"Never walk alone, particularly at night."

Advice from the University of Wisconsin Police, which I just received by email.

Never walk alone, particularly at night. So... even in daytime, we're not supposed to walk alone? Even if I whistle "You'll Never Walk Alone" and make believe I'm brave?

According to UW Police, there's a "violent predator" at large. Twice, recently, a woman was walking alone on campus and a man came up behind her and hit her on the head. That's bad, admittedly. But never walk alone?

The Capitol Times ask Biddy Martin: "Do you have any regrets..."

"... about not letting UW System President Kevin Reilly and the Board of Regents know about the plan you and Gov. Walker were working on to award UW-Madison public authority status?"

Of course, she says no. There's a lot more to this interview, but you have to read between the lines, because Martin speaks in that diplomatic, bureaucratic way. But she sure did love the students. She's going to miss them and all the fun she had with them. And those protests at the Capitol? Not an obstacle. Of course not.

"But who will want to be the next chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?"

It will not be easy replacing Biddy Martin.

Historian William Cronon, who served on the previous chancellor search committee, said the ideal candidate has to work with the university's diverse constituencies, as well as the governor and Legislature. But he said the candidate also must reach beyond the university community.

"Can this person go to the Green County Fair and hang out with the 4-H kids?...Wisconsin is not a state where people have a lot of patience for people who are holier than thou"...

"There is no question there is a morale issue and a morale challenge, but we have extraordinary resources and it's an extraordinary institution with amazing students, faculty, staff," Cronon said...

In a blog post after Martin announced her resignation, [Historian Jeremi] Suri praised the chancellor for being unwilling to coast in the face of challenges. Her departure is part of "a broader, nationwide purge of creative institutional leaders," Suri said. And there's plenty of blame to spread among both Republicans and Democrats, he added.

"Look around. Does anyone deny that the quality of our leaders at all levels of American society has suffered in the last 10 years? Congress? Corporate CEOs? University presidents? American attack politics have destroyed these leaders"...

Biddy Martin leaves UW "with great sadness."

Biddy Martin is leaving: "The decision to leave UW-Madison is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made. I love this university."

What a terrible loss, but no surprise to those of us who watched the events of the last few months.

ADDED: Chancellor Martin worked hard to restructure the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but many people here did not appreciate the interaction with Governor Walker.

Her announcement occurs on a hot day in Wisconsin politics:

Tuesday is a big day at the Capitol, with debate scheduled on Gov. Scott Walker's budget, and the possibility that the Supreme Court will rule on a decision by Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi that struck down the law eliminating nearly all collective bargaining.

With the expectation that thousands of protesters will be gathering at the Capitol for rallies later in the day, there is an increased police presence inside the historic building.

Dozens of Wisconsin State Troopers, as well as Capitol Police and officers of the Department of Natural Resources, are everywhere inside the Capitol, guarding the Rotunda, staffing staircases and watching the entrances to both the Assembly and Senate.

Shortly before 11 a.m., protesters started showing up inside and outside the Capitol....

I guess Meade and I will have to slog over there one more time, but it will be with great sadness today.

UPDATE: The NYT on Biddy Martin's departure:

For most of this year, Dr. Martin, 60, and her campus have occupied center stage in the nation’s raging, politically charged battles over higher education. In February, Wisconsin was roiled by the fight over the collective-bargaining rights of public employees, including those at the university. In March, a state Republican Party official sought the release of the e-mails of a tenured professor in Madison who had criticized both Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, and the party’s position on collective bargaining. And Dr. Martin and Governor Walker spent months on an unsuccessful effort to split Madison from the rest of the state’s higher-education system, giving it greater flexibility in an era of reduced state financing.

“Does everything that’s occurred over the last year play a role?” Dr. Martin, who is known as Biddy, asked in an interview. “It would be foolhardy to say it played no role, but neither I nor anyone else could say exactly what role it played. It’s been incredibly interesting. I really love it here, I got my Ph.D. here, and I feel like I’m leaving this university in a position where it will continue to make great progress.”

Chancellor Biddy Martin on the UW budget compromise.

"We are pleased that the deal struck by lawmakers..."

Here's the report in the State Journal.

The new Wisconsin Law School dean: Margaret Raymond!

"Margaret is a distinguished legal scholar and a lively intellect. She has a keen sense of the strengths of our Law School. We are delighted she has decided to join our team."

Said UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin.

It's a furlough day here at the University of Wisconsin, and I am forbidden to work.

There's a new Supreme Court case that I might like to write about — Kentucky v. King —  but I am not even allowed to read it. I'm deprived of pay today, and on top of that, the hands of the state are clasped tight over my eyes and my typing hands are bound. I cannot read or write in any subjects in the range of my professorial job.

This furlough business is a vestige of the Doyle administration. The new governor — the infamous Scott Walker — has a different approach to balancing the state budget.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss writes:

I'd ask 'Doesn't that violate your first amendment rights?', but since that is a constitutional law question, you wouldn't be able to read it, let alone write a response.

Now, normally, that's enough to make me add the "law" tag, but I must refrain, lest my enemies wreak revenge.

ADDED: A previous discussion of the furlough day, with better detail.

Frisbee in the rain.

The view from my office window this afternoon. It was a solid downpour, with many flashes of lightning. And yet...

UW Law School announces the 3 finalists in the search for the new dean.

From the law school website:

Nicholas W. Allard, partner at Patton Boggs in Washington, D.C. Allard is chair of the law firm's lobbying, political and elections law practice. Allard has been an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law, Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and Georgetown University Law Center. He earned his law degree from Yale University, was a Rhodes Scholar earning a master's degree from Oxford University and received a bachelor's degree from Princeton University.

Allard served as administrative assistant and chief of staff to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from 1986 to 1987, and from 1984 to 1986, he was minority staff counsel to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where he served as legal counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy. He is also a prolific author on a broad range of issues, including more than 20 articles on Internet law, new media and privacy.

Gene Nichol, professor and director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Nichol was president of the College of William & Mary from 2005-2008 and earlier served as dean of the University of North Carolina School of Law from 1999-2005 and dean of the University of Colorado Law School from 1988-1995. He earned his law degree from the University of Texas and has a bachelor's degree from Oklahoma State University, where he also played varsity football.

Nichol was James Gould Cutler professor and director of the Bill of Rights Institute at William & Mary from 1985-1988. He has also taught at Oxford, Exeter, Florida and West Virginia. He founded the Byron White Center of Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado (1990) and the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina (2001). Nichol is co-author of Federal Courts; Federal Courts: Cases and Comments; and contributing author of Where We Stand: Voices of Southern Dissent. In 2004, he was named Pro Bono Professor of the Year at the University of North Carolina.

Margaret Raymond, William G. Hammond professor of law at the University of Iowa College of Law. Raymond has been a professor at the University of Iowa since 1995, serving in a number of campus leadership roles, including president of the University Faculty Senate. Raymond earned her law degree from Columbia University and has a bachelor's degree from Carleton College. She served as a clerk to the late Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Following her clerkship, Raymond worked in private practice, first as a commercial litigator and later as a criminal defense lawyer. Her scholarship focuses on constitutional criminal procedure, substantive criminal law, and the professional responsibility of lawyers. In 2004, she received the Collegiate Teaching Award at the University of Iowa Law School. Raymond is the author of a Professional Responsibility casebook, The Law and Ethics of Law Practice.

Comments?

Here at the University of Wisconsin, the boys wear shorts and the men read while walking.

That's the UW Law School on the left.

Enlarge to read the title of the book that's being read.

"UW-Madison has been shackled by the UW System from the time it was merged with the UW System."

Says one UW professor at the faculty senate meeting yesterday. In the end, there was a vote in favor of the plan.

Although Gov. Scott Walker put the measure in his budget, leaders in the state Legislature say it is unlikely to remain there in its current form.

Under the plan, UW-Madison would get a 21-member board of trustees and more autonomy from the state to raise tuition, set salaries, build facilities and make purchases.

But the UW Board of Regents and other chancellors in the UW System oppose the split, arguing that all of the campuses in the System need more freedom from regulation.

ADDED: WisPolitics reports on an interview with Scott Walker:

He said the flexibility that would come with moving UW-Madison to a public authority model would help preserve it as a world-class institution in the face of cuts to state aide and that he supports offering other campuses more flexibility, as well.

This is a good time for me to post a picture of a sign Meade acquired in the Capitol rotunda during the protests:



Note the blue painter's tape, carefully preserved by Meade to establish the provenance of his acquisition.

"U. of Wisconsin-Madison's Chancellor Defends Proposed Separation From System."

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

In what many had predicted would be a contentious meeting of the system's Board of Regents, Carolyn A. (Biddy) Martin defended her support for a plan that would break the Madison campus away from the rest of the Wisconsin system, creating a new governing board and granting the flagship unique flexibility. The plan is expected to be part of a budget proposal Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, is set to unveil next week.

As currently understood, the proposal "would mean an extraordinary opportunity to combine self-reliance and oversight in a way that permits us to survive, even in the face of deep cuts," Ms. Martin told the regents, who called a special four-hour meeting to discuss the implications of Madison's potential separation.

Gov. Scott Walker... a Republican!

The Wisconsin Law School Forum on Gov. Walker's Budget Repair Bill.

The entire 2 hours of the event — which I blogged here and here — can now be streamed here.

Professor Donald Downs says Gov. Walker "by being radical... has exposed the contradictions in the political economy."

"It's creedal!"



This is the last 2 1/2 minutes of Downs's talk at last night's teach-in, which is also discussed in the previous post, and which should soon be on-line in its entirety here.

The Badger Herald writes about last night's teach-in on the Wisconsin budget bill and completely misrepresents what Prof. Donald Downs said.

Here's the Badger Herald.  Here's Professor Downs's response — which was cc'd to me:

I write in response to Grant Hermes reporting on my comments at the Law School Forum Wednesday evening. Hermes wrote that I "alluded to the idea that the governor’s proposed bill may have long-term negative effects on political areas outside of labor disputes, such as taxes and the rising cost in higher education." This is a complete misrepresentation of what I said and meant. I was talking about the crisis of debt, and how higher education is part of this crisis because we cost so much. Walker has had nothing to do [with] having caused this problem; indeed, his measures are designed to at least address the crisis of public debt in a forceful way. At no point in my discussion of this aspect of the problem did I implicate Walker's plan as a source of the problem. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed at twice the skyrocketing rate of medical care costs over the course of the last twenty years, and we are the source of this problem, not Walker.

Donald Downs
Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism

Maybe the reporter had trouble hearing a professor imply that Scott Walker might be doing something good.

ADDED: The boldface is mine. Here's the last 2 1/2 minutes of Downs's talk.

UW professor retires after only 21 years to "protect" herself from "depressing and threatening" clauses in Gov. Walker's bill.

The Daily Cardinal reports:

"Maybe I didn't need to jump, but I won't know that until much later. My concern was that there will be no window allowed for people to actually make an informed decision," [UW-Madison Anthropology Professor Sharon] Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson said the redefinition of the term "emergency" in the bill would allow for the firing of anyone who walks out, holds a strike or calls in sick.

"I find the clauses so depressing and threatening that I decided that it's impossible to determine, it's just too tense for me, and I know of no other way to protect myself for sure... The discourse that is developing that is trying to divide people against each other is truly disheartening...."

At the Teach-in Teahouse...

... you can talk about what you heard...



... or anything you want.

Don't forget the forum on Gov. Walker's budget repair bill at the law school tonight.

Previously blogged here. This event, from 6-8 tonight in room 2260 at the UW Law School, is open to the public. And, as you can see from the law school website, the law school will produce a video of the event that will be available here tomorrow.

Come to "University of Wisconsin Law School 'Teach-in' on the legal and political issues raised by the Governor’s Budget Repair Bill."

All are welcome. Wednesday, February 23, 2011. 6-8 pm, Room 2260 at the UW Law School:

This academic forum seeks to provide insights into the dramatic developments that have followed the introduction of the Governor’s Budget Repair Bill from an historical, legal and political perspective. All are welcome.

Speakers:
Professor Carin Clauss, Law School
Professor Donald Downs, Political Science
Professor Will Jones, History
Professor Andrew Coan, Law School
Professor David Cannon, Political Science
Professor Neill DeClercq, School for Workers, UW Extension

Chair:
Professor Heinz Klug, UW Law School

It's called a "teach-in" in the email that was sent around but a "forum" at the law school website.