UW Oshkosh chancellor says Universities of Wisconsin system didn't sell out students of color for $800M

OSHKOSH ― At least one administrator doesn’t think the Universities of Wisconsin system has “sold out” its students of color.

Even after the Board of Regents accepted a deal that restructured 43 diversity positions, UW Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt believes the campuses are still catering to all of their diverse student groups.

Leavitt made the comments three months after the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature freed up $800 million for employee pay raises and building projects in exchange for the UW system restructuring dozens of staff into positions serving “all students.”

“It’s about outcomes, and so what we need to do is continue to strive to increase the number of people of color and other diverse groups in terms of graduation rate, and that’s something we’re focused on,” Leavitt told the Northwestern.

“I do not think students have been disadvantaged because I think this is about changing the job descriptions and the emphases of how we provide student support, and there’s any number of ways we could do that.

“We need to make sure our students are taken care of, and we want to make sure all students are successful and at the same time we have to comply with the terms of the agreement that was made with the UW system and [Assembly] Speaker [Robin] Vos,” he added.

The concession has been slammed by Democrats as a deal selling out students of color in exchange for state money that was previously withheld by the GOP-controlled Legislature for months last year.

Demanding cuts to campus diversity, equity and inclusion programming, Vos eventually released that $800 million after getting the UW system to agree to restructuring 43 diversity positions and freezing the total number of jobs through 2026.

“Republicans know this is just the first step in what will be our continuing efforts to eliminate these cancerous DEI practices on UW campuses,” Vos said in a statement at the time.

Yet, the Oshkosh campus claims it hasn't been significantly impacted, at least not according to the university's interim diversity officer, Byron Adams.

UW Oshkosh's DEI department is now the Center for Student Success and Belonging.

None of the diversity job titles has been adjusted, with the lone change seen in the renaming of the DEI department to the Center for Student Success and Belonging.

And according to Adams, who also serves as the director for the center, that name change was already in the works prior to the state Legislature's deal.

"We didn't formally rebrand and change DEI positions because we are still serving historically marginalized and underserved groups, but we felt the formal name change for our department was in our best interest of widening the scope of student services," Adams said.

"We did have students with concerns and questions around what was happening at the state level, but hopefully they trust us as an institution to provide services for them."

The department does have fewer staff now, though, as the Center of Student Success and Belonging totals 14 employees, including Davis.

UW Oshkosh reached a $200,000 settlement with former director of Affirmative Action Dr. Brian Xiong, who sued them for discrimination and retaliation.

UW Oshkosh isn't a stranger to recent issues over DEI offices, having reached a $200,000 settlement last year with its former director of affirmative action, Dr. Brian Xiong, who sued them for discrimination and retaliation.

The campus also faced significant layoffs in 2023 in an effort to save about $14.7 million.

The UW system did get $32 million from the state Legislature last month to fund staff raises, but this was only after UW Oshkosh already laid off 140 employees and accepted voluntary retirements from another 76 last October.

“We’re coping,” Leavitt said of the staff shortage. “So right now I would say that we’re trying to adjust to a new reality that we have fewer people, so we’re working through a process by which we may not do as many things as we used to and we may have to do things differently.

“And that’s the process we’re working through for the balance of this semester, and I think by next fall all of those issues will be settled,” he added.

Leavitt recently made a presentation at the Oshkosh Chamber’s State of the Community Address outlining several challenges facing his campus and higher learning institutions nationwide, including lower enrollment numbers.

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UW Oshkosh is facing a drastic decline in enrollment numbers.

As a result of the pandemic and the supposed declining value of undergraduate degrees, one out of five Wisconsin high school graduates are now going to a UW campus as opposed to 10 years ago when that ratio was one out of every three.

The chancellor was still able to show that the Oshkosh campus is graduating an average of 2,000 students per year while 89% of those graduates remain in Wisconsin.

“We’re going to be a slightly smaller institution moving forward, so we’ll probably be around 9,000 to 10,000 as opposed to 10,000 to 12,000, and as a result we need to make sure the resources we are bringing in are appropriate for serving that number of students,” Leavitt said.

“I think it’s about making sure we have an appropriate size workforce for the students that we’re going to be serving in the future,” he added.

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Data from the National Center of Education Statistics show that total college enrollment has dropped by nearly 1.5 million students over the past decade.

There was a loss of almost 6% of total enrollment, or more than 900,000 students, between fall 2019 and that same time in 2023.

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