Watch our Spring Symposium

As has been widely reported, the 2023 WAS Spring Symposium was deplatformed by the Medical College of Wisconsin one week prior to the event. Reports of intense faculty and student protests and threats of disruptive behavior caused the MCW administration to cancel the room reservation which had been approved months in advance. Symposium organizers secured a new location near the MCW campus and held the panel discussion on DEI in medicine and the sciences as planned. The Zoom webinar drew an internet audience of more than 70 people, in addition to a small group of in person attendees.

The event featured a 90 minute panel discussion on the uses and abuses of government-sponsored Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programming in universities generally and specifically in medical, scientific, and technical education.

Panelists included Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rep. Dave Murphy (WI Assembly District 56; Chair, Committee on Colleges and Universities) and John D. Sailer, Senior Fellow and Director of University Policy, National Association of Scholars.  Sailer’s research on DEI policies in higher education has been highlighted in the Wall Street Journal and credited with the recent trend at a growing number of universities to prohibit the use of diversity statements in faculty hiring. Remarkably, shortly before Mr. Sailer gave testimony in a hearing at the Wisconsin Capitol on May 11, 2023, UW System Jay Rothman announced that he was banning the use of diversity statements in hiring. 

Watch the recording of the 2023 Wisconsin Association of Scholars Spring Symposium below or at Rumble.