The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
>> We are just getting started. >> While President Trump doubles
down on his divisive agenda. Emphatic opposition to
Republican plans make their voices heard at the state
Capitol, while new polling shows Wisconsin's sharp edged
political divide. [MUSIC]
on "Here& Now". Medical research funding in the balance. A
misogynistic online subculture leeches into the mainstream and
a tuition promise atones for centuries old injustices. But
first, how attack ads in judicial races impact sentencing
decisions. It's "Here& Now" for March 7th.
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus Fund for
Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
>> If you're only getting your information about the Supreme
Court, candidates through attack ads, you would think both judges
are happy to give light sentences to pedophiles and
domestic abusers. Here and now, senior political reporter Zach
Schultz tells us why so many ads focus on sentencing decisions
and how that can impact how all judges in Wisconsin rule from
the bench. >> Susan Crawford, the radical
liberal judge who led the predator out in just four years.
[MUSIC] gave big plea deals to rapists,
domestic abusers, and even a man caught with child pornography.
>> Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Waukesha County
Judge Brad Schimel have each been a circuit court judge since
2018. They've presided over thousands of cases and handed
out sentences for every type of offense, allowing their
opponents to cherry pick their record and find cases that make
them look soft on crime. >> Her criminal coddling record
is an injustice to us all. >> Schimel let domestic abusers
walk with no jail time. >> They've also been running for
a spot on the Wisconsin Supreme actively considering it for much
longer than that. But Crawford and Schimel deny that their
candidacy ever had an impact on the severity of sentence they
imposed. >> Well, from the time I decided
to run for Supreme Court, I've been in the Civil Division, so I
haven't handled any criminal cases. But no, you can't do
this. You can't put your. Your own personal political views or
interests in in place of doing justice.
>> Well, you know, I don't make decisions as a judge based on
what I think some future attack ad might look at. I make
decisions, particularly in that example of criminal sentencing,
based on what I believe is necessary to protect the safety
of the community, what's necessary to protect the crime
victims in a case. >> There is a lot of evidence
that when judges are approaching an election, they sentence
people more harshly than they do in other points in their term.
>> Zoe Engberg is an assistant clinical professor at the UW Law
School. evidence that shows that
negative campaign ads in particular, have a large impact
on how judges make decisions in cases.
Pennsylvania that examined a decade's worth of sentences from
every judge in the state to show the fear of attack ads and
reelection didn't just impact high profile judges who were
running for higher office. It affected every judge.
>> They were able to really see how these trends developed and
point to. I think it was about 2000 years of incarceration over
the space of a decade that was directly attributable to
reelection, and not just typical sentencing.
>> What's most concerning is typically the cases in the
attack. Ads aren't even egregious decisions by the
judges. >> A lot of attack ads of this
nature about individual cases, about individual decisions made
for judge by judges, often are attacking judges for fairly
typical decisions that almost any judge would have actually
made, given a similar case and similar circumstances.
>> Brad Schimel makes the same point, saying one of the
domestic abuse cases he's being attacked over involved a veteran
with PTSD, where the victim pleaded with Schimel to give the
man probation to get help. >> Any judge in their right mind
would have done the same thing I did that day and give him a
chance on probation to show that he is truly redeemed. And he did
it. He hasn't been in any trouble ever since, and he never
was in trouble before. >> But that didn't stop Schimel
from attacking Crawford over her sentencing decisions.
>> The law instructs judges in those kinds of cases to look at
all the relevant factors. What the defendant's rehabilitative
needs might be, that person's criminal prior criminal record.
And I make a decision that I believe is in the interest of
justice and will protect community safety and protect the
crime victim. >> Every one of those campaign
ads lack context. And while they'll likely help one of these
candidates win a seat on the Supreme Court, Engberg says the
impact of the ads will be felt in every courtroom in the state.
>> The impact of this is that I think it it motivates judges to
always on the side of being more punitive and make decisions,
kind of because in the back of their mind, they're thinking,
what will this case look like in an election ad in my next
reelection? >> Reporting from Madison, I'm
Zach Schultz for "Here& Now". >> Anticipated fallout from any
lapse in federal health research funding prompted full on
response this week from UW leaders and scientists.
UW-Madison alone stands to lose $65 million in funding due to a
Trump administration reduction for indirect costs, while a
federal judge has temporarily blocked the NIH cuts.
Wisconsin's bio health industry and its health systems are
sounding the alarm about any permanent loss of research
funding. >> Universities across Wisconsin
receive research funding from the federal government to work
to the betterment of our people and our communities. Taking a
meat cleaver to this funding is simply wrong, shortsighted, and
will cause harm to people across the state of Wisconsin and the
country. Our university research lab should be a hub of activity,
humming to provide life saving research that families can count
upon. This impacts all of us. >> My own NIH funded research
has led to the development of new therapies for reducing
memory loss, alleviating hot flashes, and reducing the risk
of Alzheimer's disease, which we hope will reach the clinic in
the next 5 to 10 years. If you remember one thing from my
remarks today, it's that federal funding for basic and clinical
research is critical for training the next generation of
scientists and health professionals while developing
new treatments for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease,
schizophrenia, addiction, as well as conditions such as
cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, which are among
the leading causes of death in the United States. Simply put,
these desperately needed treatments would not be possible
without NIH funding. >> Bayer Health Industry in
Wisconsin is a national leader driving innovation and economic
growth, but also contributing, of course, to health outcomes.
We had plenty of examples. Today, it's a very wide
ecosystem with notably biomedical research and testing,
digital health, drug and pharmaceuticals, medical
devices, and a lot of manufacturing that goes with it
distribution. So it's a whole big ecosystem. And BioForward,
when we talk about growing Wisconsin's bioscience industry,
we are talking about a collaborative effort between
industry leaders, research institutions, of course, and
policymakers. Our state's institutions, like the
UW-Madison, UW Milwaukee, Medical College of Wisconsin,
and all the others play a critical role in advancing
groundbreaking medical research. NIH investment brought $654
million to Wisconsin in 2023, and thousands of direct jobs and
generate billions in economic activity for the state. These
funds from NIH don't just drive research. They attract biotech
companies, venture capital. They attract top scientists and
talents to the state. They drive manufacturing. They drive
services, and even more. So if there's no research, they are no
discoveries, no treatments, no new fast growing companies, and
no ecosystem to support them. So there's no doubt that reducing
NIH funding would be a direct threat for us in Wisconsin.
>> Scientists echoed this sentiment within the walls of
the state capitol today. During the Stand up for science Rally,
the national event held rallies across 50 states and in
Wisconsin, where hundreds turned out to voice their support for
government sponsored research. >> And if we lay off senior
researchers who know how to do the research, then we have
reduced numbers of grad students that are being that are being
trained or postdocs. That's going to mean that the senior
people are not there to give their experience to the younger
people, and there's fewer younger people. And the long
term implications of that is extremely negative.
>> We've dealt with cuts previously in other
administrations. They didn't seem so arbitrary, simply
reducing the number of dollars, right, that show up at
universities, that show up at research institutes, that has an
immediate impact. And so we need to have that conversation and
engage our elected officials and engage the public. This is what
we're trying to do today. >> An undercurrent in American
society went mainstream as President Donald Trump won back
the white House, an online movement of men who hold
misogynistic views burst onto the scene during the campaign.
In social media and podcasts. It's called the manosphere, and
a UW-Madison assistant professor at the La Follette School of
Public Affairs conducted a research study of how and why
this ideology took political hold. We sat down with Mariel
Barnes to talk about it. What is the manosphere?
>> In our paper, we talk about the manosphere as a collection
of kind of websites, blogs that look or put forward a particular
perspective that advocate hatred for women and advocate
anti-feminist ideologies and advocate against gender equality
and view kind of men as victims in modern day society. So we
started with the Southern Poverty Law Center. They have a
list of websites that they classified as anti-feminist,
manosphere websites. And so we went through and we read all of
these websites, and then each of these websites often has like
recommendations for other people that, you know, their, their
readers should read. And so we went through those websites as
well and kind of read all of those websites and collected
over a hundred different websites that could be
classified as being in the manosphere. And so we have data
for all of those websites for every year that they were in
existence. >> Looking at it over time, how
has the manosphere changed? >> We see the manosphere really
not being a thing until about 2008, 2009. So before then,
you'd really had a couple of websites, a couple of people who
were involved in it. A lot of time they were really involved
in like fathers rights and custody issues. There was some
allegations about like reverse discrimination and court cases
around reverse discrimination, but there wasn't a lot. And then
you get to 2008 and all of a sudden you see this like uptick
in like the number of websites and the number of blogs going
the other way. I think it's changed over time is just the
sheer number of people who are reading these blogs. So the
growth of the internet and the growth of high speed internet,
the growth of personal blogging allowed these people to reach a
wider audience. And it allowed people to find or it allowed men
to find other men who shared their perspectives and so they
could all talk together and network together, which before
kind of the internet, you really didn't have. They've joined kind
of the alt right. They've joined white supremacist groups,
they've joined anti LGBT groups, they've joined more populist
politics. So what we see under Trump and so the need for a
specific blog that looks at, you know, men's rights is less
necessary because it's now been incorporated into this bigger
phenomenon. And this bigger movement.
>> How does the manosphere intersect with violence?
>> What we see is that the more isolated these groups are, the
more likely they are to engage. We hypothesize, the more likely
they are to engage in very public acts of violence against
people. And so one of the most isolated groups, both from women
and from other men themselves, are incel groups. And that's why
we see a lot of mass shootings and massacres emerging from
those groups. But then there's other kinds of violence that
emerge. So that's the very public version. Then you have
groups like Pickup Artists, which want to sleep with as many
women as possible, and they have a whole range of techniques for
doing that and picking up women. But we hypothesize that because
they need to interact with women in that way, they're actually
more inclined to commit kind of private violence and sexual
assault and rape against women. Having done this research, what
would you like to see come of it?
>> I think I would like more people to know about the
manosphere, and that this is a insidious movement that has
suddenly, like taken on kind of a life of its own and has become
mainstream. I think for a long time it was ignored by a lot of
parts of society, and that was has not helped us. I don't think
we can ignore extreme views. I think we need to confront them.
And I think when they move into the mainstream, we need to
acknowledge, like where they have come from. So a lot of the
thing I have, a lot of, I struggle a lot with people like
Joe Rogan. Right. Because I think that he has and other
people like him have seen washed these more extreme views. So
they become more palatable to a wider audience and a wider
audience thinks, oh, that's not unreasonable. And yet, at its
heart, like the very heart of the issue, is, it is
unreasonable. And it is anti-women and it is anti gender
equality, and it's just not recognized as such. So paying
attention, I think, to the movements like the manosphere
that are extreme is important. And I hope that's kind of what
my work draws attention to. >> You can watch our extended
interview with Professor Barnes on our website, UW-Madison sits
on ancestral Ho-Chunk land in recognition of that, and to give
back the Wisconsin Tribal Education Promise offers full
tuition, including housing costs and fees, to native
undergraduate students in Wisconsin. The promise also
extends tuition waivers to native law and medical students
"Here& Now". Reporter Erika Ayisi looks at the program and
the history behind it. This report is in collaboration with
our partners at ICT. Formerly Indian Country. Today.
>> It means a lot to me and my people, my community, the native
community. We are still here. We're still fighting for our
rights to be here. >> Riley Aguirre is a freshman
at the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus.
>> Education was used as assimilation to get rid of our
culture, our language, our traditions. But now it's used as
a way of teaching. >> She's an enrolled member of
the Oneida Nation, and attending the university at no cost to her
or her family. Using the Wisconsin Tribal Education
Promise Program, how would your family have paid for college
otherwise? >> Other scholarships?
Definitely applying for scholarships outside of the
school to help me as well. And probably funding through the
tribe as well. >> The Wisconsin Tribal
Education Promise program provides financial support for
students who are enrolled in one of the state's 11 federally
recognized tribes. Karla Vigue, Tribal Relations director of
UW-Madison, says the university wants to make the Madison campus
more accessible to native students.
>> We worked with tribal leaders from across the state to create
the program, and now we're seeing the fruits of those
labors. You know, we're seeing our first class. We've got
nearly 80 students in this first class. And we're hoping it will
grow from here. >> Tuition, housing, books and
all other school related fees totaling about $30,000 are
covered for undergraduate native students through the Promise
program. program, and, you know, we're
pretty proud that people want to support this program.
>> The program is funded through private donations. Vigue says
the legal precedent surrounding federally recognized tribes is a
specific eligibility requirement for the students applying to the
program. >> Federally recognized tribes
are sovereign nations who determine citizenship. And so
that's a political classification. It's not a race
or ethnicity. >> Schools in nearly all 50
states offer some type of financial assistance for native
students. The program's unique. It includes medical students and
law students. Tell me more about that.
>> We are hearing from people across the country, even in
particular about that law aspect. There's a lot of
excitement around the law schoo. >> Biden Josef Cornelius is
Oneida. His father is a UW-Madison Law School graduate
who was worried about school loans for his son.
>> Initially, we were thinking that some of it would probably
have to come out of my pockets or his pockets, and the fact
that it was like, no worries, you know? Now we're just now I
just have to worry about school, get good grades, and then it's
all smooth sailing. >> Undergraduate recipients of
the tribal promise are reserved one wing of dorms inside the
Smith Residence Hall. There's also an indigenous student
center close by that hosts tribal student groups like Wunk
Sheek, Wied. >> I'd say the Wunk Sheek House
Indigenous Program have done a really good job at promoting the
diversity here. >> Vigue says the university
wants to do what's right for Wisconsin's native people.
Considering the university is on native land belonging to the
Ho-Chunk, also known as the people of the Big Voice.
>> This is Ho-Chunk ancestral land, and I think there's now
some sense of pride in that and wanting to share and celebrate
that history. But there's also, you know, with this promise, a
chance to give back to. Madison campus extends over 900
acres of land, including a four mile stretch of shoreline along
Lake Mendota. But this land is the ancestral home to the
Ho-Chunk nation. The native people who were living here for
over 10,000 years. Through a series of treaties, the Ho-Chunk
were forced to cede or give up this land to the state of
Wisconsin and the federal government.
>> The 1837 treaty wasn't a revered treaty at all. These are
forced agreements to cede our land, such as that particular
treaty, move west of the Mississippi, and, you know, and
relinquish our ownership of our historic homes.
>> Jon Greendeer, president of Ho-Chunk nation, says the final
treaty with the government was signed under duress.
>> We had eight months to vacate, but then we didn't. And
in the coldest parts of the winter, they shipped us in rail
cars across to the neutral ground. And, you know, we
suffered a lot for that. >> Ho-Chunk were given one and a
half million dollars for their land, but the government put
most of it into interest bearing trusts, leaving Ho-Chunk next to
nothing. >> I don't think any
representatives of authority could walk away from one of
those agreements and say they were the beneficiary of
something. >> Most of the Wisconsin native
tribes were forcibly moved to reservations, but Ho-Chunk
people are spread across the state with over 7000 currently
enrolled members. Greendeer says the treaties of the past are
significant to their sovereignty of the present.
>> The treaties gave way to a lot and substantiated our
abilities to negotiate not only with local governments, but also
later on with these other little governments that were starting
up with the education campuses, with the UW. Ho-Chunk had
already surrendered. This part of their land in an 1832 treaty,
paving the way for UW-Madison to be built in 1848. Abraham
Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862, selling 1.3 million
acres of tribal land in Wisconsin and using the proceeds
to create so-called land grant universities. And so today, the
tuition promise extends to native students across the
state. A promise Greendeer calls late, but fitting.
>> I think the Wisconsin promise is a very old promise that is
finally getting kept, at least at the UW level, at least at the
college level. >> 108 years after the last
treaty was signed, Robert Powless, an Oneida man, became
the first native to graduate from UW-Madison. Ada Dyer, a
Menominee native, was the first woman for Aguirre, a free
university education on native soil is personal.
>> Our education is not only for me, but for our community and
for the resiliency of my ancestors. We fought so long
through so many generations of trauma and abuse and neglect,
and being here is like resiliency.
>> They were forcibly removed, and this university has spent
some time coming to accept and share that story. And part of
the reason this promise exists is because, you know, there is
some recognition that that all happened, but there's also, you
know, there's also the need and want to do what's right and good
for native people to. >> A heritage marker was erected
on UW Madison's campus to recognize the ancestral home of
Ho-Chunk. It's near Bascom Hill, which sits on top an effigy or
burial mound built by native people over a thousand years
ago. A series of 12 Ho-Chunk Circle clan sculptures are
outside the Bakke recreation and Wellbeing Center.
>> The promise is intended to be forever, right? I mean, Native
American students have been around, you know, since the
beginning of what is now the United States. But it's been
around since the inception of what is now this country. And I
think the goal is to make sure that they're taken care of
forever. >> Both students are looking to
use their education to better their communities.
>> I kind of want to go into wealth management or some maybe
sustainability. >> I do want to go into some
field where I can be an advocate for possibly my tribe or other
people, but definitely native people as a whole. And getting
our voices out there to be hear. >> Reporting from Madison
Ho-Chunk lands. I'm Erica Ayisi for "Here& Now" and ICT.
>> For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit
our website at PBS wisconsin.org and then click on the news tab.
That's our program for tonight. I'm Frederica Freyberg. Have a
good weekend.
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus Fund for
Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.