The Politics of Informants at UW-Whitewater

In a well-ordered community, there should be an accord between good policy and good politics. That’s not yet Whitewater, and this post will address the political implications of using confidential informants. 

(For a review of policy, please see yesterday’s How Rural Wisconsin Campuses Coerce Students into Becoming Drug Informants.)

1. Police Leadership.  There’s almost no chance that middle-aged police leaders (Chief Kiederlen at UW-Whitewater, Chief Otterbacher in Whitewater) will change their policies on the use of young confidential informants.  They were trained this way, brought up through the ranks this way, and are supported this way from like-minded police leaders nearby.

They’re sure that they’re right, and the risks don’t mean much to them.  (Kiederlen: “To me, it’s a positive all the way around.”) 

It doesn’t matter that it’s shallow thinking; they’ve the support from law-enforcement leaders of the same ilk.  There are also those in town who are concerned about a solution to drug use, and will latch onto any proposal (even one like this). 

Needless to say, it’s not community policing that Chief Kiedelen’s pushing.

2.  University Leadership.  Chancellor Telfer may have introduced Chief Kiederlen to a Common Council meeting, but that’s all Chancellor Telfer did – provide an introduction.  Chief Kiederlen did all the substantive talking.  (From the video, Telfer introduces Kiederlen from 7:10 to 8:00, and Kiederlen speaks from 8:00 to 13:00.)

This isn’t a chancellor who’ll take a strong stand; he’s available for happy news.  For more severe policies or bad news, it’s either the public-relations official or a subordinate. 

(Funny that – in the video above, Chancellor Telfer introduces Chief Kiederlen as a ‘colleague,’ not a subordinate, a highly-detailed UW-Whitewater organizational chart notwithstanding.) 

3.  The Difference of Four Years’ Time.   Four years ago, when I criticized then-Chief Coan’s use of confidential informants through the city police force, the Gazette published an editorial urging readers to ignore the criticism that so many leveled against confidential informants in the comments section of that paper. 

Just four years later, the Gazette has published this story by Sean Kirkby online at its mainpage, from the highly-regarded Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, that detailed the risks of the very practice that many criticized and that the Gazette once asked readers to ignore. 

4. Where This Story About Informants at UW-Whitewater is Playing.  It’s receiving coverage statewide, including in newspapers from the Gannett chain in Wisconsin.  This is not a Whitewater story, it’s a statewide story that’s chiefly about Whitewater’s campus. 

To readers outside Whitewater, the story shows the university in a Draconian light, as an outlier even among UW System schools. 

That’s a mess: coverage in so many papers – politically moderate ones – is a fortune in (sadly adverse) publicity.  Chancellor Telfer could announce dozens of supposed accomplishments locally (many of which are hollow), but that positive press would be nothing compared with the critical coverage UW-Whitewater is getting statewide. 

Worse, it’s coverage in places where UW-Whitewater should be competing for successful, talented applicants.  What will parents of competitive students see?  They’ll see either a school with too much drug use or a school that handles drug use in an overly severe way. 

There’s now an incentive to encourage their children (strong applicants who could go elsewhere) actually to look and to go elsewhere.

5.  Getting the Wider World Wrong.  It’s funny to refer to the rest of Wisconsin as the wider world, but that’s how it must seem from some local insiders’ perspectives. 

Did no one at UW-Whitewater see – especially after Chief Kiederlen’s too-rigid presentation to Council – that someone would at least have to offer him media training?  Chancellor Telfer holds a doctorate, but somehow he didn’t see or didn’t want to state the obvious: Kiederlen was unready for an interview on this topic.

(Internally, employees at UW-Whitewater may even offer reassurance that the interview went well, but a good number of them undoubtedly know that’s not true.  They’re probably relieved, if anything, that they weren’t interviewed, themselves.)  

All the talk about how sophisticated these administrators at the university are, how successful and trend-setting they are, but the truth comes as critical news and a downmarket image. 

These few seem to want a positive image even over actual achievement, but they just can’t see what that truly requires. People beyond the city just won’t accept at face value declarations of stupendous successes and gargantuan greatness. 

Chief Matt Kiederlen probably wouldn’t believe it (least of all from me), but his employer allowed him to go into an interview ill-prepared.  The policy’s misshapen, but he wasn’t properly prepped to present it, whatever its dimensions. 

These policies will linger, and so the politics of them will continue to bring outside criticism, under a university administration that fails at marketing even as it holds marketing in such very high esteem.