MADISON – Speaker Robin Vos (R – Burlington) released the weekly radio address on behalf of Wisconsin Legislative Republicans.
Hello, this is Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Wisconsin got some big wins this week as a compromised deal was struck to fund a new engineering building at UW-Madison, invest tens of millions of dollars in high-demand programs on campus, increase the pay for workers at our UW-System institutions, and reduce the negative influence of DEI mandates on campus.
Some might not understand why we fought for the last one of these wins. Martin Luther King had a dream that one day we would all be judged on the content of our character and not the color of our skin. Unfortunately, some in our state want to focus on what divides us versus what makes us united.
We’ve gone from trying to see for who they are based on their God-given abilities, to some wanting to see everyone only through a racial or gender lens. Republicans’ objectives have always been aimed at dismantling this bureaucracy and division relating to DEI and reprioritizing our universities towards an emphasis on what matters most, students’ success and student achievement.
I’m glad the board of Regents approved this compromised deal despite reported last-minute lobbying by Governor Evers to kill it. We finally have turned the corner and gotten real reforms enacted. Wisconsin is the first state with a divided government to make real progress on reducing these negative influences across our public higher education institutions.
Republicans know this is just the first step in what will be our continuing efforts to eliminate these cancerous DEI practices on UW campuses.
