UW-Madison administrators said Friday they will fund Shadow Day, a program designed to give high school students of color and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students the opportunity to spend a day with a UW-Madison student, as it was originally proposed by the Associated Students of Madison Diversity Committee.
Calls from outraged students, alumni and UW-Madison supporters flooded Bascom Hall Friday prompting university administrators to rethink their decision not to fund the event.
\I basically have made the call that we will go ahead and work with the students to implement the proposal at another date in the near future pretty much as they have proposed,"" said Paul Barrows, vice chancellor of student affairs at UW-Madison.
Members of the LGBT community on campus said they were outraged Friday upon hearing that Shadow Day had been denied funding because of the inclusion of LGBT students. The community quickly mobilized with plans for a large postcard drive and a rally Tuesday.
""It was mind blowing that they would ever even do this,"" said Joe Laskowski, a UW-Madison senior who is a member of the LGBT community. ""I've never seen this kind of unity within the LGBT community in Madison before.""
Robert Seltzer, UW-Madison director of admissions, notified Diversity Committee Chair Jennifer Epps Nov. 7 that the university would not provide funding for Shadow Day if LGBT students were included.
""I was told that they were not sure how high schools would respond to the recruitment of LGBT students as well as how alumni and conservative professors would respond to the targeted recruitment of LGBT students,"" Epps said.
Barrows said he had not heard any concerns from high schools involved with the event, but he said LGBT recruitment has never been done at UW-Madison.
""This is a whole new area where we have never had any experience at all in setting up recruitment initiatives,"" he said. ""Maybe some school districts aren't progressive enough in their readiness to deal with that.""
However, UW-Madison Dean of Students Luoluo Hong said other considerations also factored into the decision not to fund the event.
""This ended up becoming a politically loaded issue,"" she said. ""The entire UW community is not just the students here. The students here are the most important, but students also need the support of alumni, parents [and others].""
Joshua Petit, co-president of the Ten Percent Society, concurred and cited the new Wisconsin state Legislature's Republican majority. He said he thinks UW-Madison administrators were concerned with future budget decisions and the possibility that conservative legislators would look negatively upon the use of university funds to recruit LGBT students.
Shadow Day organizers and UW-Madison administrators said they will work together to implement the event during the spring semester.
Members of the LGBT community said they plan to take advantage of the momentum this controversy has provoked and they will begin a two-fold postcard drive this week. The postcards will thank administrators for deciding to fund Shadow Day but will also include three demands: the implementation of an annual Shadow Day; the creation of a diversity-oriented freshman seminar that includes LGBT issues; and the creation of a full-time staff member at the LGBT Campus Center paid for with state funds.
