Every so often, there comes along a political figure that gives pundits and comedians infinite amounts of material to use to criticize them (see Donald Trump). In the state of Wisconsin, we have Sen. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, who is always there to provide the ridiculous remarks that make anyone with knowledge of the situation facepalm.
This time, Nass took a jab at the United Council of University of Wisconsin students, who held a protest about race relations in December and met with UW System President Ray Cross Thursday. They said race relations on campuses across the UW System are poor, and a five part solution should be implemented to correct this problem.
Cross hinted that there is a problem with race relations on campus, showing a willingness to implement, in part, the United Council’s proposals. Nass said Cross needs to “stop wasting time” on political correctness and people wanting “apologies for hurt feelings.”
I partly agree with Nass: There is an overt amount of political correctness, especially during primary season. But in this situation, Nass is dead wrong. Isn’t it a problem when the UW only has a black population of two percent, while in the state of Wisconsin, the population is 9.7 percent? The United Council is proposing a task force to evaluate UW System students of color’s experiences on campus. Isn’t it a problem when an entire segment of the population is marginalized?
Budget decisions could deepen historic underrepresentation of black students at UW
Nass refuses to examine the facts and would rather live in a fantasy world where whatever he believes is correct. Honestly, no matter how much entertainment I receive from his continuous embarrassments, someone that has no ability to even consider that his or her political positions are incorrect does not belong in elected office.
This isn’t the first instance where Nass blatantly ignores the facts of a matter. In March of 2015, Nass dismissed research on right-to-work legislation across the country done by UW economics professor Steven Deller because he believed it to be “partisan, garbage research.”
In reality, the report compiled economic indicators of success, income, poverty and unemployment data from right-to-work states and compared them with states without such legislation. Deller found right-to-work “states tend to have lower manufacturing wages and overall income levels, higher poverty rates and lower education levels.” Since the findings of the research went against Nass’s political ideology, he immediately dismissed it and attacked Deller.
Ultimately, there is no right way to run an economy, but people’s personal rights need to be protected. The United Council is proposing real solutions to real problems that affect real Constitutional liberties. Nass is just blowing smoke.
Aaron Reilly (areilly@badgerherald) is a freshman majoring in comparative literature and Russian.
