The April Foolishness of Simon

Simon’s hilarious email from 2011 about his support for former Chancellor Biddy Martin's privatizing agenda:

Hi all,

I've given it a lot of thought over the last few days, and I have come
to the unfortunate conclusion that I can no longer support our efforts
against the New Badger Partnership and our Chancellor's proposals. While it
may seem like a horrible thing, one must take a step back and look at
the alternatives.

Scott Walker is going to cut $250 million from the UW system, and there
is nothing we can do about it. It is something we are going to have to
live with. You can lobby all that you want, but it is not going to be
stopped.

In order to keep the resulting tuition increase from being too high the
Chancellor needs the tools to run this university in a more financially
viable way. This includes the the flexibilities that she asked for as
well as the separation.

The flexibilities will enable her to cut costs where it is needed, and to
keep external money coming in strong. Some complain that we will end up
the a more private university, but you must ask yourself which is worse,
a private university or no university at all.

In regards to the separation, it will end up saving the university
money. Even if this is because other universities in the system will be
severely hurt by it, so what? These are hard times in education, and
everyone needs to make sacrifices. Its every university for themselves.

I can give the password to the Badger Impact site and mailing list to
whomever wants it, as I will no longer be updating either.

With regards to all,
Simon F