A lot has been on University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s plate since the spring.
Between a 12-day pro-Palestine encampment and juggling the university budget process, she’s had to carefully tread an upcoming election with a student body that has divided perspectives. Mnookin and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Lori Reesor sat down with campus media Tuesday to discuss free speech efforts, the affordable housing shortage and protest culture.
In her third fall roundtable conversation with campus news organizations since assuming her role as chancellor in August 2022, Mnookin touted new student programs, research initiatives and the addition of 142 faculty members.
UW-Madison received more than 70,000 applications for the 2024-25 academic year, the most it has received in its history, Mnookin said. The university’s four-year graduation rate also rose to 75.5%.
During the discussion, Mnookin repeatedly promoted “pluralism” for a growing student body.
“Our fundamental goal is to bring people from all backgrounds and all points of view together and create the conditions for them to do amazing things, both in terms of learning, in terms of research and in terms of innovating for the public good,” Mnookin said.
Take college surveys with a ‘grain of salt,’ Mnookin says
In a 2025 college speech climate ranking from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse (FIRE), UW-Madison ranks 227th out of 254 schools surveyed, a considerable drop from 60th in the 2024 ranking.
The FIRE ranking consolidates a number of metrics through survey data including student perception of administrative support for free speech, self-censorship and openness to difficult conversations on campus.
When asked about the ranking drop and what improvements the university would make to free speech, Mnookin told The Daily Cardinal she doesn’t think the survey accurately captures the university’s commitment to free expression.
“All these rankings need to be taken with a pretty big grain of salt, and I’ve said that even when we do really well,” Mnookin said. “There are sometimes tensions between our commitment to free speech and our hope for a culture of respect and a culture of life, and I grant those tensions… I actually think we have to be robustly supportive of the First Amendment and free speech.”
Mnookin has defended the university’s free speech efforts before, telling media organizations in the fall 2022 roundtable the “First Amendment actually protects most hate speech,” and that “one person’s hate speech is another person’s idea,” in response to a campus event hosted by right-wing commentator Matt Walsh and chalkings targeting Jewish students.
The College Pulse survey was fielded from Jan. 25 through June 17, 2024, with the data coming from a sample of 58,807 undergraduates enrolled full-time in four-year degree programs at one of a list of 258 colleges and universities in the United States, including 529 from UW-Madison.
Mnookin mentioned the university will continue to use FIRE produces as a piece of their new First Amendment module that all first-year students are required to take.
“Whether it's AI in the classroom or gun control, right things that people are likely to have divergent opinions. How can we have constructive conversations, learn from each other, where we sharpen our own beliefs?” Mnookin said.
New residence hall a priority for UW-Madison amid housing crunch, Mnookin says
One of UW-Madison’s priorities in the next few years is to build a new residence hall to accommodate a growing student population, and the university included this initiative in its 2025-27 biennial budget request to the UW System, Mnookin told the Cardinal.
UW-Madison’s 20 residence halls are designed to house just over 7,700 students. In recent years, the university turned double rooms into triple rooms, converted lounges into housing and used campus buildings such as the Lowell Center to house larger numbers of students.
Mnookin said her goal is to “build enough housing to comfortably house all of the freshmen who want to live in the dorms.”
“We're not a campus where most people want to be on campus for years and years,” she said. “We're not trying to change that, but we’d like to have a little bit more breathing room.”
But before UW-Madison can build a new residence hall, it must receive permission from the Republican-controlled state Legislature to borrow the necessary funding. Mnookin hopes Gov. Tony Evers will include the residence hall in his 2025-27 biennial budget and said she will advocate for its approval during the legislative budget process.
UW-Madison is asking only for permission from the Legislature, and the funding would not come from the state’s taxpayers, Mnookin said.
“We're not asking for the state to subsidize these buildings, only for the permission to be able to come closer to meeting the needs of our students for housing,” Mnookin said. “I would welcome our students helping us to advocate for this as well.”
In the meantime, Mnookin said an increase in downtown Madison apartments coming online in the next few years may ease the pressure for students seeking housing off campus.
The university’s request for an additional residence hall comes amid a crunch in both campus and off-campus housing supply as the student population grows and rents in the city of Madison’s tight housing market continue to rise. Last month, an off-campus housing study released by the city and UW-Madison found that fewer than one third of beds located within 2.5 miles of campus are considered affordable for students.
The university has limited control over city policy related to housing construction, and Mnookin said rising student housing costs are a problem not just in Madison, but in “most dense college towns and cities.”
Mnookin said university is committed to be ‘content neutral’ in decision-making
The Cardinal asked Mnookin what her takeaways were from the pro-Palestine encampment and if she considered opinions from state legislators in her decision-making during that time.
“I tried to make decisions that I thought were in the best interest of the university,” she said. “We have a commitment to be content neutral in all our decisions, and to expect everyone to adhere to our rules.”
On May 1, Mnookin authorized the police to raid the encampment, which was nonviolent and practiced civil disobedience by violating state law on camping on university grounds.
The chancellor recognized protest is part of expressive activity, but when protests go beyond what’s permitted, “there can be consequences for that,” referencing Martin Luther King, Jr. 's promotion of peaceful civil disobedience during the Civil Rights Movement.
UW-Madison updated its protest policy Aug. 28 to include restrictions on “expressive activity” within 25 feet of university facility entrances, size limitations for signs in buildings, specific sound amplification restrictions and restrictions on protest activity during select times on campus areas.
Reesor said they revamped expressive activity policy so students had a “clear and transparent” guide to what policy they might violate if they choose to participate in expressive activity.
Free speech expert Howard Schweber previously told the Cardinal the new policy is “clearly unconstitutional” and Tim Muth, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Wisconsin, agreed saying it is also “vague and ill-defined.”
UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas previously told the Cardinal the university worked with legal counsel to protect free expression and meet legal requirements.
“While we respect that there can be differences of opinion in the complicated area of freedom of expression, we believe that we have crafted a policy that complies with both the Constitution and the First Amendment, as well as helping us meet our obligations under Title VI,” Lucas said.
