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Authoritarianism, Daily Bread, Education, Trumpism, UW Madison, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.25.25: UW-Madison, Beloit College, and Lawrence University Reject Trump’s Demands

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 5:57 and sunset is 7:49, for 13 hours, 52 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1898, the United States Congress declares that a state of war between the U.S. and Spain had existed since April 21, when an American naval blockade of the Spanish colony of Cuba began:

A bill declaring that war exists between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, First. That war be, and the same is hereby, declared to exist, and has existed since the twenty-first day of April, A.D. 1898, including said day, between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain.

Second. That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States and to call into the actual service of the United States the militia of the several States, to such extent as may be necessary to carry this act into effect.

Approved, April 25, 1898.

The leaders of University of Wisconsin-Madison, Beloit College, and Lawrence University joined hundreds of other university leaders in rejecting Trump’s demand to control higher education in America:

University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, Beloit College President Eric Boynton and Lawrence University President Laurie Carter were among hundreds of college leaders nationally who signed the April 22 letter condemning government overreach.

Trump’s political interference is “endangering American higher education,” the letter said. “We must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.”

College leaders said they didn’t oppose “legitimate government oversight” but rejected the “coercive” use of public research funding. The signers came from a mix of Ivy League institutions, small private schools, large public research universities and higher education associations. The American Association of Colleges and Universities circulated the letter.

Harvard University President Alan Garber was among the signatories. The nation’s oldest and wealthiest university has been in a standoff with the Trump administration since it said it would not agree to the government’s sweeping demands, including reducing faculty power, government audits of university data and changes to its admissions system. The government responded by freezing more than $2.2 billion of its grants and contracts.

Harvard has dominated headlines in recent weeks, but nearly all higher education institutions have been upended since Trump started his second term.

See Kelly Meyerhofer, UW-Madison chancellor, Beloit College president sign letter opposing Trump’s interference in higher education, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 23, 2025.

The letter defends the right of free speech and injury in America:

America’s system of higher learning is as varied as the goals and dreams of the students it serves. It includes research universities and community colleges; comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges; public institutions and private ones; freestanding and multi-site campuses. Some institutions are designed for all students, and others are dedicated to serving particular groups. Yet, American institutions of higher learning have in common the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom. Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.

See Signatories, A Call for Constructive Engagement, American Association of Colleges and Universities, April 22, 2025.

Notably, Trump’s claim that his control of higher education is necessary to combat hate speech is a shallow lie. He’s an authoritarian who seeks to limit legitimate speech, at public or private colleges, that’s not to his liking. The American university system is the finest in the world; Trump would ruin it for the sake of his movement’s perpetual control.

These university leaders are right to defend their institutions against his depredations. Harvard and others are right force him to fight for every inch of ground he wishes to control.

Arbor Day: What to know about the holiday celebrating trees:

Arbor Day began in Nebraska in the late 1800s. Here’s everything you need to know about the holiday commonly observed the last Friday in April.

Courts, CRT, Culture, Daily Bread, Diversity, Education, Law, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.21.25: Department of Public Instruction Says No to Trump on DEI

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:03 and sunset is 7:44, for 13 hours, 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 44.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

This day in 753 BC is the traditional date on which Romulus founds Rome.

The Trump Administration takes an extreme view of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, and assumes that institutions public and private must comply unquestioningly with the administration’s interpretation of that decision. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction chooses otherwise:

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction rejected the Trump administration’s request to certify compliance with a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion in K-12 public schools. 

State Superintendent Jill Underly said in a statement that Wisconsin schools are following the law. 

“We’ve put that into writing to the USDE,” Underly said. “We believe in local control in Wisconsin and trusting our local leaders – superintendents, principals, educators – who work together with parents and families every day to support students. They know their communities best. Washington, D.C. should not dictate how schools educate their kids.” 

The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter earlier this month to state agencies across the country requesting that agencies check with local school districts to ensure they don’t have diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. 

The federal administration is trying to apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision, which said race-based programs in higher education violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, to K-12 education. The administration said state agencies needed to ensure compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Supreme Court decision. 

Wisconsin is one of several states, mostly led by Democrats, that have pushed back on the request. The Trump administration, which has been targeting diversity efforts in K-12 schools as well as in higher education and other sectors, has threatened that it could pull funding from states that don’t comply with the request.

See Baylor Spears, Wisconsin DPI rejects Trump administration request for certification on DEI ban compliance, Wisconsin Examiner, April 18, 2025.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) was Trumpism’s chief enemy not long ago, but it’s since been replaced with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Trumpism is at bottom a cultural movement,1 seeking to exact revenge against the movement’s cultural enemies (e.g., gays, ethnic minorities, and others identified now and again to give the movement an opponent).

Today it’s DEI. Tomorrow it will be something and someone else. Today will be easier for them if their targets simply comply. They’ll not stop; their grievances are fathoms deep.

There’s no reason to make their lives easier while they make others’ lives harder. They expect swift compliance. Refusing to comply at their mere demand is a strong initial response. They are unworthy of others’ anticipatory obedience (to borrow an apt phrase).

Underly was sensible to respond with a rejection.

_____

  1. Trumpists are laughable on economics, for example, because their authoritarian movement’s sustaining energy is cultural. They’ve no developed economic theories because their attention is elsewhere and they find it’s too much work for middle-aged men and Boomers to rummage around for a coherent economic concept or two. Instead, they wind up plucking terms and assembling them into nothing better than a Frankenstein’s monster ↩︎

Fact Check — What Mars Rovers Really See:

Daily Bread, Education, Elections, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.14.25: Outlook for Wisconsin’s Spring Primary for Superintendent of Public Instruction

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Good morning.

Valentine’s Day in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 25, and snow likely this evening. Sunrise is 6:53 and sunset is 5:25, for 10 hours, 33 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 96 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1876,  Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.

Robert Yoon writes of the spring primary in AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Wisconsin’s spring primary between incumbent Jill Underly and challengers Brittany Kinser and Jeff Wright:

Kinser leads the field in campaign fundraising thanks to a flurry of contributions in January from big-dollar Republican donors. She had raised $316,000 through Feb. 3, compared with $123,000 for Wright and $121,000 for Underly. 

In 2021, Underly narrowly topped the seven-candidate primary field with 27% of the vote. Six candidates were aligned with Democrats, but none emerged as the clear alternative to Underly among Democratic voters. That helped the sole Republican-backed candidate that year, Deborah Kerr, to nab the second spot on the general election ballot with 26% of the vote. Underly went on to win the general election that year with 58% of the vote in a one-on-one contest with Kerr.

This year, three candidates are competing for two spots, and the primary has become several contests stuffed into a single race: one between Underly and Wright among Democratic-leaning voters, another with Kinser trying to consolidate enough support among Republican-leaning voters to outperform one or both of her rivals, and another with all three candidates competing for independent and crossover voters to tip the scales in their favor.

With only two candidates this year to potentially split the support of Democratic-leaning voters, Kinser would likely need to far outperform Kerr’s 26% in the 2021 primary to earn a spot on the April ballot, assuming a competitive contest between Underly and Wright.

See Robert Yoon, AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Wisconsin’s spring primary, Associated Press, February 14, 2025.

If the split between Democratic-leaning voters and Republican-leaning voters in this race is like 2021, then, yes, Kinser would likely need to outperform Kerr’s 2021 vote share.

It would be surprising, however, if the balance between ideologies is like that of 2021. At least, it would be surprising to me. If the conservative1 candidate cannot place comfortably in one of the two spots in this race, then conservatives wasted a campaign on a weak candidate or weak messaging. This environment, Spring 2025, is as much of a high-water level as the conservative populists in Wisconsin may ever have.

I’d guess Kinser will exceed 26 percent easily, and find herself in the Spring General Election against Underly.

We’ll know Tuesday night, and likely early Tuesday night.

______

  1. Conservative as an ideology in American is now synonymous with conservative populist. There are still a few different individual conservatives, but there is only one ideological movement: populism. ↩︎

Happy Valentine’s Day:

Daily Bread, Education, Elections, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.13.25: Conservative Candidate Outraises Opponents in State Superintendent Race

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 15. Sunrise is 6:54 and sunset is 5:24, for 10 hours, 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement and Cable TV Commission meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1960, with the success of a nuclear test codenamed “Gerboise Bleue,” France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons.

Brittany Kinser is far ahead in fundraising:

Wauwatosa education consultant Brittany Kinser has signficantly outraised both of her Democratic opponents, according to the latest campaign finance reports. Her half-million dollar haul ($508,000) so far this year is nearly four times as much as state Superintendent Jill Underly raised ($132,000) and about 13 times as much as Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright ($38,000).

Kinser calls herself a moderate but is backed by conservatives for her pro-school choice positions. Underly, the incumbent, is backed by the Democratic Party, though Wright has chipped away at some of her base. ….

Both state parties are pumping their preferred candidate’s campaigns with cash at an unprecedented level for a state superintendent election at this stage of the race, shattering any assumption about it being a nonpartisan election.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin contributed $200,000 to Kinser’s campaign so far, nearly 10 times the amount it gave in the entire 2021 race. The state Democratic Party gave Underly about $106,000 this month. The party gave her about $208,000 in the entire 2021 race. Wright has neither party’s financial support.

And there’s still a month and a half to go before the April 1 election.

Kinser has more than doubled the superintendent fundraising record set by then-Superintendent Tony Evers in 2017 for this stage of the race. In Gov. Evers’ entire 2017 superintendent race, he raised about $517,000. Kinser has raised nearly the same amount in just the first month of this race.

See Kelly Meyerhofer, In Wisconsin school superintendent race, one candidate is far ahead in fundraising, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 13, 2025.

Inflation increased in January, posing obstacle for tariff plans:

City, Daily Bread, Education, Elections, Local Government, School District, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 1.9.25: For Elections, More Candidates Are Better

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 27. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset is 4:39, for 9 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1945, the Sixth United States Army begins the invasion of Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines.

Statewide, there will be a February primary election for Wisconsin’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. In this statewide race, it’s not merely contested but contested in a way that requires a primary election:

Three candidates have filed nomination papers for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, which means there will be a primary election next month for Wisconsin’s top education post.

State Superintendent Jill Underly has two challengers: Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright, and Brittany Kinser, a former special education teacher and reading advocate.

The primary will be held Feb. 18 with the top two candidates facing each other in the nonpartisan election on April 1.

See Corrinne Hess, State Superintendent Jill Underly will face primary challenge in February, Wisconsin Public Radio, January 8, 2025.

Locally, we’ll have, it seems, contested races for the Whitewater Unified School District Board and one of our city’s assembly districts before the voters in April. That’s all to the good: voters will be able to see differences between candidates.

Choice is preferable.

Entering a dragon’s lair:

Courts, Daily Bread, Education, Law, Litigation

Daily Bread for 12.10.24: U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Eau Claire Parents’ Challenge to Gender Identity Support Plans

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 32. Sunrise is 7:15, and sunset is 4:20, for 9 hours, 6 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5:00 PM.

On this day in 1864, during his March to the Sea, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union Army troops reach the outer Confederate defenses of Savannah, Georgia.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a decision of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (based in Chicago):

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take a Wisconsin case that could have made it easier for parents to fight schools’ efforts to support transgender and nonbinary students.

Three of the court’s six conservatives — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh — said they would have taken the appeal.

A group of Eau Claire parents argued challenges to gender identity support policies are being dismissed by judges across the country before they can be fully litigated because parents can’t show they’ve been affected.

….

The Eau Claire Area School District of Wisconsin, which is defending its guidelines for ensuring a supportive environment for transgender students, countered that the parents are trying to create a new standard for lawsuits that would allow parents to preemptively challenge any school policy even if it doesn’t apply to them.

….

The template Gender Support Plan prepared by the Eau Claire Area School District in 2022 recognizes that parents may not always be involved in a plan’s creation for a student. School personnel are supposed to check with a student before discussing their transgender status with a parent. But the support plan will be released to parents who request it.

A three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in May that none of the parents challenging the policy “has experienced an actual or imminent injury.”

See Maureen Groppe, Supreme Court rejects Wisconsin parents’ challenge to schools’ gender identity support plans, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 9, 2024.

Did Tesla Go From Cool to Cringe?:

Daily Bread, Democrats, Education, Elections, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 12.8.24: A Challenge (from the Left) in the State Superintendent Race

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 50. Sunrise is 7:13, and sunset is 4:20, for 9 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, President Roosevelt declares December 7 to be “a date which will live in infamy,” after which the U.S. declares war on Japan.

Jill Underly, Wisconsin’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, faces a challenge from the left in her race for re-election:

Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly, who is running for her second term in office with the backing of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, faces a challenge from Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright, a Democrat who says he wants to improve DPI’s communication. 

Elections for the state superintendent are technically nonpartisan. Candidates run on the same ballot in the February primary, and the top two advance. The primary is Feb. 18, 2025 and the general election is April 1. No other candidates have entered the race so far.

….

Prior to winning her first term in 2021, Underly served as the superintendent of Pecatonica School District, a rural district in southwestern Wisconsin. She has also previously worked as a principal, a teacher and a state consultant to Title I schools in Milwaukee and across the state.

Wright, who launched his campaign about a month after Underly, has served as the superintendent of Sauk Prairie School District since 2019 and was named Administrator of the Year in 2024 by the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance. He also previously served as a principal in Chicago. He hasn’t held public office before, but has run unsuccessful campaigns in 2016 and in 2018 for the state Assembly. 

Wright said in an October interview with the Examiner that he probably aligns closely with the current superintendent on many issues, but he thinks there is currently a “disconnect” between DPI and schools.

“They’re not bringing the people together from the teachers’ union, the administrators’ associations and other groups to have an active conversation about what concrete steps are we taking right now to get this work done,” Wright said. “Schools want to know what’s happening at the DPI. We don’t want to be surprised by changes. We want to be in conversation so that it’s very clear that we’re working on the same team.”

See Baylor Spears, State superintendent race kicks off: Underly faces challenge from Sauk Prairie superintendent, Wisconsin Examiner, December 5, 2024.

Underly has the backing of the state’s Democratic Party, and Wright has the backing of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) Political Action Committee and Kirk Bangstad’s Minocqua Brewing Company SuperPAC.

I’m not a Democrat (rather a Never Trump libertarian who supported Harris-Walz), but it’s hard for me to see how these political action committees can overcome the organizational strength of a major political party. There’s as yet no announced Republican candidate in the race, but there is sure to be at least one (for an office that is, nominally, non-partisan).

Admittedly, any campaign, against almost any incumbent, is likely to make headway with the contention that the public has a lack of information (or in the case of the DPI, technical information that’s been made readily comprehensible to most residents). No one ever went broke, so to speak, by arguing that government statistics were opaque. Still: an outsider’s climb against an organizationally-backed candidate is uphill.

Watch this bird-inspired robotic drone leap into the air:

Books, Business, Daily Bread, Education, Facebook, Fact Checking, Populists, Reading, Reasoning

Daily Bread for 9.5.24: Formation Hasn’t Stopped Mattering

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:25, and sunset is 7:20, for 12h 55m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the Russo-Japanese War.

Three years ago, during the pandemic, pondering the social media scene, I posted on Formation, General:

Some level of formation, of structure and learning, is needed to make sense of a difficult subject.

Come now the conservative populists, who are convinced that there is no field, no topic, that requires more effort than their own ‘common sense.’  They ask — they demand — that others who have committed years of formal or self-study recognize unconsidered or ill-considered populist opinions as valid as any other opinion.

They sometimes simply don’t know what they don’t know. Their ignorance of substantive study is matched by their arrogance in insisting that substantive study doesn’t matter.  Someone might tell these conservative populists that arrogance invites Nemesis, but it would take some reading for them to make sense of those cautionary words.

Why have medicine, for example when any populist can spend a few moments on Facebook and diagnose any condition? (I’ve argued, for example, against amateur epidemiology, even when well-intentioned. See Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021 — COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric.)

Modern medicine, architecture, or materials science requires dedicated study. Anyone, in any era, might have said he or she possessed ‘common sense.’ And yet, and yet, those people from those earlier times often lived short lives in filth and misery.

The conservative populists enjoy lives in an era of technological and scientific accomplishment dependent on the efforts of the very experts they denigrate.

When common sense fails for these populists, when they misread medical texts and legal documents, they make the excuse that the topics were too hard or too confusing for anyone to understand.  No and no again: the texts and documents were too hard only for those who had not committed the proper amount of study to the topic.

The lack of formation —of a learned foundation in politics, history, science, or even ordinary English usage — leaves the conservative populists unimpressive to anyone outside their circle.

Still true, years after the pandemic.

Underwater bridge gives clues to ancient human arrival:

Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic islands and the sixth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, but despite its size and location research suggests that it was among the last Mediterranean islands to be settled by humans. But exactly when people arrived on the island is a subject of much debate, with current estimates placing it at around 4,400 years ago. However, an ancient stone bridge in a flooded cave may call that timeline into question. By dating mineral deposits in the cave scientists have given a new window for when they suggest humans actually reached the island — at least 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Books, Censorship, City, Daily Bread, Education

Daily Bread for 8.10.24: The Store That Only Sells Fake Food

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 72. Sunrise is 5:57, and sunset is 8:02, for 14h 05m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 30.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan‘s five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe. The Basque second-in-command Juan Sebastián Elcano will complete the expedition after Magellan’s death in the Philippines.

This Store Only Sells Fake Food:

From the Barbie movie to Netflix’s series The Gentlemen, this fake food artist from Scotland has served up the most REALISTIC-LOOKING food for film sets all over the world. Want some fake Ice cream? She’ll make it. What about fake Jell-O with a gun inside? Easy! That’s a piece of cake for Kerry Boyes. This is YOUR how to guide for making fake food look real.

Giant pandas make public debut at San Diego Zoo:

The San Diego Zoo officially opened its new panda enclosure to the public allowing people to finally see Yun Chuan and Xin Bao — the first Chinese giant pandas to enter the United States in 21 years.

Books, Censorship, City, Daily Bread, Education

Daily Bread for 8.9.24: Tracking Book Bans

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 5:56, and sunset is 8:03, for 14h 07m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1944, the United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey Bear for the first time.

Richelle Wilson reports Wisconsin’s ‘banned book queen’ tracks book challenges and worries about widespread bans (‘Tasslyn Magnusson keeps a public database of book bans around the country and advocates for students, authors and librarians’):

Magnusson worries about increased efforts to ban books from school libraries. Last year, Wisconsin was the second-leading state nationally in the number of school library book removals, according to a new report she and others wrote for PEN America. A big reason for that was one parent in the Elkhorn Area School District who requested a review of 444 books.

Other districts around the state are dealing with debates around book bans, too. Magnusson lives with her family in Prescott, a small town in western Wisconsin where the St. Croix River and the Mississippi River meet. She said local school districts have been feeling the strain of increased book challenges, which often lead to heated discussions at school board meetings.

An aspiring children’s author herself, Magnusson started participating in the “kid lit” community on social media after getting a master’s degree in writing for children and young adults. That’s when she first noticed that some of her own favorite authors, including young-adult fiction writer Laurie Halse Anderson, were having their books taken off shelves.

In 2021, Anderson posted on X that her 1999 novel “Speak” seemed to be getting banned more often. She suggested that someone should start tracking book bans around the country. 

Magnusson took note. 

“I was like, ‘Wow, Laurie Halse Anderson asked. I can do that. I know how to use a Google spreadsheet,’” Magnusson recalled on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “So, I took it upon myself to make a spreadsheet. And here we are three years later.”

This book-banning panic will subside when it meets opposition; opposition, however, requires awareness of the censors’ and scolds’ work.

See also PEN America, New Report Finds Unprecedented Surge in School Book Bans.

The physics of fish hearing:

City, Daily Bread, Education, Excuses and Rationalizations, Freedom of Speech, Open Government, Reasoning, School District

Daily Bread for 3.27.24: “Nice Person, But…”

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset 7:16 for 12h 33m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1975, construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.

Yesterday’s post, These Aren’t the MAGA Claims You Were Looking For,  seemed clear to me. While opinions on local issues differ, residents should be able to discern plainly-stated views. (Opinions in Whitewater — and even basic accounts of events — vary among residents now more than at any time since FREE WHITEWATER began publication in 2007. See Rashomon-upon-Cravath.) 

Of that post, summarized:

(1) The post was about open government1.

(2) A more detailed series on the district and proposals to improve governance can wait until after the election.

(3) Too many people in this town have election fever, and it’s left them dehydrated and decomposed. Their malady is not mine.

(4) The claims and proposals that boardmember (and whistleblower) Maryann Zimmerman has made since December are not conservative populist claims. They are claims of no single ideology or partisan view.

(5) I’ve never met Mrs. Zimmerman and it’s not as though we’re in a knitting club together2.

(6) The current board president has done no better than to beg off every question with the false, self-protective claim that he cannot speak for legal reasons and the district has a superintendent who not only won’t speak but has tried to prevent others from speaking.

That’s yesterday’s post in a nutshell. 

And yet, and yet, a community leader wrote me last night to explain to me that, thirteen months ago, Mrs. Zimmerman voted not to deny a petition to alter district boundaries regarding a taxed property, concluding from her vote that Mrs. Zimerman was a “[n]ice person, but she does not know what she is doing.” (I responded bluntly via email.)

This emailer’s claim might as well have been a parody of whataboutism3.

The overall policy competency of this boardmember wasn’t the point of my post.  (It’s evident that she’s as capable as others on the board. Practically, whether intentional or not, this boardmember alone has been able to knock the board president and the district administration back on their heels. It’s much easier to paint a single boardmember as ignorant than it is to admit — or perhaps grasp — that official responses to that boardmember have been strategically and tactically inept. That’s not the fault of students, parents, or residents. It’s the responsibility of boardmembers and administrators who’ve exacerbated the issue through their own responses.)  

A tax issue from thirteen months ago matters not at all now. The insular frustration that’s come to district officials from more recent events, the excuse-making and rationalization of fumbled and self-injurious responses, evidently grips them.

What matters most is a better path than the one that overreaching and underthinking officials have taken. 

Other district officials made that mess.

Nice people, but they do not know what they’re doing.

Belgian farmers spray manure towards police who respond with water cannon4:

1. Of limited, responsible, open government with individual rights, of progressive theology through traditional liturgy, and of cats, this libertarian blogger is, it happens, a true believer.

2. It’s not as though Boardmember Zimmerman and I are in a knitting club together. I don’t knit, and have no idea if she does. Nonetheless, all my best to the knitters of Whitewater and the sheep who’ve supplied their yarn. I have only love in my bleeding-libertarian heart for all of them.

3. The emailer pointed me to the minutes of the year-ago discussion, but in any event, the minutes are not the first place to look. A recording of the meeting would be the first, best place to look. Again and again: no record like a recording. After reviewing the recording, it seems to me that there were issues that no one considered fully. It certainly wasn’t obvious — except to those of narrow and motivated reasoning — that there was one only way to vote on items. 

4. Does anyone know if some of these district officials have visited a Belgian farm lately?

Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Education, Freedom of Speech, Never Trump, Reasoning, School District, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.26.24: These Aren’t the MAGA Claims You Were Looking For

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:44 and sunset 7:15 for 12h 30m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1812, a political cartoon in the Boston-Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.

A brief post today, about Boardmember Maryann Zimmerman to follow yesterday’s post about conservative populism more generally. (A more detailed series on the district and proposals to improve governance can wait until after the election. Too many people in this town have election fever, and it’s left them dehydrated and decomposed. Their malady is not mine.)

Anyone who has visited this site knows that this bleeding-heart libertarian blogger is, and always will be, an opponent of conservative populism, MAGA, Trumpism, or whatever one calls that ideology. Never Trump before Never Trump, so to speak. See yesterday’s example Rep. Mike Gallagher Knows that MAGA Will Be Someone Else’s Headache Soon.

I am also someone whose family, teachers, and professors did their level best to inspire in me a respect for principle, reasoning, and tradition (in that order). Any success that this pupil has had in that regard owes only to them; they had poor clay with which to work. All their effort on my behalf, over so many years, leads me now and again to see something clearly.

And this is one of those times: the claims and proposals that boardmember (and whistleblower) Maryann Zimmerman has made since December are not conservative populist claims. They are claims of no single ideology or partisan view.  Mrs. Zimmerman may hold, as I think she does, conservative populist views. To the extent that she holds those views — but only to the extent that she holds those views — we would find ourselves in disagreement.

Some of her ardent supporters most assuredly hold conservative populist views. To the extent that they hold those views — but only to the extent that they hold those views — we would find ourselves in disagreement.

If in this beautiful city, the answer to Mrs. Zimmerman’s nonpartisan concerns and proposals is an answer directed in opposition to conservative populism, then that answer is misdirected, to the degradation of scholastic standards.  

It’s that simple.

I’ve never met Mrs. Zimmerman; we may never meet.  One needn’t have met her to grasp that she is willing to speak and write in support of her views when, by striking contrast, the current board president has done no better than to beg off every question with the false, self-protective claim that he cannot speak for legal reasons. (Those who know the law know that those assertions are not merely false but risibly self-serving.)

The district has a superintendent who not only won’t speak but has tried to prevent others from speaking. In Maryann Zimmerman’s recent claims, and in her composed defense of them, there’s no trace of partisan ideology. She’s been admirably clear and steady. Others want to see what’s not there; they are looking into an empty room.

These aren’t the MAGA claims they were looking for.

Total Solar Eclipse 2024 explained. Date, maps, times and more:

The United States, Mexico and Canada will experience a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Space.com’s Brett Tingley explains what you can expect. Total solar eclipse 2024: Everything you need to know: https://www.space.com/41552-total-sol…

WARNING: People should always use protective solar eclipse eyewear when viewing a solar eclipse.

Credit: Space.com | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, GreatAmericanEclipse.com 

Assault Awareness & Prevention, Daily Bread, Education, Law, Legislation, Misconduct

Daily Bread for 3.24.24: Bipartisan Legislation to Protect Students Against Strip Searches and Sexual Misconduct

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 Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 38. Sunrise is 6:48 and sunset 7:13 for 12h 24m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun from Emperor Go-Yozei, and establishes the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo, Japan

Long overdue, but as Baylor Spears reports Gov. Evers has signed bipartisan legislation to protect students against strip searches and sexual misconduct:

Gov. Tony Evers signed education-related legislation Friday, including a measure to tighten protections for students against strip searches and sexual misconduct.

One measure, Senate Bill 111, now 2023 Wisconsin Act 198, was introduced in reaction to a 2022 incident in which a Suring School District employee, who was searching for vaping devices, allegedly ordered six teenage girls to undress down to their underwear. Neither the students’ parents or law enforcement were informed about or present at the time of the strip search.

The law redefines the meaning of “strip search” and “private area” to include undergarments in order to protect students from any official, employee or agent of any school or school district conducting strip searches. 

Rep. David Steffen (R-Green Bay), who coauthored the legislation, said in a statement that “being treated with dignity and basic privacy is something that every student should expect when they enter our schools.

“The event at Suring revealed a statutory loophole that needed to be closed,” Steffen said. “This bill will protect our students from experiencing such intrusive searches in the future.”

Another measure, Senate Bill 333, now 2023 Wisconsin Act 200, seeks to better protect students by making sexual misconduct against a student by any school staff member or volunteer a Class I felony. It also adds more violations to the offenses where the state superintendent would be required to revoke a license  without a hearing, and prohibits a licensee from ever having their license reinstated by the state superintendent if they are convicted of a crime against a child that is a Class H felony or higher or a felony invasion of privacy or sexual misconduct by a school staff person or volunteer. 

It should not have required reporting on strip searches over a vape pen for this legislature and this governor to agree on legislation against those kinds of searches.

Better late than never is worse, and too late, for some.

Building a heart atlas:

City, Daily Bread, Education, Freedom of Speech, School District, Speech & Debate, Tragic Optimism

Daily Bread for 3.19.24: Better Days for the Whitewater Schools

by  • 

 Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:57 and sunset 7:07 for 12h 10m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM. 

On this day in 1918, the US Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.

I went to sleep last night nearly a pessimist; I awoke this morning an optimist yet again. People choose freely, sometimes well, sometimes poorly. For the Whitewater Unified School District, these many months — ending at last night’s board meeting — were a time of free choice for the district’s board president and the district’s superintendent. 

The board president has chosen not to run for reelection; the superintendent has chosen to seek employment elsewhere. In both cases, those decisions are right for those officials and for the Whitewater Schools. Some relationships, including political and employment ones, sadly become irretrievably broken. Repair requires reconciliation, and reconciliation requires a willingness to accept the principles on which a sound relationship rests.

For the Whitewater Schools, reconciliation required these officials to make a choice and commitment they chose not to make. See Speech & Debate in the Whitewater Schools.  See also What Ails, What Heals, and Heals & Ails, General & Particular, Public & Private.

No one should be compelled to choose; it must be a free decision. One wishes the best to both — truly — in the future.  They deserve situations suitable to them. Not every fit is a good fit. The Whitewater Unified School District’s board will soon have the opportunity to choose a new president. That board will be able to oversee the selection of a new superintendent at the earliest opportunity, either through her employment elsewhere, a settlement agreement, or if regrettably necessary through lawful public action of the board.

For Whitewater, the daunting — yet hopeful — building of a new administration in a new district awaits. We need not fear that a choice today will lead to worse outcomes tomorrow. This community can achieve for its students academic success, athletic accomplishment, and artistic achievement under principles of individual rights and tolerance for all, without prejudice toward race, ethnicity, gender, or orientation.

The principles of limited, open, responsible government and individual rights hold the commanding heights. They occupy good ground; they have a defensible position. Those who hold these values will over-match those who oppose them. We need not be afraid of what comes next — we will shape what comes next. 

The work of crafting a new district begins. It is the work of years to come. It will require ongoing attention. Sometimes hard, but easier if we join together. Sometimes daunting, but always possible. 

It’s spring break for the Whitewater Schools next week, but while our students, teachers, and families enjoy their well-deserved vacation, others of us can begin our reflections and recommendations for the future. 

The Whitewater Schools will come through just fine.