UW Professors' Lobbying Group Overwhelmingly Opposes Republican Bills
In 2025, the total lobbying expenditures of PROFS exceeded $60,000.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s faculty lobbying organization presents itself as a voice for all UW-Madison professors, but it has overwhelmingly taken progressive policy stances on issues including male participation in women’s sports and race-based practices in higher education.
The Public Representation Organization of the Faculty Senate (PROFS) was founded in 1976 by the UW-Madison faculty senate. Its goal is to advocate “on behalf of UW-Madison faculty before state legislators, the governor, the Board of Regents, members of Congress and the public.”
The executive committee of the faculty senate serves as the PROFS Board of Directors, while the Steering Committee directly oversees PROFS activities and determines the organization’s positions.
In the 2023 to 2024 and 2025 to 2026 legislative sessions, PROFS lobbied for or against 78 bills. It lobbied against 30 bills, 28 of which were Republican. Of the 48 bills it lobbied in favor of, 24 were bipartisan, 6 were Republican and 18 were Democratic. In 2025, PROFS total lobbying expenditures exceeded $60,000.
Senate bills and assembly bills are distinct, even if they cover the same topics. The Federalist counted them separately because Wisconsin’s official lobbying system does so. However, the overwhelming majority of bills PROFS registered support for or against in the assembly had a similar bill counted in the senate.
The lobbying group opposed AB 446 and SB 445, which would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. These were the only bipartisan bills opposed by PROFS in the last two legislative sessions. PROFS opposed no Democratic bills in the same timeframe.
PROFS lobbyist Jack O’Meara, who has a background in Democratic politics, said he was surprised by the disparity in a phone interview with The Madison Federalist. “I didn’t know that until you just told me,” he said.
PROFS’s listed priorities include “competitive compensation,” “faculty governance,” “protection of tenure,” “state support for the university’s operating and capital budget,” “federal support for research,” and “retirement and other employee benefits.”
However, it has taken stances on a wide array of public policy positions. It lobbied against AB 102, which would have prohibited male students from playing on women’s sports teams. O’Meara told The Madison Federalist that the organization’s steering committee “didn’t like the way it was drafted.”
PROFS also lobbied against SB 652, which would have changed “race-based programs or requirements in higher education” to serve “disadvantaged students rather than minority students.” It lobbied against AB 377, which would have established English as the official language of Wisconsin.
PROFS registered against a bill that would give UW academic staff greater say in institutional governance. It opposed a bill that would have prevented undergraduate tuition at UW institutions from increasing more than the consumer price index. Furthermore, it opposed a bill that would establish free speech and academic freedom standards across the UW System.
O’Meara noted that PROFS works with Republican and Democratic legislators. He pointed to the 2019 Mark Cook Bill and their recent work with Senator Rachel Cabral-Guevara on a bill to change the fall start dates of University of Wisconsin institutions.
“Some groups make a big deal about claiming to be non-partisan and yet register against every single Republican initiative. PROFS seems to keep their focus on higher education and they have registered in favor of bills that I have authored,” Cabral-Guevara told The Madison Federalist via email. “It is helpful for legislators to hear from more than just the university administrators in Bascom and Van Hise. I’ve worked with PROFS in the past to develop and tweak legislation. It’s natural for us to have disagreements about the direction UW should be going in. While PROFS job is to bring the concerns of only UW professors to the Capitol, as an elected leader, my job is to hear from people on all sides of an issue.”
However, state representative Amanda Nedweski told The Federalist, “In my experience, PROFS has far more often supported Democrat-authored proposals while opposing reforms introduced by Republicans.”
PROFS recently worked with Democratic lawmakers to introduce a bill that would make it illegal for anyone to possess a firearm on a public university campus, even if they have a concealed carry license.
On campus, feelings about PROFS are mixed.
Political science professor emeritus Donald Downs told The Federalist via email that he was never a member of PROFS, but he did work with the organization. “They were earnest and honorable, and cared about academic freedom, especially when attacks came from outside the institution,” he said. However, “They were less on board about some internal threats, but were not hostile to those who were concerned about restrictions based on political correction. I always saw them as necessary but not always sufficient to defend academic freedom from all attacks, and was glad they were present and to work with them.”
A conservative professor who spoke to The Federalist under the condition of anonymity to avoid professional repercussions was more critical. “While PROFS presents itself as the voice of the faculty, UW–Madison’s faculty hold a much wider range of views than the organization’s lobbying suggests. Many of us simply want to focus on teaching, research, and maintaining high scholarly standards without ideological litmus tests. PROFS does not represent that broader faculty perspective, nor does it represent mine.”
O’Meara said, “We consider ourselves representing all faculty. Some faculty choose to contribute as members.” He said that fewer than half of the UW-Madison faculty are members of PROFS.
The professor said PROFS functions as “a strongly left-leaning advocacy group” that frequently supports policies against his understanding of “academic excellence and intellectual freedom.” Nedweski also felt that “the line between being a faculty advocacy group and acting as a progressive political organization has become increasingly blurred.”
PROFS Board of Directors chair Annie Jones and Steering Committee President Michael Bernard-Donals did not respond to questions sent via email from The Madison Federalist about how PROFS determines which bills it will support. O’Meara said he is not involved with those internal deliberations.
Both O’Meara and Nedweski believed that PROFS’s overall lobbying efforts were less influential than the university’s. “In terms of their influence on higher education policy, I would say it’s very limited compared to the UW System’s government relations office,” Nedweski said.
University spokesman John Lucas told The Federalist via email, “UW-Madison meets with PROFS to discuss issues of common interest but the group is an independent non-profit, with its own views and perspectives. No UW-Madison funding goes to support PROFS.” Notably, PROFS does have an office in Bascom Hall and a wisc.edu website.
“A faculty advocacy organization should prioritize academic merit and excellence, genuine viewpoint diversity, color-blind hiring policies, and the protection of scholars who hold dissenting views,” the anonymous professor said. “It should also advocate for performance-based funding that fairly recognizes UW–Madison’s outsized contributions rather than subsidizing weaker institutions, while working to build constructive goodwill across the political aisle instead of consistently framing one party as an adversary.”
Editor’s note: Nedweski is a former neighbor of the article’s author.