Top Universities of Wisconsin and Department of Administration officials defended their practices during a joint legislative hearing on audits of DEI within the university system and state agencies. Meanwhile, Republicans during yesterday’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee hearing accused the UW of failing to live up to an agreement to curtail DEI and branded diversity efforts as discriminatory. 

Gov. Tony Evers says while he’s open to negotiating a tax cut deal with GOP legislative leaders, any agreement would have to be part of the state budget — not standalone legislation. GOP legislative leaders have said they prefer a tax cut signed into law before taking up the budget.

“I think because of that it means more to the community, particularly in terms of economic impact and the long legacy that this might leave for Wisconsin and Green Bay,” Murphy said on WISN 12’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “We’ll have a lot of people, we think 250,000, and you can see behind us the stage is really impressive.”

State Superintendent Jill Underly today said DPI rejected the U.S. Department of Education’s demand to certify that K-12 districts aren’t using federal funding to favor certain groups as the Trump administration seeks to cut off DEI programs.

A split state Supreme Court today upheld Dem Gov. Tony Evers’ veto in the 2023-25 budget that wrote into state law for the next four centuries annual increases in how much schools can spend per student. 

GOP legislative leaders, who have pledged to pass a tax cut before taking up the budget, have held off introducing a plan after talks with Gov. Tony Evers on a possible compromise, according to multiple GOP sources.