The University of Wisconsin's Gender and Women's Studies Library published a reading list focusing on "Whiteness".
The Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives is offering its "Hip Hop in the Heartland" seminar. The seminar description reads, "The one-of-a-kind program draws from educational pedagogies on socio-cultural theory, cultural relevancy, critical race theory, hip hop and social justice. Participants learn proven, hands-on techniques to develop lesson plans and strengthen their course study, as well as create a platform from which they will understand the scope of hip hop history, culture and politics."
The university is offering "African 405: The Problem of Whiteness," where the course description reads, "Critical Whiteness Studies aims to understand how whiteness is socially constructed and experienced in order to help dismantle white supremacy. Our class will break away from the standard US-centric frame, and consider how whiteness is constructed globally, with particular attention to paradigmatic cases like South Africa. Whereas disciplines such as Latino/a, African, and Asian American studies focus on race as experienced by non-whites, whiteness studies considers how race is experienced by white people."
The University’s Resources that Activate Change in Health Sciences (REACH) center offers a website with resources on anti-black violence, inequality in America, and racism for teaching.
In September and November of 2020, the University presented multiple talks with Ibram X. Kendi focusing on Kendi’s concept of antiracism and critical race theory.
UWM has several equity tools. One is a Health Equity Curricular Toolkit contributed by nearly 40 experts across North America, and another is the Toolkit for Teaching about Racism in the Context of Persistent Health and Healthcare Disparities contributed by national experts.
The UW-Madison Libraries collaborated with the Humanities Education for Anti-racism Literacy (HEAL) in the Sciences and Medicine project. This initiative "seeks to improve equitable access to higher education by drawing on humanities research to advance anti-racist practices and pedagogy in science, technology, mathematics and medicine (STEMM).” Additionally, the project aims to “build more accurate narratives about histories of racism in STEMM to better understand persistent underrepresentation and to develop educational tools for building a more equitable university and society."
UWM has an anti-racism resource page just for "white allies". Specifically, the materials are "intended to help white UW–Madison community members educate themselves about the systems of racial oppression that undergird American institutions and victimize people of color — particularly Black people — every day" and the school hopes the resources give white people some "new tools" as they "learn more about what it means to be white within these systems of oppression".
On December 8, 2023, Inside Higher Ed reported that after six months of funding negotiations, UW system leaders and the Republican-lead legislature had finally reached a deal which was eventually voted down by the UW Board of Regents. The board had "agreed to vote on a deal between system leaders and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos that would freeze and cap DEI hiring in exchange for funding held up by the Legislature." However, "the board rejected the proposal 9 to 8 leaving over $800 million on the table and the future of the system’s DEI offices in limbo." In response to the boards vote, Speaker Vos and Assembly republicans issued the following statement: "'It’s a shame they’ve denied employees their raises and the almost $1 billion investment that would have been made across the UW system, all so they could continue their ideological campaign to force students to believe only one viewpoint is acceptable on campus'."