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University of Wisconsin students warn against using criminal records in admissions
Members of UW-Madison’s student government on Friday criticized Chancellor Rebecca Blank’s call for officials to revisit their policy of not asking about applicants’ criminal records.
The statement from members of the Associated Students of Madison also repeated concerns UW administrators have not done enough to address racism on campus, after officials acknowledged this week that a student at the university had been convicted of a racially motivated arson spree in 2005.
Blank called Thursday for the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents to “consider a review” of UW’s applications, which do not allow officials to ask about or consider prospective students’ prior criminal convictions.
Blank made the request after a UW-Madison student who served prison time for setting fires at predominantly black churches in Milwaukee and Michigan began trying to recruit other students to join a local chapter of a white nationalist organization.
But echoing the arguments of criminal justice reform advocates who say questions about criminal backgrounds are too often used to unfairly deny opportunities to people trying to re-enter society, the student government representatives said introducing those questions to the application process would be discriminatory.
It also would not be an effective tool for addressing intolerance, they argued.
“We know who is predominantly impacted by the criminal justice system and we know that it isn’t young, financially secure white men,” representative Brooke Evans said in the statement. “And we know that it doesn’t take a criminal history to determine the capacity for hate in the present.”
The statement also called for Blank to label the organization student Daniel Dropik is trying to start on campus as a white supremacist group. The ASM members said Blank must “craft tangible policies that actually address the racism that is perpetuated by students, faculty, academic staff, university staff and administrators on this campus.”
Dropik, 33, says his organization — a chapter of the American Freedom Party, which a member described in an email Friday as “a nationalist party that is concerned with the issues of white Americans” — will be a “pro-white student club.”
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