Republicans challenge UW on virus rules
MADISON - University of Wisconsin officials who want to ward off a rising COVID-19 caseload now must get permission from the Legislature to implement masking, testing or vaccination requirements, according to a plan Republicans adopted Tuesday.
Within hours, UW-Madison’s chancellor tested the issue by imposing a mask requirement without saying whether she would seek the approval of lawmakers.
The Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules voted remotely without holding debate on the motion to require legislative approval for COVID policies on campuses. All six Republicans voted for the proposal and all four
Democrats voted against it.
Republicans say the vote means the UW System must now get approval from lawmakers before putting in place any COVID rules. Democrats dispute that, saying the system still has the power to act on its own.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank signaled she believed she could act on her own by issuing a campuswide mask mandate soon after the committee vote.
Her order will require people – whether vaccinated or not – to wear masks when they are in campus buildings, in campus buses or riding with others in university vehicles. There are exceptions for when people are eating and drinking, in their dorm rooms or alone in offices. It takes effect Thursday.
Between the committee’s vote and Blank issuing her order, system officials did not respond to questions about whether they believed campuses could act on their own.
“Today’s action feels like a political statement; our focus is to ensure we are doing what needs to be done now to safely open for in-person teaching this fall,” UW System spokesman Mark Pitsch said of the committee’s vote.
Republican Sen. Steve Nass of Whitewater introduced the motion last week, which directs the UW Board of Regents to issue any current or future systemwide or campus-by-campus COVID-19 requirements as emergency rules, which the committee could block in part or whole.
“The path forward in addressing COVID-19 is not through excessive government mandates, but in the restoration of Americans being able to make voluntary informed decisions based on their individual health circumstances,” Nass, a persistent critic of the UW System, said Tuesday.
Democrats were quick to come out against the proposal last week, saying Nass was “micromanaging” the UW System and putting the public health on campuses at risk. The committee’s
Democrats asked for a public hearing in a joint statement prior to the vote.
“It seems as though Republicans have failed to grasp the fact that this is a public health crisis, not just a problem that only affects those who choose to believe in it. Republicans’ careless decision to invoke ‘personal decisions’ should not supersede public safety,” said Sen. Chris Larson, a Democrat of Milwaukee.
Rep. Lisa Subeck, a Madison Democrat, said she believed it was clear the UW System has the authority to put in place COVID-19 policies without interference from the Legislature.
“It’s a gross overreach. It’s mismanagement. And not only that, but it is outand-out dangerous,” Subeck said of the Republican plans.
According to the motion, any policy that relates to “physical access to system property” or comes with the potential for disciplinary action would be subject to legislative approval.
In a letter sent to UW System President Tommy Thompson and the Board of Regents President Ed Manydeeds, Nass and Republican Rep. Adam Neylon of Pewaukee, the rules committee cochairs, said the system has 30 days to comply with the directive or “cease implementation and enforcement of these policies, whether current or future.”
Thompson, who was U.S. Health and Human Services secretary during George W. Bush’s first presidential term, said in a statement last week that the “biggest threat to in-person classes this fall would be actions that strip the UW System of the tools it has so successfully used to date to address outbreaks and reduce the spread of COVID-19.”
Thompson and Manydeeds were not available for interviews Tuesday. Manydeeds said he supported Thompson’s earlier statement.
The proposal comes as colleges take in new masking guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thompson last week encouraged campus leaders to review individual policies in consultation with local health officials. He has repeatedly said there will be no systemwide vaccination requirement.
UW-Milwaukee led the charge to adjust to the new guidelines and announced they would require masks indoors and testing for unvaccinated students and staff who are not fully online. UW-Milwaukee officials declined to be interviewed Tuesday by the Journal Sentinel, referring questions to the UW System. At this point, it is unclear what the directive means for the school’s mask mandate.
Nan Enstad, a professor of community and environmental sociology at UWMadison, said the motion puts professors in a difficult situation of balancing policies and the moral responsibility of protecting students.
“The regulations, I think they can help me if they’re coming from the university,” Enstad said. “But this structure, through the state, it’s just political. It’s playing politics. It won’t help me.”
Nick Fleisher, president of the statewide chapter of the American Association of University Professors, joined Enstad in saying he hopes UW System leadership fights the new rules however it can, including by sticking to the COVID-19 policies that health experts say protect student and employee health.
“Steve Nass and Adam Neylon owe everyone in Wisconsin an explanation,” said Fleisher, an associate professor of linguistics at UWM. “Why are you taking away UW campuses’ ability to respond to a rapidly changing public health crisis? Why are you endangering student health? Why are you enabling outbreaks in UW communities?”
Enstad said clear policies and communication is key to guiding student behavior this fall. Students will take cues from a range of authority figures and interpret the “crazy mixed messages” in a variety of ways, she said.
“I don’t think it’s realistic to think that students would decide to just uniformly wear masks without a mask policy,” she said. “That’s the whole purpose of policy. To say, ‘OK we’re going to speak as one voice here about what we’ve decided as a community to do to stay safe.’ ”