Failure theater: In a deal worked out suddenly between the board of regents at the University of Wisconsin and the state legislature, the university will get $800 million for infrastructure improvements and pay raises in exchange for imposing some limited reductions in its Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DEI) programs.

The deal also requires UW system campuses to refrain from adding new DEI positions through December 2026. Administrators must also reassign at least one third of their current DEI-focused employees to roles dedicated to academic and student success. Mandatory DEI statements in admissions and hiring are also to be abolished under the deal, and efforts to fund a conservative professorship at UW-Madison must be launched, according to the terms.

You can read the actual language of this deal here [pdf]. The deal also requires the university to replace its Target of Opportunity Program (TOP) — which established systems to favor hiring minorities over others — with a new “alternative program focused on recruiting faculty (regardless of their identity or ethnic/racial background) who have demonstrated the ability to mentor ‘at risk’ and/or underrepresented students to achieve academic success and who have demonstrated academic and research excellence.”

Does this deal do what it appears to, reduce or eliminate the very racist DEI program at the University of Wisconsin? Hardly. That program, in all its glorious bigotry still exists, and is not going to be eliminated in any way. The deal merely requires the board of regents to slowly reduce its staffing while no longer demanding each new teacher swear to uphold its bigoted policies. Moreover, the new program replacing the racial quotas of the TOP hiring program will still place great emphasis on favoring minorities, because it will require any new hires to demonstrate that they care more about those students.

Is this therefore another example of failure theater by the Republicans in Wisconsin’s legislature, or a real victory? It would seem it is a little of both. Initially in July the Republicans who control Wisconsin’s legislature had passed a budget that cut the university’s full DEI budget of $31 million, while demanding the elmination of 188 DEI positions. If put into action that plan would have accomplished much to remove racial bigotry from the state’s public universities.

That budget however was vetoed by Democrat governor Tony Evers. And since it passed on party lines, with all Democrats opposing it, the Republicans did not have the votes to make it law. They had to compromise, and unfortunately, they made this somewhat weak deal, reflecting what we see from most Republican majorities in legislatures at all levels of government, from school boards right up to Congress in Washington.

This weakness is not entirely the Republicans’ fault. They are hampered by divided majorities and a Democratic Party unified in favor of racist quotas and anti-American policies. Plus, we have an electorate that demands that funding to these colleges continue, no matter what. If the Republicans had threatened to shut down the university rather than fund its racist DEI programs, they would have quickly faced demonstrations inside and outside the statehouse, some violent, and all covered sympathetically by the mainstream press (no matter how violent some of those “mostly peaceful” protests were). This coverage would have caused many in their own Republican base to buy into the lies of the left that condemned the Republicans as being “mean-spirited” and against “education.”

As a result the Republicans weren’t powerful enough to get even close to what they wanted. All they could get is a weak deal that makes tiny changes, most of which are superficial and accomplish little.

This is how it has been now for decades. The Republicans are not strong enough to force real change because too much of the voting public still stands strongly behind its large government programs, and will not countenance any real cuts. This fact explains why Wisconsin has a governor, attorney general, and secretary of state who are Democrats, and a legislature that though controlled by large majorities of Republicans (22-11 in the Senate and 64 to 35 in the Assembly) still has enough Democrats to block any change.

It must once again be underlined how unified the Democrats now are in their advocacy of racial quotas and favoritism. All they need is have just one vote more than necessary to support a veto, and they get their way every time, even if they are a small minority. This is a party of power-hungry bigots, which will brook no serious compromise. It must have what it demands, and is willing to fight hard to get it, using any means necessary.

Worse, its supporters increasingly buy into these bigoted policies.