The Capitol Report, produced by WisPolitics.com — a nonpartisan, Madison-based news service that specializes in coverage of government and politics — provides a weekly analysis of issues being debated in Wisconsin state government. It is underwritten by the WNA and produced exclusively for its members. WisPolitics.com President Jeff Mayers is a former editor and reporter for the Associated Press and a former political writer for the Wisconsin State Journal.
By WisPolitics-State Affairs
The controversy burst into the Capitol conversation, and then in rapid fashion the normally low-profile University of Wisconsin board of regents fired its president.
Jay Rothman is out, and the search is on for his replacement. But there remains some mystery about the back story.
The now-former UW president insists he still has no idea why the regents threatened to fire him unless he quit. But two regents dropped several hints about issues that led to his dismissal at a Senate hearing.
The Rothman news came out of the blue as UW released letters Rothman sent to regents laying out their demand and his insistence that he hadn’t been given a reason for his pending dismissal.
The regents didn’t shed any light on that topic before the April 7 unanimous vote other than Board of Regents President Amy Bogost saying in a statement that Rothman “was not without notice, nor was this process sudden,”
She added the board had engaged in “good-faith discussions” with the UW president in the wake of a performance review. Republicans smelled a political hatchet job and suggested Rothman was paying a price for being willing to work with them rather than simply carrying water for Dems.
But privately, critics lay out a series of issues with Rothman’s tenure. When he was brought in from the private sector, where he led the Milwaukee-based Foley& Lardner law firm, it was seen as a move to get someone who could better connect to Republicans who control the Legislature.
That record was mixed, at best, insiders conclude.
Bogost and fellow regent Timothy Nixon, for example, praised Rothman during the Senate hearing for his work on the state budget and getting a 2023 diversity, equity and inclusion deal with the Legislature across the finish line.
At the same time, many view the $240 million increase that UW got during the 2025-27 budget — including $94 million for pay raises — as more the work of Dem Gov. Tony Evers and Senate Dems than UW leadership working its magic with Republicans.
Others pointed to the seven chancellors who have left the 22-campus system since Rothman took office nearly four years ago, compared to the nine who departed in the eight years before that. That includes Jennifer Mnookin, who’s leaving the flagship Madison campus to lead Columbia University in New York.
Pay is definitely a factor in some of those moves, observers note.
But the departures also speak to Rothman’s leadership style, insiders say. More details of that emerge during a Senate hearing on 10 of Evers’ appointees for the Board of Regents. Bogost and Nixon raised concerns about “command and control” management style, adding his leadership stifled the universities’ ability to innovate.
Nixon also described what he viewed as a lack of innovation at the system, questioned the nearly 600 administrative employees at UW, and pointed to a lack of guidelines or guardrails on artificial intelligence. The two regents also said Rothman had blocked establishing an AI policy since November.
Along the way, GOP members of the Senate Universities and Technical College Committee pressed the pair for additional details only for Bogost to maintain Rothman would have to waive confidentiality if lawmakers want to learn more about the reasoning behind his termination. She also accused Rothman of launching a public campaign for his job that’s harmed the very institutions he claims to support.
After his firing Rothman told WISN-TV’s “UpFront” show that the system “needs a Board of Regents that is functional.”
“A board that speaks with one voice to the management team — that it’s not 18 people providing what their views are,” Rothman told the show, produced in cooperation with WisPolitics. “You have to have a board that has courage to make really tough decisions and back up the management team when they make tough decisions. You have to have a board that speaks with one voice when they choose to speak, and not have individual regents reach out to media or otherwise on background or for direct attribution without some level of coordination going forward.”
When asked if he was referring to the current board, Rothman said, “I’m not going to comment on the existing board. I’m looking at the future.”
Rothman also said he had no regrets after broadly lobbying Republicans for more state funding while also working on a bipartisan deal that included a freeze in diversity, equity and inclusion hires.
“I had to make difficult decisions,” Rothman said. “The decision around DEI was hard. The decision around branch campus closings was hard, and I know when you make hard decisions, you were going to cause some people not to be happy with those decisions. But at the end of the day, my North Star has always been what’s in the best interest of the University of Wisconsin, and I don’t regret those decisions. Did I make mistakes? Of course I did. I learned from them — I hope I did.”
Rothman said he does not plan to fight the firing, noting that the board has the ability to terminate his contract with or without cause.
“They’ve chosen to do that,” Rothman said. “I would have asked, and I did ask multiple times, for a reason, and I was not given one. And they may not owe that reason to me, but I suspect they owe it to the state of Wisconsin, to the universities, to the taxpayers and, quite frankly, all residents of the state.”
Committee Chair Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, had planned a vote on the 10 nominations after the public hearing, but put it off, saying he wanted more information first. That seems to have tamped down the possibility — for now — of Senate Republicans trying to reject the 10 regents, which would wipe out more than half of the board.
That’s just part of the potential drama for a new president. Such as: Who will be the governor come January? Even if the Senate doesn’t vote down the 10 nominees, the next governor could wipe out all unconfirmed appointments of their predecessor and put new people in place.
While the April 7 election didn’t paint a pretty picture for Republicans, the political environment in November is still a lifetime away, and that’s an avenue for Republican Tom Tiffany to be in the governor’s office come January.
Beyond that, who will control the Legislature? It can be tough to sell a quality candidate on the position with that much uncertainty.
Then there’s the question of how much the new person will be paid. Rothman will continue receiving his annual salary of $600,943 through October. But that’s below market value for someone to run a system like Wisconsin’s these days. The president of the system in Illinois is making $935,000 a year, while the salary for Indiana University’s leader is $1 million.
The fact the regents knew all of those challenges and still decided to get rid of Rothman hints at their dissatisfaction with the job he was doing. But that may not be enough to placate GOP lawmakers, who still have questions about the move.
For more, visit WisPolitics.com
The Capitol Report is written by editorial staff at WisPolitics.com, a nonpartisan, Madison-based news service that specializes in coverage of government and politics, and is distributed for publication by members of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.
Copyright © WisPolitics.com
