding and reflects our long-standing commitment to free expression, academic freedom and civic engagement.”

The Thompson Center’s survey can also help explain the findings from the UW System’s 2022 free speech survey, where students showed discomfort expressing political views and a distaste for completely free and open dialogue. The campus climate begins in the classroom, where faculty play an integral role in teaching students how to engage in political discourse and encounter views that they do not agree with.

Tahk emphasized that the survey did not measure the impact on students, but he believes “some findings do have potential implications for the student experience.” For example, “If faculty are substantially less comfortable expressing certain viewpoints […] students may be encountering a narrower range of perspectives in the classroom than the full spectrum of opinion even among faculty.”

While Tahk believes the report points to “several areas where change could be warranted,” the type of change warranted remains an open question. This is especially true for findings about “perceptions and comfort levels, which are harder to address through policy even if one views them as problematic.”

Moving forward, it will be important that the University of Wisconsin-Madison addresses the ideological imbalance among its faculty members to ensure that an academic environment is being created that is conducive to the purpose of higher education: the free exchange of diverse viewpoints in pursuit of truth.

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Public universities have found themselves in a complicated moment. Tuition continues to rise, political polarization has intensified and public trust in higher education has steadily declined. As institutions supported by taxpayer dollars, universities increasingly face pressure to demonstrate accountability to the public that funds them. Transparency is one way to do it.

For a public institution like UW-Madison, transparency should not be seen as a threat. It should be seen as an opportunity.

As more public university systems begin publishing course syllabi online, the University of Wisconsin-Madison should consider following suit. Making syllabi publicly accessible would strengthen trust in higher education while reaffirming the university’s commitment to academic freedom.

Late last year, the University of North Carolina System announced a policy requiring syllabi to be publicly available through a searchable online platform beginning in the Fall 2026 semester. Under the policy, syllabi must include core information such as course descriptions, learning objectives, grading scales and required materials. They must also outline how student performance will be evaluated and what expectations students should meet throughout the semester. Most importantly, the syllabi must be posted before the semester begins.

UNC System President Peter Hans defended the policy as a necessary response to growing public skepticism toward higher education. Encouraging professors to “stand behind our work,” Hans argued that transparency can help restore legitimacy during what he described as “an age of dangerously low trust in some of society’s most important institutions.”

UNC is hardly alone. Similar policies already exist in the University System of Georgia, Florida’s public universities, Indiana University and the University of Texas System. These institutions have recognized that providing access to syllabi does not interfere with academic decision-making. Instead, it simply makes information available that students already receive once they enroll in a course.

Still, the proposal has drawn criticism from some faculty members who argue that publishing syllabi could expose professors to harassment or political scrutiny. Others worry that outside criticism may pressure instructors to alter course content or self-censor in order to avoid controversy.

These concerns should be taken seriously. Universities have a responsibility to protect faculty who become targets of harassment or intimidation. But, transparency itself is not the cause of such behavior. Problems arise when institutions fail to defend their scholars, not when the public can see what courses require.

At its core, the case for syllabus transparency rests on a simple principle: public institutions should operate in the open.

Many universities already recognize this reality. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for example, provides faculty with guidance and institutional support in the event that they face online harassment or “doxxing” attacks. The university recognizes that such incidents can be professionally disruptive and personally difficult, and it outlines protocols for threat assessment, reporting, and response. Transparency and protection are not mutually exclusive — universities can defend their faculty while also maintaining openness about how their courses operate.

At its core, the case for syllabus transparency rests on a simple principle: public institutions should operate in the open. Taxpayer-funded universities exist because the public supports them. Course syllabi function as basic records of instruction, outlining what students will learn and how they will be evaluated. Allowing the public to access these records is not an extraordinary demand; it is a logical extension of democratic accountability. Citizens have the right to know what public institutions are doing on their behalf.

Transparency also benefits students themselves. Choosing courses often requires balancing workload, grading expectations and the cost of required materials. Some UW-Madison departments already publicly list their past syllabi. By allowing students to review syllabi before the semester begins, universities give them a clearer understanding of what each course requires.

This information can help students evaluate textbook costs, understand grading structures and determine whether a course fits into their schedule. It can also help transfer students assess whether a program aligns with their academic goals before committing to a new institution.

Opponents of transparency often frame the issue as a threat to academic freedom. But that argument misunderstands what academic freedom actually protects. Academic freedom exists to protect intellectual inquiry from censorship and political coercion. It allows scholars to teach controversial ideas and pursue truth without fear of retaliation. What it does not do is shield publicly funded instruction from public view.

Policies requiring syllabus publication do not dictate course content, ban readings or impose ideological constraints. They simply require instructors to outline the structure of their courses. Universities already publish course catalogs, learning objectives and degree requirements. Making syllabi accessible without an open records request or other hurdles would simply extend that existing commitment to openness.

More importantly, transparency may strengthen public confidence in the university. Critics of higher education often claim that professors push ideological agendas in the classroom. Universities frequently respond by emphasizing that faculty are committed to learning and the pursuit of knowledge. If that is true — and most professors would agree that it is — then universities should have no hesitation in allowing the public to see the structure and content of their courses.

For a public institution like UW-Madison, transparency should not be seen as a threat. It should be seen as an opportunity. At a time when higher education faces increasing scrutiny, openness demonstrates confidence in the integrity of academic work. By making course syllabi easily accessible, UW-Madison would reaffirm both its commitment to academic freedom and its responsibility to the public it serves.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of its author. All UW-Madison students can submit op-eds or pitches to madisonfederalist@gmail.com!

At the start of 2026, the Wisconsin Assembly approved legislation requiring cultivated meat to be labeled as “lab-grown.” Supporters described the measure as common-sense transparency, as consumers deserve to know whether their protein comes from a farm or a factory. That instinct resonates with libertarian commitments to informed consent and honest exchange. But transparency should not stop at new technologies. If consumers have a right to clarity in the marketplace, they also deserve to understand how conventional meat production has been shaped by federal policy, and how sustained industry lobbying has helped secure that support.

At the heart of free-market economics is a simple premise: Prices should reflect real costs, and markets should discipline inefficiency without political favoritism. By that standard, the U.S. poultry industry offers a clear case of crony capitalism. It operates within a framework of subsidies, indemnity payments, and regulatory structures that shield large integrators from downside risk. Taxpayers absorb environmental and public health spillovers. Contract growers shoulder debt within vertically integrated supply chains. And sentient animals are reduced to production inputs rather than recognized as individuals.

Start with subsidies. While agricultural support programs are often defended as neutral safety nets for “farmers,” the structure of federal farm policy disproportionately benefits commodity crops like corn and soy. Those crops are the primary feed inputs for animal agriculture. When taxpayers underwrite feed production, they indirectly subsidize the poultry and livestock sectors. Cheap feed enables artificially cheap meat.

The burden does not end there. Taxpayers also absorb the externalities of cheap chicken. Concentrated animal feeding operations generate pollution that strains local water systems, while public health systems bear the costs associated with antibiotic resistance linked to routine livestock use. When crises hit, federal dollars flow to stabilize the industry. Recent avian influenza outbreaks have triggered costly indemnity payments and emergency interventions, effectively socializing losses while allowing corporations to privatize gains. Since January 2022, the H5N1 virus has affected nearly 185 million commercial, backyard, and wild birds in the United States. Since March 2024, it has also been detected in more than a thousand cattle herds across multiple states, including a confirmed case here in a Wisconsin dairy herd.

Meanwhile, the structure of the poultry industry itself reflects a peculiar arrangement that hardly resembles classical market competition. Integrator corporations often own the hatcheries, the feed mills, the processing plants, and the brand. Contract growers, by contrast, own the land, the poultry houses, and the debt. When equipment upgrades are required, or flocks underperform, it is the grower who bears much of the financial risk. In other words, the companies own everything that makes money, and farmers own everything that costs money.

There is another dimension of distortion that receives far less attention: humane washing and the conditions imposed on animals themselves. Humane washing is the practice of using labels and marketing cues to create the impression of high welfare standards. Practices that mainly serve to make consumers feel better about their consumption choices, but do little to help animals. Industrial poultry production typically confines tens of thousands of chickens in enclosed sheds, breeds them for unnaturally rapid growth that strains their skeletal systems, and subjects them to painful practices such as debeaking and crowded transport. Marketing campaigns increasingly emphasize “cage-free” or “humanely raised” labels, yet these terms often mask systems that remain fundamentally industrial in scale and design. Even if welfare standards were improved, the basic framework remains unchanged, which is that animals are treated as resources, and not beings with subjective experiences.

For libertarians who emphasize freedom, consent, and the non-aggression principle, this raises an ethical issue. Chickens are sentient beings capable of experiencing pain and distress, yet they are confined, manipulated, and slaughtered without any meaningful possibility of consent. Because of humane washing, the animals’ preferences are not considered in market analyses. This ethical cost can be understood as an additional negative externality of industrial agriculture, namely the systematic harm imposed on sentient beings whose interests are excluded from the pricing system. Even in the absence of low welfare standards, a system that views living beings purely as resources stands in tension with the libertarian commitment to minimizing coercion and unjustified harm.

The ethical concern is inseparable from a structural one. For conservatives wary of centralized power, the close relationship between large agribusiness firms and the federal government should be equally troubling. If markets are to function properly, the government should not pick winners and losers. The race to produce the cheapest, fastest-growing birds depends on artificially low input costs.

Yet here lies the contradiction. If federal intervention were dramatically reduced and feed subsidies curtailed, chicken prices would likely rise. Consumers accustomed to cheap chicken products might not be pleased. In a time of rising food prices, any additional increase would be politically sensitive.

But perhaps this tension signals something deeper. If the only way to maintain rock bottom chicken prices is through an elaborate system of subsidies, bailouts, risk socialization, and unpriced ethical costs, then the system is not genuinely efficient. It is dependent. A truly free market would allow prices to reflect actual environmental, public health, and moral costs. If higher prices dampen demand, that is not market failure; it is market correction.

Moreover, we are living in a moment of rapid technological change. Artificial intelligence is transforming supply chains and logistics. Innovations such as cultivated meat and advanced plant-based proteins are on the technological horizon. These emerging industries may eventually offer protein production methods that require less land, fewer antibiotics, and lower environmental impact, while also reducing the ethical concerns tied to confinement and slaughter. Rather than doubling down on a subsidy-dependent poultry model, policymakers should ask whether the long-term national interest is better served by moving away from the most distortion-heavy parts of animal agriculture. That question is especially relevant in Wisconsin, where potential cultivated meat bans and restrictive labeling laws risk protecting incumbent industries at the expense of innovation.

None of this requires hostility toward farmers. On the contrary, it may require the opposite. If we cease to view farmers as disposable inputs in a corporate supply chain and the sentient animals they raise as mere units of production, we can begin to rethink rural policy. A system that locks farmers into debt-financed contracts while corporate integrators capture margins is not a model of rural empowerment. It is a model of consolidation.

Instead, perhaps a surprising alliance is possible. Libertarians committed to free markets, conservatives wary of corporate-state fusion, farmers seeking independence, consumers concerned about transparency, and advocates for animals may find common ground. Opening the protein production space to genuine market competition, while ending subsidy distortions and fully accounting for environmental, public health, and ethical externalities, could represent a win for freedom, for rural communities, and for sentient beings whose interests have too long been excluded from the ledger.

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Women made up 62 percent of incoming freshmen students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Fall 2025, according to the UW-Madison Office of the Registrar, reflecting broader trends in the UW System and across the United States. This imbalance persists across all major ethnic groups, and women have begun to outnumber men in the college-educated workforce.

As women increasingly outnumber men at UW-Madison, we should be asking what is happening with young men and how campus culture, expectations, and perceptions of masculinity may contribute to male disengagement.

In Of Boys and Men, Richard Reeves describes part of this shift in higher education enrollment as part of the “male malaise,” characterized by declining engagement, direction, and academic motivation among boys and young men. These changes reflect long-term social and educational shifts over recent years that are now becoming more visible in college enrollment stats.

“The gender gap at UW-Madison is not just about women’s success in education, but how young men may understand their role, motivations, and sense of belonging in today’s academic institutions.”

There are clear disparities that set girls ahead in early education, as Reeves notes. Girls, on average, are more likely to be school-ready at age five, while boys are significantly more likely to struggle across core academic subjects. Male teachers are also significantly outnumbered, as 77 percent of K-12 teachers are women. But an issue that extends beyond K-12 education, one which Reeves mentions himself, is the absence of clear expectations laid out for young men today.

Consequently, 70 percent of teenage girls saw value in college compared to 54 percent of teenage boys in 2025. This gap suggests a difference not just in academic performance, but in how young men and women are encouraged to view higher education in relation to their futures.

This is part of the problem, as Reeves describes. Young men are experiencing a “decline in agency, motivation and aspiration,” where young women have “motivation, independence, and persistence.”

Young women receive consistent messaging about their pursuit of higher education. Higher education isn’t just framed as an opportunity for women, but often as a necessity for career-driven success and financial independence. For young men, that encouragement and clearly outlined ideal is seemingly less persistent.

A UW-Madison student I spoke with anonymously shared his perspective and experience as a man who exhibits more “traditional” characteristics of masculinity. He described a sense of uncertainty about what’s expected of young men today, including on campus. He feels that traditional masculine roles often get chastised or shunned, affecting the ways some male students choose to present themselves and feel accepted among their peers.

Most neutral, though stereotypically masculine, aspects of his identity are often criticized or dismissed. Some of his interests, like being into trucks, hunting, and trap shooting, tend to be perceived through rigid political stereotypes that prompt judgements from certain peers. He quickly learned that being accepted on campus required downplaying his interests and sense of identity. When I asked him why he refrains from talking about it, he told me it’s because of a fear of being put down further. In a place where traditional masculinity is considered synonymous with conservative values, he often feels as though he’s constantly being surveilled.

This is just one student’s experience, but it reflects a larger issue surrounding how certain expressions of masculinity are perceived on campus and how they may shape young men’s engagement at UW-Madison. Campus politics often affect how gender roles, including masculinity, are perceived. Traditionally masculine traits and interests are not inherently problematic. But, as Reeves describes, our modern world offers little space for them, and in turn, their expression is often discouraged.

This is something I’ve witnessed from time to time on campus among female peers, comments about men that would likely be considered inappropriate if directed at other groups. They’re often passed as jokes from woman to woman, but there is almost always an underlying tone of criticism or irritation. It’s accepted because it’s become normalized, but it is dialogue that often sends a message: you’re not welcome here.

As the student from UW-Madison told me, he believes that traditional masculine roles are often perceived as misogynistic or dismissed when people fail to adopt a more progressive belief that these things can apply to both men and women in the modern age. The goal is not to reinstate rigid gender roles to give men a leg up, or to erase more traditional forms of masculinity in pursuit of new expectations, but to understand how to create space for it in a world -- and at UW-Madison -- where women have proven they are just as capable and just as willing to step into these roles.

The gender gap at UW-Madison is not just about women’s success in education, but how young men may understand their role, motivations, and sense of belonging in today’s academic institutions. Our broader culture needs to lead men through aspirations and clear expectations in the modern age. In turn, campuses like UW-Madison might benefit from assuring young men that they have a place here, whether it be through mentorship or better support systems, as students turn towards their futures and begin to understand their motivations for pursuing higher education.

Getting men in the door is one thing, but continuing to motivate them in pursuit of an ideal and welcoming their expression is another. The question is not why women are succeeding, but whether we are willing to think about what male disengagement might reveal about how we consider, or have failed to consider, young men.

READ MORE:

How Will the Next Chancellor of UW-Madison be Selected?

UW-Madison Should Abandon “Land Acknowledgements”

DEI Initiatives Persist at UW-Madison Despite Closure of Central Diversity Division

This article by UW-Madison student Rebecca Draeger was originally published by the MacIver Institute.

Madison East High School held their 4th Annual Drag Show on Thursday, February 12. The performance was marketed as a “family friendly drag show to help encourage cultural awareness.” The high school promoted the event across social media platforms like Facebook and wrote that the show would feature “local pros” and even some of the schools own high school students. The school turned off comments on this post.

Responding to the event advertisement, Talk Show Host Dan O’Donnell wrote on X, “I have reached out to the Madison Metropolitan School District for comment on the appropriateness (and legality) of having presumably underage students perform in such a sexually charged show inside a school.”

The event also drew criticism from various Wisconsin Representatives like Derrick Van Orden and Tom Tiffany. “Public schools have no business hosting drag shows, and featuring minors makes it completely unacceptable,” Tiffany wrote in a post on X.

Madison East High School was in the news just a few years ago as well, but for a different reason.

In August of 2021, one of their teachers was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for “attempting to produce obscene depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct and transporting minors in interstate commerce with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.”

David M. Kruchten, a former Madison East High School teacher, placed hidden cameras in his students’ hotel bathrooms and sleeping areas in places like air fresheners and thermostats to spy on them during school trips that he arranged.

One doesn’t have to go back as far as 2021, however, to find cases of teacher misconduct in Madison’s public schools. Earlier this month, Madison elementary school teacher David Fawcett was arrested and placed on administrative leave after an investigation relating to child-porn and exploitation of minors was conducted.

While hosting a drag show with minors doesn’t exactly quell the concerns of parents whose children may have been in proximity to sex-offenders at school, the Madison Public School District is not alone in its vulnerability to staff misconduct.

These local controversies raise a larger question: who is ultimately responsible for investigating and disciplining educators accused of misconduct across Wisconsin? The answer lies in the way that the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) carries out these teacher investigations.

In October 2025, journalist Danielle DuClos broke a huge story in The Cap Times about how DPI investigated over 200 teachers, aides, and substitutes between 2018 and 2023 who were accused of grooming or sexual misconduct in Wisconsin schools.

DuClos found this information through an open records request. She was sent a Google spreadsheet used by the DPI to track its investigations into teacher misconduct, data which the department is statutorily bound to maintain.

From the data, DuClos found that the allegations included “educators sexually assaulting students, soliciting nude photos from children or initiating sexual relationships immediately after students graduated.”

What is more concerning is that the DPI seemingly allows teachers accused of misconduct to avoid an in-depth investigation if they choose to forfeit their teaching license.

The concern here is that a teacher who forfeits their license before an investigation into sexual misconduct may move to another role that involves kids. A teacher who gives up their license could even hop districts and work in another role at a school.

In the aftermath of the article, the DPI implemented a database to look up which people have surrendered or had their teaching license revoked. The agency does not currently tell the public why the individual no longer has their license, but announced that they are looking for ways to add this information.

The Cap Times investigation also found that, despite the substantial amount of allegations of grooming and sexual misconduct in Wisconsin schools, DPI is only partitioning “scant resources” to investigate them. The department only has one full-time and one part-time investigator to handle the average of 113 investigations opened each year.

According to the article, DPI Spokesman Chris Bucher “blamed state lawmakers for underfunding the department rather than pointing to Underly or other agency leaders, who oversee how state funding is used internally.”

The legislature did cut DPI’s budget by about 10% in the latest biennial budget. However, Bucher didn’t mention that, while State Superintendent Jill Underly pushed for funding to modernize the agency’s background checks and licensing platform, DPI hasn’t requested any funds specifically for its misconduct office.

That office actually doesn’t even appear in the state budget at all. It falls under general operations, meaning that it is entirely up to DPI to allocate resources to that office based on the state superintendent’s priorities.

If not investigating sexual misconduct in schools, what are DPI’s priorities?

In November of 2025, a legislative committee approved an audit of the “educational licensure revocation, suspension, restriction, and investigation by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI).”

The audit will evaluate how long it took DPI to conduct investigations once allegations were made, how the agency gathered evidence, how work was prioritized, how much DPI followed its own procedures, among other things.

Just recently, a report on how DPI’s money is being spent came out that also caused DPI some controversy. State lawmakers delayed a scheduled vote to release $1 million to DPI after journalist Brian Fraley published an article in the Dairyland Sentinel when he found that the department spent over $368,000 on a “standard setting workshop” at a resort in the Wisconsin Dells.

Despite the substantial cost, DPI did not provide the Dairyland Sentinel with an itemized list of their expenditures and didn’t include receipts.

The workshop was conducted, at least in part, to change the result standards for the Forward Exam, a statewide standardized test. The Dairyland Sentinel report found that after the conference, “Proficiency rates jumped 12% under the new state benchmarks, causing a majority of students to ‘meet expectations.’”

Where a department invests its money tells you where their priorities lie.

Since DPI seems to invest in obfuscating Wisconsin children’s testing results, rather than in their ability to investigate sexual misconduct in schools, it makes sense that we see these results.

In light of this information, the natural next question is what is being done about it. While DPI oversees licensure and administrative investigations, lawmakers are now attempting to address misconduct through criminal statute.

On Wednesday, February 11, a bill authored by Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) and Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) to define and criminalize grooming behaviors was passed by the Senate. The bill is on its way to the Governor’s desk, waiting to be signed.

The bill defines grooming as “a course of conduct, pattern of behavior, or series of acts with the intention to condition, seduce, solicit, lure, or entice a child for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity or for the purpose of producing, distributing, or possessing depictions of the child engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”

In this bill, cases involving a person in a position of authority, such as a teacher, would carry a higher-level felony charge. Child groomers would also be required to register as sex offenders.

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Combating the issue of child-predators in schools isn’t a partisan issue. Underly and DPI both issued their support for the anti-grooming bill and the creation of a transparency database to include information on why teaching licenses were revoked. The anti-grooming bill passed with flying colors, with the exception of six Democrats in the Assembly.

The larger question is not whether individual scandals will continue to surface––they will. The question is why a system charged with protecting children has allowed structural weaknesses to persist for so long. When an agency partitions only minimal resources toward investigating sexual misconduct, allows educators to forfeit their licenses rather than face full review, and fails to publicly disclose the reasons behind revocations, it creates blind spots that predators can exploit.

It is a matter of priorities. Where money is directed reflects what leadership considers important. If standards revisions are funded while misconduct investigations remain understaffed, parents are left to draw their own conclusions about what DPI values most.

The forthcoming audit will likely answer some of the procedural questions: how long investigations take, whether policies are followed, and whether resources align with statutory responsibilities. But the deeper issue is one of institutional will. Whether the forthcoming audit results in meaningful reform will depend not only on what it finds, but on whether agency leadership and lawmakers are willing to act on them.

Ultimately, safeguarding students requires more than new criminal statutes. It requires a Department of Public Instruction that prioritizes protecting children.

Rebecca Draeger is a senior at UW-Madison and an intern at the MacIver Institute. She previously served as an editorial intern at The American Conservative through the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Collegiate Network, and her work has been featured in RealClearDefense and The College Fix.

We are all familiar with the now-common land acknowledgements that are heard at SOAR, commencement, graduation, and throughout our time at UW-Madison. However, this tradition is remarkably new. While an understanding of history is essential for every American, land acknowledgments serve little purpose beyond oversimplifying complex events and shaming those of us who may be proud of our nation.

Various divisions and departments list land acknowledgements on their websites, including Anthropology, Pediatrics, and the School of Social Work. University spokeswoman Gillian Drummond told The Madison Federalist, “The Office of Tribal Relations can provide guidance for campus units interested in sharing a land acknowledgement. It does so under the authority of the Chancellor’s Office.” Its website says those writing a land acknowledgement should research “the Indigenous peoples to whom the land belongs” and “use terms like genocide, ethnic cleansing, stolen land, coercive Assimilation, violence-backed treaties, internment, family separation, youth incarceration, sterilization without consent, and forced removal to reflect actions taken by colonizers.”

Drummond said, “UW–Madison does not require or have a policy on land acknowledgements at campus events.” Despite the absence of a formal requirement, they have been delivered as recently as the 2025 December commencement.

Drummond did not answer whether land acknowledgements are an institutional position, and thus, in conflict with a policy adopted in 2024 prohibiting institutional statements on controversial issues. That policy says, “Unless the core mission or ongoing operations of the university are at stake, the articulation of official institutional positions on matters of public concern and controversy is neither necessary to nor helpful for the lively exchange of ideas.”

Until recently, most Americans were presented with an oversimplified version of their history that cushioned the very real suffering of Native Americans. However, the history presented by land acknowledgements is just as oversimplified.

UW-Madison was established in 1848, but land acknowledgments only became common in 2019. Their goal is ostensibly to inform the student body about the Indigenous peoples of the land that now comprises the UW campus and the Teejop (Four Lakes) region. That year, UW launched the “Our Shared Future” initiative to recognize that Madison was once Ho-Chunk land.

After the American Revolution, the British ceded territories in North America from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River, including what is now Wisconsin, to the United States. Quickly, Americans sought to expand their borders, settle the lands, and establish new states. By 1830, the United States had doubled in size and had expanded to twenty-four states and three organized territories; the Michigan Territory included modern-day Michigan, Wisconsin, and northern Minnesota.

This rapid expansion led to the displacement of the Native tribes away from their homelands and further west to reservations that shifted over time. What’s now the UW campus was Ho-Chunk land until the Treaty with the Winnebago after the Black Hawk War of 1832. This treaty ceded Ho-Chunk lands in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, including what is now Madison and the UW campus. The Ho-Chunk nation was relocated to a reservation in Iowa after the Treaty with the Winnebago, and it was then relocated several other times at great cost to the nation. This is a sad part of U.S. history, but it is not the fault of anyone alive today.

The Teejop region was important for Native nations, as the numerous mounds, burial grounds, and archaeological discoveries show. It is commemorated today by historical sites and memorials, such as the Our Shared Future heritage marker on campus. Historical markers are a great way to commemorate various aspects of our history. This is why we have markers all around our campus, informing students about the history of North Hall, Camp Randall, and other important sites.

However, land acknowledgments go a step further than this. Land, and who controls it, shifts over time. All land was presumably “stolen” from someone at some point. Until very recently in human history, land almost always changed hands through conquest. Even native nations “stole” land from each other. Should we have a land acknowledgment in Western Poland that it was once German land? Or in Northern Chile, which used to be the now-landlocked Bolivia’s coastline? Memorials recognize history, but land acknowledgements are a performative way to apologize for history.

Why should one aspect of our history be prioritized over all others at our university’s events? To suggest that only this aspect of UW-Madison’s story is important ignores reality and puts one moment above all others. To assume that it is necessary to mindlessly recite apologies for our beautiful and prosperous campus’s existence is preposterous and lazy. It is incumbent upon all of us to understand our history and memorialize the past, not to regurgitate it and diminish its significance.

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The views expressed in this article are solely those of its author.

Across history, religion has been central to society, and it has both alleviated conflict and served as a catalyst for it. Some of the most famous conflicts have been between the followers of the world’s two largest religions: Christianity and Islam.

Christianity can trace its roots to Judaism and the Messiah, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God who was born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus’ purpose is to restore our relationship with God and to redeem us from our sins by dying on the cross. He rose from the dead, and now Christians are waiting for His second coming to judge the living and the dead.

To get to heaven, Christians must live according to the Ten Commandments and the teachings of the Bible, which include Jesus’ lineage and parables, while also doing good works such as treating others as they wish to be treated and caring for the poor. Christians also believe in the Holy Trinity, which is God in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Islam originated on the Arabian Peninsula and can also trace its roots to Judaism. They believe that Muhammad is the final prophet who received divine revelation from the angel Gabriel in 610 A.D., which was recorded in the Quran– Islam’s sacred text. Muhammad attracted many followers by spreading his message of equality, monotheism, and compassion.

Muslims believe in the five pillars of Islam: faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage. Muslims perform ritual prayers five times a day, give a portion of their wealth to those in need, observe fasting during Ramadan, and undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca once in their life.

The long-running conflict between Muslims (Moors) and Christians in Iberia is known as the Reconquista. It lasted around 770 years and was driven by a Christian desire to reclaim Iberia from under Muslim rule. Christians expanded their rule southward and conquered most Islamic states in Iberia before the end of the Reconquista in 1492, when Spain was united under the rule of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand II.

In 1609, King Philip III of Spain worried about the loyalties of the Christian converts who were of Muslim descent, so they were driven out to ensure religious unity.

Religious conflict is not solely between Muslims and Christians. There have also been conflicts and suffering within religious groups. In 1618, Christians fought Christians over denominational differences. There have been numerous European wars of religion, such as the Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants. The war began after Emperor Ferdinand II of the Holy Roman Empire tried to suppress Protestants and enforce Catholicism, which led to a political struggle for power.

Islam’s branches, Sunni and Shia, are another example of this kind of conflict. Both branches share core beliefs and traditions while differing on Muhammad’s succession and other issues.

In Nigeria, there have been recent disputes between Christian farmers and Muslim herders in the Middle Belt region, but living conditions for both sides have escalated due to weak governing and depleting resources. The core issue in this region is over land use rather than religious differences. As environmental conditions in the Sahel Region and the Sahara Desert deteriorate, land has become increasingly valuable, so many communities are fighting to farm and graze on the usable land.

Muslims and Christians in this region may be motivated by their faith, but the leaders and the inherent causes are more important to the conflict. Faith can be a dividing factor, but it is not always the root cause. Rather, it exacerbates existing tensions, and it can be used by those in power for their personal gain or for their community’s benefit.

Many of the United States’ founders were Christian, which influenced the laws and principles of the country. However, the freedom of religion in the U.S. is a fundamental right, which is evident from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson’s writings. During the period of exclusion acts and national quotas, there was clear discrimination against many groups of people, including Muslims, with many Americans viewing them as undesirable to have in the country.

In the U.S., the Muslim population has been consistently increasing. Many Muslims come from places such as Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, India, and Somalia in hopes of fleeing persecution, war, or other adverse conditions in their homelands. Recently, opposition to Muslims in the U.S. has often originated from people’s personal prejudices.

One inference is that religious differences are not themselves the cause of conflict, rather, they are used by those in power as a justification for their own gain. Even though the two groups differ on faith, they often agree in their daily lives and on ideas of right and wrong. Faith can increase existing differences among people, which can cause violence and discourse to escalate.

Another problem is radicalism. Extreme religious advocates don’t reflect the entire group, but they can cause conflict to arise where it would not have arisen normally. This can often make it difficult to determine whether something is motivated by faith, power, or greed.

Religion has historically been used to justify causing harm and division, so it is important to do things in the name of faith for the right reasons.

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On a campus formerly dominated by progressive student media, The Madison Federalist has made a big difference. Since launching in October 2024, we have published more than 100 articles containing original journalism or insightful commentary. In just over a year, we went from being a small blog to interviewing UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin. We have published four print editions, greatly expanded our team, and gained national attention.

Our original reporting has been featured in outlets including National Review, Fox News, the New York Post, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Daily Cardinal and Badger Herald have also each covered stories we broke. Just last week, we recorded an interview with former Governor Scott Walker for our fifth print magazine and held our biggest writers’ meeting ever.

Read the full essay!

Wisconsin is facing a demographic crisis that lawmakers and voters can no longer afford to downplay: the state’s birth rate is collapsing, and the consequences are already being felt across its communities.

According to recently released data from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, just 59,675 babies were born in the state in 2024. The figure represents an 18% decline from the 2007 birth peak, marking the lowest number of births since before World War II. Wisconsin has remained below replacement-level fertility (2.1 children for each family) since 1974, and projections suggest that the state could lose nearly 200,000 residents by 2050 if the current trend continues.

Policymakers must instead prioritize making Wisconsin a state where families can afford to live and raise children.

This decline is not limited to rural Wisconsin, though rural communities are experiencing the effects first. In 29 of the state’s 46 rural counties, deaths now outnumber births, contributing to shrinking school enrollments and workforce shortages. Even Wisconsin’s largest and most economically productive cities are no longer immune. Milwaukee recorded just 7,386 births last year—a 22% drop since 2019— while Dane County now has the lowest fertility rate in at least a generation.

For decades, Wisconsin’s population growth depended on strong families and stable communities. In 1920, when the number of births was the same as it was in 2024, Wisconsin’s population was less than 2.6 million, compared to the now over 6 million residents. Today, however, population growth is increasingly reliant on migration, not births. In 2023, more than 93% of Wisconsin’s population growth had come from net migration. A year later, 2024 data displayed that only 6.8% of the state’s growth came from natural population change (births minus deaths). Without families with children moving into the state, Wisconsin’s youth population would already be in steep decline.

The reasons behind this collapse can be traced to both statewide economic and cultural shifts. Rising housing and healthcare costs have made family formation increasingly unaffordable, particularly in urban areas such as Madison, where the cost of living now exceeds the national average by about 4%. At the same time, cultural priorities have shifted away from marriage and family toward prolonged education and career advancement. Many young adults delay having children until they have reached select career accomplishment, when fertility declines and family size becomes limited.

Wisconsin is also experiencing poor retention of the young adults they need most to rescue a declining population. States like Florida, Texas, and Arizona, which provide warmer climates, lower taxes, and stronger private-sector job growth, attract working families. Between 2010 and 2020, Wisconsin experienced its slowest population growth in recorded history, and the out-migration of young adults continues to weaken the state’s long-term economic outlook.

Wisconsin’s fertility crisis is not quickly approaching, it is already here.

With a birth rate below the national average, lawmakers are finally turning to acknowledge the problem. Governor Tony Evers’ 2025 “Year of the Kid” initiative includes investments in family tax relief, healthcare access, and child focused programs as an attempted retention of families with their eyes on settling elsewhere. While these efforts are a step in the right direction, reversing Wisconsin’s demographic decline will require a broader, more intentional strategy.

Policymakers must instead prioritize making Wisconsin a state where families can afford to live and raise children. Expanding housing supply, reducing childcare and healthcare costs, incentivizing family migration from neighboring states, and retaining stable income workers can secure a dwindling population. Cultural renewal matters as much as economic policy, and Wisconsin must reaffirm that strong families are not obstacles to growth, but the foundation of it.

Wisconsin’s fertility crisis is not quickly approaching, it is already here. It is reshaping the state’s economy, workforce, and communities. If action is not taken soon, the cost of inaction will only grow.

This article was originally published by the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

Provisions in a budget passed in the Badger State this previous summer require that faculty at Wisconsin’s two flagship universities—UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee—now teach at least one course per semester and 12 credit hours each school year. At smaller universities, the requirements are higher. Choleric and incredulous, professors turned to the local paper to vent their outrage.

I come here not to critique that policy specifically. There’s a colorable case to be made on either side of it. Perhaps a biologist working at the edge of human knowledge would be better off researching than teaching. Conversely, I feel little sympathy for university faculty who must now set down their morning lattes long enough to give a lecture.

Instead, I simply want to note that Republican lawmakers managed to pass a conservative-coded policy in a purple state with a Democratic governor. It’s all well and good to point to Florida or Texas and wish that every state could do likewise. Unfortunately, not every state capitol boasts a conservative governor ready to pick controversial fights backed up by a large Republican majority. Wisconsin demonstrates that even purple states can win meaningful, albeit limited, conservative victories.

To misquote Tolstoy, every single-party state is alike, but every purple state is divided in its own way. If the governor’s office, legislative body, and state supreme court all boast conservative majorities, the only task is managing internal factions. How split majorities hold power varies state by state. In Wisconsin, Republicans control both the Senate and the Assembly, which allows them to contest and overrule a Democrat governor. In Nevada, it’s the reverse. Some state parties have slim majorities, others large.

Consequently, it’s hard to give a one-size-fits-all recommendation for higher-ed reform in every purple state. That being said, Wisconsin offers three broadly applicable principles for how to leverage limited political power.

First and most importantly, purple states can leverage budget negotiations to play hardball. Wisconsin’s teaching-requirement bill passed because Republican State Assembly speaker Robin Vos demanded it before he and his caucus would approve an additional $256 million in funding for the University of Wisconsin. This latest fight is only his most recent win through such a strategy.

In 2023, for example. Vos clashed with Governor Tony Evers over funding and DEI cuts. Evers signed the bill but wielded his line-item veto powers to protect DEI positions. In response, Vos refused to approve pay raises for university employees until Democrats accepted retrenchments.

Democrats caved, and the state university system had to freeze hiring, reassign DEI employees, prohibit DEI statements on student applications, and abolish affirmative-action policies.

Frustrated, Jon Shelton, a professor and faculty union leader in Wisconsin, took to the pages of Academe magazine to lament the “complete capitulation” of Democrats in the state. This episode confirms what Do No Harm’s Jay Greene has argued: that university support of DEI programs is shallow. Aside from a handful of true believers inside of campus DEI shops, most faculty bureaucrats care about tenure, their ambitions, and their paychecks. Threaten those, and conservative lawmakers can achieve wins elsewhere.

Presently, plummeting college enrollment strengthens any such conservative bargaining. While enrollment at UW-Madison has largely held steady, enrollment has collapsed across the rest of the system, and forecasts predict a continued downward trend. Reality is unforgiving, and fewer students will force difficult cuts whether the Left likes it or not.

As Shelton concedes, “UW-Oshkosh cut about 20 percent of its entire work­force, UW-Platteville laid off over one hundred staff, the chancellor at UW-Parkside upheld the dismissals of several beloved lecturers because of budget cuts, and, on my campus, our chancellor sought to eliminate degree options for students.”

If salaries or hiring are on the line, falling enrollments could force other useful housekeeping. Do you, dear professor, want to lose your job, or should we redirect grant funds from the DEI office? I’m not a betting man, but I know where I’d toss my chips here.

The second path for higher-education reform is simple opposition. At the Conservative Education Reform Network (which I direct), we’re fond of emphasizing that conservatives are often better at explaining what we’re against than what we’re for. Through our network, we want to leverage the intelligent thinking of our members to propose and implement positive changes in our K-12 schools and institutions of higher education.

That being said, it’s important to oppose bad things. If conservatives don’t have the numbers or access to the levers of power to implement positive changes, simply preventing universities from guzzling bleach—metaphorically speaking, of course—is a useful exercise.

In Wisconsin, Democrats seem to have one mantra: Spend, baby, spend! More subsidies for tuition, more construction, higher salaries, more staff, more, more, more. Elsewhere in his Academe essay, Shelton laments that, for all proposed funding increases, “the Republican legislature” has managed to pare them “down to virtually nothing in every budget.”

Trimming increased spending won’t push higher-education costs down. It won’t reorient colleges toward ideological diversity or protect Jewish students from harassment. It’s a purely oppositional “against” policy. But it will at least slow the ever-increasing tuition costs and stresses on the taxpayer. If all that Republicans can manage is to form a stopgap, that is a good in itself, however limited.

Finally, even in purple states, there are plenty of opportunities for simple, boring, “good governance” reforms. For example, Wisconsin recently clarified rules and procedures about transfer credits. Additionally, the Badger State has long had a trifurcated governance structure over its universities, including four-year, two-year, and technical college campuses, which has created unnecessary complexity. As budget pressures increase, it would behoove Republicans to position themselves as the party that actually has a plan to address this governance mess.

There is no shortage of ambitious conservative proposals for higher-education reform. Supplant the progressive, politically correct university with the classical university once again. Remake accreditation and thereby break a regulatory cartel that chokes out new universities and stymies intellectual diversity. Wield the leviathan power of the federal government to bludgeon flagship universities into a conservative mold.

But while Hail Mary throws sometimes work, I’d place far more confidence in the incremental advances, achievable through individual state houses, that move the ball a few yards at a time. The significant wins coming out of Wisconsin’s divided legislature prove that forward progress is achievable for conservatives even on a purple playing field.

Daniel Buck is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network, and a former teacher and school administrator. He is a graduate of UW-Madison.

This essay was also published with The College Beat on Bishop Robert Barron’s Evangelization & Culture Online found at www.wordonfire.org.

In my early high school years, I became interested in Marxist thought through TikTok videos. The ideas presented to me seemed obvious at the time—things any reasonable person would believe. Marxism was about uplifting the working class: a goal that felt selfless to believe in. It seemed completely normal to believe in things like the common ownership of the means of production and the abolition of private property.

I was far from the only young adult attracted to the ideas of Marxism. New statistics come out all the time, but a 2020 poll from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that 30 percent of people ages 16–23 viewed Marxism favorably. Catholics should take this seriously. In his 1937 encyclical Divini Redemptoris, Pope Pius XI said, “Communism . . . strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse.” When young people grow up uncritically exposed to these ideas, they will naturally become more tolerant of injustices they believe are done for the pursuit of some higher end. Pope Francis noted this phenomenon in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti: “Today, in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools. Employing a strategy of ridicule, suspicion and relentless criticism, in a variety of ways one denies the right of others to exist or to have an opinion.”

Although Marxism is a viral and accessible ideology, it is far from being good or true.

One of the biggest reasons why Marxism is so attractive is because it is actually ridiculously simple. At the same time, its terms are crafted in a way to make it sound complex and deep to anyone not familiar with the ideas. For instance “dialectical materialism” sounds complex and academic, but it really just means that economic conditions can affect history.

The basic Marxist pitch today goes something like this: People profiting from owning the things that other people use to make money is bad. This is because the person who owns that thing didn’t work in the same way the actual worker did. Because the person who owns the thing (e.g., a factory) profited from someone else’s work, the owner must be taking advantage of the worker! After all, the worker would probably keep all the money for himself if he were able, and the only reason he isn’t able is because the first guy “owns” the thing that the worker uses to make money. Therefore, if the workers just get rid of ownership altogether, the workers will have more money!

The Marxist pitch uses a form of the “foot in the door” technique. Instead of jumping immediately to grand ideas about the eternal struggle between capital and labor or the necessity to abolish private property, the pitch starts with more palatable ideas, such as business owners taking advantage of vulnerable workers. However, it ends with the necessity of a revolution of the working class and the abolition of private property. This technique pairs well with modern social media algorithms, which often present ideas in a similar format. In this way, Marxism almost seems like it was created for social media. In today’s internet, someone with a moderate interest in strategy games might find their social media algorithms quickly filled with content on the virtues of chess and the mind-numbing simplicity of tic-tac-toe; in a similar way, someone with a God-given conviction to love the poor might soon find themselves inundated with content on the virtues of the late Second Spanish Republic or Mao’s Great Leap Forward.

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Although Marxism is a viral and accessible ideology, it is far from being good or true. Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum points out the essential flaw in Marxism’s most basic idea: The private ownership of the means of production exists as the owner’s “wages under another form.” To deny the owner of that property is to deny the owner of their ability to use their wages to better their position in life. Rather than naming a purely institutional culprit for the evil in the world, the Church points to the failure of people to live up to their duties to love their neighbor and to treat them with dignity. As Leo XIII observes,

The first thing of all to secure is to save unfortunate working people from the cruelty of men of greed, who use human beings as mere instruments for money-making. It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labor as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies.

Though it is good and just to point out where Marxism is wrong, my reversion to the Church came a few years ago after many people in my life prayed for me for a long time. One thing that viral movements like Marxism do not have on their side is a genuine love and respect for the human person, which is far more obvious and meaningful than any number of TikToks from even the most savvy ideologues.

Catholic social teaching explicitly recognizes the love of God and the infinite dignity he has bestowed upon every human, whom he has made in his image and likeness. These two facts build on each other to reveal to us our call to charity. Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Caritas in Veritate, “Charity is at the heart of the Church’s social doctrine. Every responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law.” This commitment to charity makes Catholic social doctrine far more grounded than Marxism could ever hope to be. Although Marxism does claim that workers should be afforded some level of dignity, this is quickly forgotten when people are used as means to the end of the communist utopia.

Most of the problems of political life today stem from our inability to engage in genuine dialogue with people we disagree with.

Today’s political and technological environment allows nearly everyone in our society to be exposed to the scandal and hatred often common in the world of politics. Just as in every other area of life, the Church offers hope for politics. In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis called for a new culture of political and social love:

Only a gaze transformed by charity can enable the dignity of others to be recognized and, as a consequence, the poor to be acknowledged and valued in their dignity, respected in their identity and culture, and thus truly integrated into society. That gaze is at the heart of the authentic spirit of politics. It sees paths open up that are different from those of a soulless pragmatism. It makes us realize that the ‘scandal of poverty cannot be addressed by promoting strategies of containment that only tranquilize the poor and render them tame and inoffensive. How sad it is when we find, behind allegedly altruistic works, the other being reduced to passivity.’

The establishment of a culture of political and social love can be achieved through dialogue that includes, as Fratelli Tutti describes, “readiness to give and receive, while remaining open to the truth.” Most of the problems of political life today stem from our inability to engage in genuine dialogue with people we disagree with. The way we engage in technology today only leaves us more isolated while providing an illusion of connection with others. As Pope Francis wrote, “We are growing ever more distant from one another, while the slow and demanding march towards an increasingly united and just world is suffering a new and dramatic setback.” Such a large calling must start small. If we wish to establish a culture of political love, we must find the strength to engage and dialogue face-to-face with those we disagree with; we must find room for charity in our hearts and communicate it to them in a way that is authentic and invites them to a deeper relationship.

The social doctrine of the Church is in some ways more difficult to accept than Marxism because people will always find it easier to convert society to their ideal vision than to convert their own hearts to God. However, as the Church looks to evangelize in this new age of social media, we will attract the most people through standing by our convictions. The Church offers a message of divine love and hope that is attractive in any age, and it is clear that most of the ideas that we compete with today are merely shallow ideologies with no real foundation. In my experience, Marxism falls apart in the face of authentic charity. The Gospel message is as effective an antidote to human evils as it ever was.

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Historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. famously said anti-Catholicism was “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” Just a century and a half ago, Catholics were often persecuted or looked down upon in the United States. But today, an American is the Pope. Pope Leo XIV’s leadership presents a number of interesting questions and possibilities for the future of the Church.

Pope Leo XIV was born Robert Francis Prevost on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois. He was involved in the Church from a young age through his parents’ participation in their parish. He attended a minor seminary for high school and eventually enrolled at Villanova University, an Augustinian College. He joined the Augustinian order and was ordained in 1982. He would go on to work at the Augustinian Mission in Peru, becoming a bishop in 2014. Finally, he was appointed a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023.

Pope Leo is only the second non-European pope since 741 AD, but non-European popes may become a pattern for the future, as Christianity has declined in much of Europe. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Americas, the number of Catholics has largely stayed the same or grown. These trends paint a clear picture that the center of Catholicism, and all of Christianity, is moving away from its historic center in Europe.

There will, no doubt, always be Catholics in Europe, especially in Italy, but as more priests are sourced from outside Europe, candidates for the papacy will become increasingly geographically diverse. It is not out of the question to say that future popes will likely come from Asia or Africa as the global reach of Catholicism shifts to these regions.

Before the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, there were fears that he, as a Catholic, would be influenced by his loyalty to the Vatican. By the time Joe Biden ran for president in 2020, his faith was of little concern to voters. However, Vice President JD Vance’s faith has already led some in the media to label him a “Christian nationalist,” and attacks will only increase as his presumptive presidential campaign takes shape.

Pope Leo and Vance already have a complex relationship. Before his election to the papacy, Pope Leo tweeted an essay titled “JD Vance is Wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” Vance and Pope Leo had a cordial meeting in May, and while they are likely to disagree on issues such as immigration, close ties between Washington and the Vatican remain possible. Still, some right-wing influencers have been openly skeptical of Pope Leo’s leadership, and ideological conflicts between MAGA and Pope Leo could occur in the coming years.

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Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, was praised across many different religious and cultural groups for his work and earned admiration from people of all walks of life. Pope Leo could very well do the same and help improve the Catholic Church’s image in the United States. He can provide a different example of American Christian values than the one that is being shown by the mainstream media.

In the rest of the world, many suspicious of Americans may see the election of Pope Leo as another example of Americans having an outsized influence in global institutions. Americans have long held significant power through global institutions such as the U.N., the World Bank, NATO, and the IMF. Many may see Pope Leo as simply another American who is openly trying to do good and make the world a better place, but in a way that cements American soft power.

The Catholic Church is the world’s oldest and most important institution. Pope Leo’s American identity is one of his great strengths and great weaknesses. As he enters the first full year of his pontificate and begins the grueling task of leadership, we must pray for the Holy Father.

The Madison Federalist published more than 70 articles in 2025. Our stories have been picked up by more than a dozen state and national outlets, including Fox News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and New York Post. Our website got tens of thousands of views, we more than doubled our subscribers, and we published four quarterly print magazines. The Federalist’s team has expanded, as has its reach and impact. Here is a look back at what we accomplished this year:

TOP NEWS STORIES:

• UW-Madison Stalls on Promised Conservative Professor Role

• Report Reveals Racial Disparities in UW Med School Admissions

• Multiple Wisconsin School Districts Refer Students to UW Transgender Clinic

• UW System Failed to Adequately Track Spending on DEI: Audit

• Madison Federalist Managing Editor Testifies About Campus Free Speech

TOP INTERVIEWS:

• Chancellor Mnookin Discusses Pluralism, Wisconsin Exchange in Exclusive Interview

• Gubernatorial Candidate Tom Tiffany Discusses Goals for UW System

• UW-Madison Alumnus Returns to Campus as a Priest

TOP STORIES IN STATE AND NATIONAL OUTLETS:

• Fox News - Students find more violent imagery near University of Wisconsin campus after anti-ICE displays probed

• National Review - DEI Isn’t Dead Yet at the University of Wisconsin

• New York Post - UW-Madison dean called Trump racist, claimed education system, math is ‘inherently violent’ to black students

• The Dan O’Donnell Show: “This is actual, fantastic journalism that you typically don’t get from student-run liberal newspapers.”

TOP COMMENTARY ARTICLES:

• A Response to The Daily Cardinal

• FIRE Free Speech Ranking Reveals Progress, Problems on Campus

• Making Sense of Charlie Kirk

• The Legacy of William F. Buckley Jr. at UW-Madison

TOP EVENT COVERAGE:

• Former Governor Scott Walker Returns to Campus

• Norman Finkelstein Encourages Students To Start Another Encampment

• Hillel Hosts Holocaust Survivor and UW Alumnus

• Professors Discuss Intellectual Diversity at YAF Panel

LOOKING AHEAD:

The Madison Federalist is always looking for new writers! Contact editor-in-chief Benjamin Rothove (rothove@wisc.edu) if you are interested. In addition, our first event of the new year will be held on February 4th. Details below:

One hundred years after the birth of William F. Buckley Jr., the legacy of the intellectual pioneer of the modern conservative movement endures. A prominent public figure, the founder of National Review, and host of Firing Line, Buckley defined the conservative movement in fractured postwar America. Buckley helped build a coalition that blended libertarian thought, traditionalism, and anti-communism, culminating in the Reagan administration.

Buckley believed that universities mattered because they trained citizens. He thought higher education should be a place where students encounter and engage with beliefs outside their comfort. His 1951 book God and Man at Yale was built on that premise and set the framework for how conservatives would think about universities for decades.

His influence extended to Madison, where his visits sparked controversy and conversations. In 1961, Buckley drew an overflow crowd at the Madison Inn in a speech hosted by conservative students. That speech came shortly after the National Student Association, a confederation of student governments, denied him the podium at their national convention. Buckley criticized the NSA for that decision, and said, “conservatism has grown up because students have grown up, surveyed the world, and disliked what has met their eye.” According to the Wisconsin State Journal, “the session was enlivened by hissing and booing and applause.”

In his speech, Buckley criticized both the John Birch Society and the policies of then-President John F. Kennedy. “The conservatives, facing the crisis of our times, can resist the temptation to use government to realize quick ends at the expense of individual rights and liberties,” Buckley said. “A society dominated by millions of laws, that makes room for millions of bureaucrats, restricts freedom.”

Buckley returned to Madison in 1971 for a Badger Herald fundraiser. At the time, the Herald was a conservative publication similar to The Madison Federalist. Addressing a crowd of 600 supporters, Buckley harshly criticized radicals at UW-Madison. “Reason cannot reach the revolutionary vapors on which the young revolutionaries are stoned,” he said. He praised the Herald’s coverage of campus issues, and said the paper was a sign of “our will to survive” in contrast to the revolutionaries who “are doing their best to destroy freedom.”

Buckley’s final appearance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was at a Distinguished Lecture Series speech in 1993. He said Bill Clinton was a “mythogenic figure,” but America had shown “the fortitude to survive electoral vicissitudes.” He continued, “Utopia has never come when an omnipotent government is everywhere around us.”

Buckley refused to have his column syndicated in the Capital Times after a dispute with one of its publishers, and when the paper was mentioned, Buckley quipped, “Your paper hasn’t become a ghetto of despair without me, have you?”

Donald Downs, political science professor emeritus, compared the event to “Nixon going to China” in an email to The Madison Federalist. Downs said he “joined the dozen people who had dinner with him at a now-defunct restaurant on State Street” and had the opportunity to speak with Buckley. He was later given the paper on which Buckley had written the speech, saying he was “surprised to see that it was handwritten in small writing all crammed together with red ink revisions scribbled on it.”

During a period when UW-Madison was in the national spotlight during free speech battles of the 1990s and early 2000s, the willingness of students to bring Buckley to campus despite protests reflected a desire for a more intellectually diverse and less confrontational environment. Downs said university would be a “more interesting and challenging place” if similar initiatives took place today.

READ MORE OF DOWNS’S REFLECTION HERE

Buckley played a major role in inspiring the formation of student groups across the country that defend free speech, religious liberty, and constitutional rights, including Young Americans for Freedom.

In 1969, UW-Madison student David Keene became the national chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, where he worked closely with Buckley. Keene is a conservative giant in his own right. He worked for Senator James L. Buckley (William’s brother) and was later chair of the American Conservative Union and the National Rifle Association. Keene’s college roommate was former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson. The conservative student movement that launched both men’s careers could be traced to Buckley.

Today, UW-Madison’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter prospers, and the badger featured on the latest two print editions of The Madison Federalist has been affectionately named “Buckley Badger.” The Federalist is affiliated with the Fund for American Studies, an organization Buckley co-founded.

In addition to UW-Madison, Buckley visited the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1962, sponsored by the Conservative Club. He also delivered the convocation speech at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1978. In 1979, Buckley gave a speech sponsored by the Associated Students of Marquette University.

Three episodes of Firing Line were filmed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1974, where Buckley interviewed Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt, Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Representative (later Secretary of Defense) Les Aspin. UW-Madison student John Felder also appeared on Firing Line to discuss the Black Student Strike of 1969.

Above all, Buckley insisted on intellectual seriousness and principled boundaries. Buckley’s centennial offers not only a reflection on the past but a challenge for the present. For a university that prides itself on “sifting and winnowing,” and on the Wisconsin Idea of extending education and dialogue, Buckley’s legacy serves as a reminder that intellectual diversity is not a burden but a necessary condition of campus life. For a conservative movement struggling to find its identity, Buckley serves as a reminder to not be driven by hatred.

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This article was originally published by the Badger Institute and was reprinted with permission.

About half as many students in the University of Wisconsin System are getting bachelor’s degrees in ethnic and gender studies as did at their peak in 2013.

Bachelor’s degrees focusing on gender and ethnic groups have been on a steady decline, from 157 in the 2012-13 school year to 67 in 2023-24, according to Universities of Wisconsin data reviewed by the Badger Institute. In the most recent school year, 2024-25, the total number rebounded slightly to 82.

At the same time, interest in those classes remains high. Students obtaining certificates in what the system terms “area, ethnic, cultural, gender and group studies” have increased by more than 127 percent, from 346 in 2018-19 to 784 in 2024-25, according to the data.

Certificates are earned through focused study of 12 to 24 credits that can be applied to a major or can stand alone.

Approximately half of the bachelor’s degrees awarded in the “area, ethnic, cultural, gender and group studies’ area in 2024-25 were in women’s studies. Much smaller numbers were awarded in areas such as Japanese studies and Latin American studies. Only four bachelor’s degrees in 2024-25 were awarded in African-American/Black studies.

The general decrease in enrollment in those disciplines over the last dozen years and a concurrent drop in funding has caused schools in Wisconsin and across the country to consolidate and jettison programs.

The economic disruption of the pandemic, tuition rates that have more than doubled over the past 25 years, and the explosion of technology, making engineering and computer sciences more valuable, have forced many students to reevaluate their educations.

“People are so much more in tune with and worried about (return on investment) than they were in previous years, because coming to college today costs more than it cost previously,” Taylor Odle, professor of educational studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told a student newspaper, The Badger Herald.

Critics, including the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, point to President Trump’s executive order in his first term to root out racial preferences branded as “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI, from the federal government as the first political thrust against race and gender studies on campus. But the data shows that the drift away from those studies as majors predated Trump’s announcement that he was running for president in 2015.

The first women’s studies program in the UW system was created in 1975. In 1989, the system added a requirement that all students take an ethnic studies class.

Across the UW system, students earned 79 bachelor’s degrees in ethnic, gender and related studies in 2002-03, according to the data. Five years later, there were 136 graduates. The numbers flattened during the Great Recession, peaked at 157 in 2013, then fell, with 105 in 2020, and plummeting with the onset of COVID.

Over the past decade, there has been a steady increase in students earning certificates in ethnic, gender and related studies, although that increase is reflected across all disciplines on all campuses, according to the data.

In 2017-18, students earned a total of 3,927 certificates. This year, that number was 7,723, a 97 percent increase in less than a decade, according to the data.

The reaction from teachers and administrators to ethnic and gender studies degree trends has been to circle the wagons. After UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced in July the school was closing its DEI office, word began circulating that the schools intended to end the long-standing ethnic studies requirement.

Without the requirement, a student member of the school’s Ethnic Studies Committee told reporters, fewer students would take those classes.

UW Interim Provost John Zumbrunnen in October scrambled to clarify what he said was a misunderstanding about a streamlining of course requirements into six uniform categories across the UW system, as required by Act 15, the state’s 2025-27 budget bill.

All students are still required to complete an ethnic studies class, he said, but gender studies has no requirement.

Despite modest upticks in ethnic and gender studies degrees this year, systemwide and in Madison, the outlook on Wisconsin and national campuses is one of retrenchment.

The University of California at Santa Cruz closed its feminist studies department in July after 50 years. Faculty had decreased from 12 to 2.5 over the past eight years.

Texas Christian University announced that its women and gender studies and comparative race and ethnic studies departments would be dissolved at the end of the 2026 school year.

The University of Iowa consolidated its gender, social justice and African American studies classes into a single department. Texas A&M dropped an LGBTQ+ Studies minor, part of a larger purge.

The State of Florida, following in the footsteps of North Carolina, launched a pilot program to study the return on investment for degrees earned in computer science, civil engineering, finance and women’s or gender studies.

This didn’t come overnight. Even an advocacy group, the National Women’s Studies Association, in its 2023 study of 244 programs, found nearly as many departments losing majors as gaining them.

About four in 10 departments reported their budgets had decreased, one in four had lost staff, and one in five lost full-time faculty. Many departments, the study said, were being run with no full-time faculty.

The Badger Institute contacted the heads of gender and ethnic studies departments at the six largest Wisconsin state universities to ask for specifics. Only the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse responded, and then only to say that their bachelor’s numbers did not follow statewide patterns and that the school does not offer a standalone certificate.

The bachelor’s and certificate trends statewide indicate that some undergraduates want to take some classes in gender and ethnic-related studies but that the vast majority do not believe you can build a career or a life around them.

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute.

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This article was originally published by the MacIver Institute and was shared with permission.

You might have applauded when the state passed a law requiring able-bodied, childless adults on welfare to attend job training. What you probably didn’t know is that the government doesn’t provide that training. It outsources that program, and many others like it, to non-profit organizations, who act as quasi-government agencies and make big bucks in the process.

Wisconsin awarded over $58 million in taxpayer funding to Wisconsin Works programs in just 2024 alone, a report from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau shows. Wisconsin Works (W-2), the state’s welfare-to-work program, seeks to help low-income families who are on government assistance find long-term and self-sufficient employment.

Despite the astronomical dollar amount being given to these programs, there is little to no record on what they are doing with the money and what goals they are achieving.

The Wisconsin State Legislature has noticed this problem too. The Senate introduced a bill back in April, that aimed to address the lack performance metrics reported by workforce development programs.

Senator Dan Feyen, the sponsor of the bill, states that “there is no universal way for policy makers or the public to gauge their [workforce development programs] effectiveness.”

S.B. 201 would help remedy this situation by requiring all workforce development programs to report the same performance metrics that are required for the core program under the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

For example, one of the basic metrics includes reporting the percentage of participants employed in the 2nd and 4th quarter after leaving the program. Another required metric is the median income of participants who are employed during the second quarter following the exit of the program.

The six core programs of WIOA are the only workforce development programs that are already subject to reporting federal standardized performance metrics. These six programs contract work with various Wisconsin Works organizations, typically through Wisconsin Works job centers.

While Wisconsin Works programs are not subject to reporting their own standard performance metrics, the performance of the W-2 programs’ services may affect the overall core program’s performance metrics. The issue is that it is impossible to distinguish the effect that each individual W-2 program has.

Despite there being 45 or so different workforce development programs, Wisconsin Works programs make an interesting case study. They receive very large grants but have few reports on their real impact.

The top Wisconsin Works funding recipients are Forward Service Corporation, Ross Innovative Solutions, and America Works of Wisconsin. Each of them receives millions of dollars in funding every year.

Forward Service Corporation is the largest recipient of the state’s welfare-to-work funding. Their contract amount was $13,653,180 for just FY 2024.

According to their website, Forward Service Corporation provides “customized employment and education services” that help people “find and keep high-paying careers.” They also offer various services to aid welfare recipients in finding employment, such as tuition assistance, free training courses, connections to technical schools, transportation, tutoring, resume workshops, college readiness help, and emergency assistance.

There is, however, no performance data on how these services actually affect outcomes for Wisconsin’s welfare recipients. In fact, none of the top three grant recipients have publicly available metrics that outline how many people have found employment, how long people were able to retain their employment, and most importantly, how many people were able to be moved off of welfare.

Moreover, Jobs for American Graduates is a sub-program of Forward Service Corporation that receives approximately $1 million a year from this same contract. On the JAG website, there is a page titled “2024 Annual Report.”

Although labeled a report, the page lacks any kind of numbers or concrete data that would be expected. The main purpose of the report is to acclaim JAG’s attempt to increase the number of students that they help from the current number of 80,000 to 1 million by 2035.

In general, the salary and administrative costs are very high at these NGOs, raising questions about how much contract money is going towards direct aid and what the true priorities of these organizations are.

Their CEO made $326,000 per year while working only 20 hours a week, according to their 990 filed in 2023. This was a massive increase from her wage of $153,013 in 2018.

Ross Innovations Solutions is the second biggest recipient of welfare-to-work grants, with a total contract amount of $12,196,031 in 2024. This one is actual a private, for-profit company. It offers similar programs to that of Forward Service Corporation, which include job placement, food assistance, youth programs, TANF help, community advocacy, and emergency aid.

There is no data on what they have achieved with these government contracts or what positive influences they are making. The website only offers a few personal anecdotes and news stories to cite impact.

America Works of Wisconsin has the third largest W-2 government contractor, receiving $9,324,883 in grants in 2024 from the Wisconsin State Government.

On their website, America Works claims that their good work has helped over “2 million individuals increase their self-sufficiency.” They also state that most job seekers with America Works gain employment in 4 weeks. Again, these claims lack concrete data to back them up.

The numbers, or lack thereof, that these quasi-government agencies provide, highlights an issue in workforce development program funding. Often millions of dollars get sent out, but there are not standardized metrics that the public and legislature can view to ensure that the money is doing as intended.

Wisconsin Works was signed into law back in 1996 by Governor Tommy Thompson with the hopes of turning the Wisconsin welfare system from one based on need to one based on self-sufficiency.

A key part of these ground breaking reforms was making sure that people were landing jobs that got them, and kept them, off of welfare. It is difficult to know if that is being achieved when performance metrics aren’t reported in an accessible way.

The large grants going out with little oversight and no request of progress also raise some questions about the transparency and effectiveness of these welfare-to-work programs. Where exactly is this 58 million of taxpayer dollars going? Are Wisconsin taxpayers getting a return on their investment, or have these programs simply just become bureaucratic black holes?

If these work-to-welfare programs are truly providing aid to low-income families as well as helping them find sustainable employment, they should have no problem showing the receipts in the form of concrete numbers.

As for S.B. 201, it is still in the committee process, and awaits further scheduling.

On Thursday, November 13, UW-Madison students Courtney Graves and Hanna Anderson Gravelle testified in front of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities to support Assembly Bill 501, which would bolster free speech and academic freedom on UW campuses. This is Anderson Gravelle’s unedited testimony:

Thank you Chairman Murphy and members of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, for hearing Assembly Bill 501 regarding free speech on college campuses. My name is Hanna Anderson Gravelle. I am a second-year student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) studying Political Science, Legal Studies, and Public Policy.

Suppressed speech on college campuses has been an ongoing issue. College campuses have become exceedingly divided, causing an uninviting environment for differing opinions. We, as students, policymakers, and administrators, need to create meaningful change on campus. It is essential all students feel comfortable, safe, and valued on their own campus. We need to foster an environment where open dialogue is encouraged, and differing opinions are respected. By uniting, we can foster this environment, as collaboration allows for more meaningful and lasting change. The growing polarization, now visible even to those beyond campus life, reveals a deeper systemic problem within the state and country. Polarization suppresses free expression, as individuals may hesitate to voice their true beliefs, especially if they differ from the social norms established on campus. Universities are supposed to be places that allow open dialogue and civil discourse, not places suppressing free speech. However, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found “Wisconsin places in the bottom 25 nationally for ‘Comfort Expressing Ideas’”. Political climates on campuses should not deter students from furthering their education. An individual’s political beliefs should not define who a person is on campus.

The university’s values statement states, “civil discourse is a longstanding priority of our campus” and “here at UW–Madison, we believe that the ability to exchange, consider, and challenge different ideas is central to the educational process.” UW-Madison has failed to meet the standards they have set forth. Campus has not been a place that allows different ideas to be expressed. In addition, Chancellor Mnookin recently gave a speech at the Reagan Institute Summit saying “It is a call to all of us to double down on the importance of what we are doing on our campuses — to encourage our students and our faculty to learn to disagree better, to learn to engage with one another.” If this statement was highlighted in the speech, it should be reflected through meaningful implementation, not just performative measures. Legislation protecting all students’ freedom of speech and expression is critically important.

The UW employs a distinct but questionable approach to faculty hiring, raising concerns. The faculty hiring process plays a significant role in the increasingly polarized environment the campus has developed. Currently, the hiring process essentially allows other faculty to hire new employees rather than the upper administrators. A hiring process as such does not typically occur in most professions. Systems like this or similar to this do not allow for a fair hiring process, inhibiting hiring varying perspectives. The systemic structure of higher education reinforces the idea this behavior is acceptable to students. Alternatively, the UW recently came out with a neutrality clause due to the prior issues with the university expressing its opinion on political issues. In 2024, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found “66% of faculty say colleges and universities should not take positions on political and social issues.” Public institutions should refrain from taking explicit stances on political issues, as students are highly impressionable and should be encouraged to form their own independent viewpoints. I had a professor who prioritized a politically neutral classroom. I learned the most in this class. I did not know where my professor stood politically, which is how it should be. Universities should be modeling neutrality and open dialogue, reinforcing the importance of respectful discourse rather than endorsing a particular ideology.

The university’s response to the polarization on campus has included implementing civil discourse initiatives. The initiative programs include: Deliberation Dinners, Wisconsin Exchange, The Discussion Project, and a Pluralism and Unity Advisory Board, which I am on. During our meetings, students and faculty discuss controversial issues on campus. I believe promoting pluralism is a significant stride in the right direction. Until UW can create an environment where everyone’s voice is equally accepted and heard, the initiative programs discussed above will not be successful. Disallowing students from expressing their views limits students, our future leaders, from engaging in meaningful and respectful dialogue across differing perspectives.

Daily, I often feel unable to express my views in class because my perspectives differ from my peers. When I do share my opinions, I am frequently met with disapproving looks or immediate debate. At times, I choose to remain silent to avoid constant confrontation. Several conservative classmates have expressed similar experiences. We often feel alienated or viewed as outsiders, which creates an uncomfortable and discouraging classroom environment. Last semester, I received a lower grade due to my final paper incorporating ideas leaning conservative. I emailed my professor and teaching assistant to ask why my grade was lower than normal. I compared my essay to the rubric, quoting how I directly incorporated the requirements into my final. My professor’s response included giving me partial points back, but not enough to substantially change my grade. Many students who have encountered similar situations felt they needed to censor their assignments and adhere to what the professor wanted to hear. Professors create syllabi intend to weed out students who do not agree with them. After this instance, I felt more empowered to stand up, but in most cases, students tend to have an adverse reaction resulting in students’ voices being silenced. Right here is a prime example proving how universities have been infringing on students’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

I had a classmate who experienced political hostility after displaying a campaign sign on her dorm room door. She put a political sign on her door, similar to what other students were participating in. Except in her case, her sign was torn down multiple times. Following the incident, she reported the issue, but UW took no further action to address the situation. UW should support students in situations like this. The social effects hostility caused were detrimental. Students on the same dorm floor refused to speak to her, which made her feel isolated. Tearing down her sign and taunting her is the start of political violence. Validating the statistic stating “35% of students say using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases.”

Reports indicate an upward trend in students perceiving physical violence as an acceptable response to disagreement. Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found that “76% of students say shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases,” These numbers used to be lower, but due to the political climate our campus has developed, they have been on the rise. It is imperative to educate the younger generation on the idea, violence is never the answer, and behaviors representing violence are not acceptable.

If we fixed the issue of suppressed speech on campus with expanded free speech policies and due process procedures, 70% of conservative students would not be afraid to express their perspective on a controversial issue for fear of being downgraded for their views. A change in culture will be a long and challenging process but I believe AB 501 is a great step toward sparking meaningful change. Thank you again, Chair and Members of the Committee, for inviting me to testify on AB 501. I am open to answer any question you may have.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of its author.

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