There’s definitely a hefty dose of editorial opinion here. The process that Wisconsin uses for determining who serves on the Regents is completely ordinary and conventional. Almost all state university systems use a combination of political appointment (by the governor and/or the legislature) plus several members who serve ex officio, such as the university president or the state governor, plus an occasional student or alum. This includes California, New York, Illinois, Virginia, Wisconsin, … I’m sure some governors’ appointments may lean more to the “political hack” side than others, but I don’t think anyone expects a governor to appoint someone of the opposite political party other than on rare occasions.
Michigan is actually one of the odd-men out. Most of the regents there run in partisan elections as either Democrats or Republicans and need to secure the blessings of the political party bosses to even run for election. It’s very odd to hold up partisan elections as a model for a less political process. Michigan’s regents certainly have had their fair share of strict party line voting, but it’s not considered partisan since the Board have had a Democratic majority for decades now and everyone’s been conditioned to this as the usual state of affairs. However, they do seem to have done a pretty good job with the Univ. of Michigan, so I’m not knocking their system.
Having the Regents set tenure policy just means Wisconsin is now the same as the other 49 states (Wisconsin was previously the odd-man out), so it’s hard to accept the argument that this change will lead to a disaster. In fact, what did the Wisconsin Regents do right as they were granted the power to determine tenure policy? They immediately adopted the old tenure policy, so there’s been absolutely no change. It’s possible that they could do something crazy next year if/when they adopt a new tenure policy, but I personally doubt it.
In my eyes, seeing arguments like this in newspapers or in speeches weakens the credibility of the person making them. If you want my list of honest reasons to be concerned, it’s
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[]The state government has cut the annual appropriation to Wisconsin by $125 million (all campuses, not just Madison). That’s about a 4% cut. But the government has also put a tuition freeze in effect (due to Walker, I think) in an attempt to improve affordability. The problem though is that since the university can’t raise tuition, it’s very likely they’ll have to cut some programs.
[]I’m not a 100% sure of this, but I believe that the new state law allows tenured faculty to be dismissed to help with budget problems or if an academic department is cut-back. Many/most universities have a higher standard, requiring that tenured faculty can be dismissed only if “financial exigency” exists or if an academic department is completely shut down. But as of right now the Regents have adopted the higher standard.
[]Even though having tenure be a matter of Regents policy is the same as for the other 49 states, removing it from state law does weaken it. I can easily imagine that people aren’t happy with the message this sends, or with the message that the budget cutbacks send.
[]Walker does not seem to be a supporter of research university models like Madison (the feeling seems to be mutual 
). I disagree with him.
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I’m not saying I agree with the cutbacks - university budgets aren’t my favorite place to save money to pay for Walker’s tax cuts. But frankly, having seen many budget cutbacks over the last 30 years, I doubt this is going to damage Wisconsin very much (half the cutbacks are offset by increases in other revenue). There’s almost always a lot more noise than actual impact. It sounds like 1/3 of the state and 98% of the faculty is very angry at Walker and I’m sure this is a factor.