Is anyone else surprised by the reaction of members of the State Legislature to the recently released audit of the UW System? I'm definitely not.

Following the release of the audit of UW employees by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee Tuesday, the System once again resumed its role as the favorite whipping boy of the Legislature. When the audit results revealed that 40 felons were employed within the system last November, with 27 of those felons employed at UW-Madison, it was not at all shocking that certain legislators eagerly jumped on the results of the audit and used it as a way to further attack and discredit the UW System, instead of constructively analyzing and addressing the audit results.

I'll admit, when I first heard the report regarding convicted felons at UW-Madison alone, I was a little taken aback by the numbers and asked a lot of questions. Twenty-seven felons employed at UW?! How does that happen? Who let this happen? I can imagine that many others on campus and citizens around the state of Wisconsin felt the same way.

However, after hearing further details of the findings of the audit and the context of the information I had initially heard, my reaction transformed from shocked and deeply concerned to thoughtful and cautious. It's important to not jump to hasty negative conclusions about the nature of employment policies throughout the UW System and push through unwise policies or take discriminatory actions against former felons. We should instead take an opportunity to objectively and rationally examine the initial findings of the audit, ask questions and await more detailed information before forming our opinions.

For example, a person's first horrified assumption might be that 40 individuals throughout the System were convicted of horrible felonies during their employment and the administration failed to take any action. However, that is simply not true. In fact, 25 of the individuals identified were convicted prior to, not during, their employment at UW. Though it doesn't change the fact that they did commit felonies and this may not alleviate concern people have over the nature of the crimes they committed, the fact remains that the circumstances of their convictions and employment most likely do not conform with our assumptions.

In addition, it's especially important to note that of those 40 felons identified, 12 are no longer employed by the university. However, these are the details that don't necessarily come out when we look at the raw numbers, jump to conclusions and overreact.

I don't dispute that the UW System needs to take action and policies need to be laid out to deal with severe situations, such as felons that pose a risk to the university, students and other staff in the course of their jobs. However, the UW System and the state need to be rational in how they approach the issue of felons employed within the System.

Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, disagrees, stating that UW should push for some of these criminals, especially those convicted of violent felonies, to be terminated.

Though I'm not surprised by this response, it's important to understand that Mr. Suder's reaction is absolutely the wrong way to interpret this report. We should all recognize that the System employs tens of thousands of people and acknowledge that it should not at all be surprising that some of them may have past criminal records. The simple fact is that individuals with felonies in their past work all over the state of Wisconsin. If a person does not pose health and safety risks and there is no connection between the felon's crime and their job at the university, we shouldn't rush to demand that their job be terminated. It is this kind of reaction that causes alarm and panic among members of the campus community and contributes unnecessarily to the negative perception people have of the university.

The UW System should not be in the business of discriminating against and denying jobs to people that have been convicted of felonies, have paid their debt to society and have been rehabilitated. As a state institution, there is no reason why we should not do our part to provide employment to those that have been rehabilitated and we should not automatically assume that their presence makes students and the campus community less safe.

Finally, we should not look at the numbers and chalk this up as another failure by the UW System and another reason to criticize it. This issue is not clear-cut; it's not black and white. Instead of following the reactionary lead of members of the state Legislature, we should examine the results of the audit with an open mind, gather more facts and seek more information. In the end, the result of this investigation and the following process should be a constructive, fair-minded policy regarding employment practices in the System, especially in regard to felons.

Janell Wise ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.