The UW System Board of Regents voted Friday afternoon to mandate all UW System schools to implement criminal background checks for all potential employees by May 2007.
The Board also approved a policy allowing student organizations to limit membership and leadership positions to those who subscribe to the group's belief or value statements, but do not discriminate against individuals on the basis of constitutionally protected characteristics,"" according to the meeting news summary.
After a 2005 state audit discovered 40 felons in the UW System, the university has been working to abolish back-up positions, revise its faculty disciplinary policy and institute background checks.
""It is an effort on our part to make sure we're providing a safe and secure environment for students and everybody at the university,"" Regent Charles Pruitt said of the new policy.
At the meeting, Regent Jesus Salas said the expense of the background checks concerned him, but that if Wisconsin residents desired the increased security, he would ensure the process will be overseen efficiently and potential employees' information was kept confidential.
Pruitt emphasized the mandate is in its beginning stages, with the overall policy just having been drafted. He said separate schools will need to develop the policy further to adapt it to each individual campus.
""Over the next five months the university will take steps to do that while maintaining confidentiality, which is obviously very important to new employees,"" he said. ""I think that it's an important step for us to take in trying to be responsive to the Legislature's concerns and it's certainly a concern that we share.""
Members of UW-Madison's Faculty Senate expressed concern over the criminal background checks policy at its Dec. 4 meeting, saying the checks may turn employees off from the university.
Regarding the new student organizations policy that would allow student organizations to have policies requiring their members to subscribe to their basic values and beliefs, Pruitt said the idea originated from a desire within the university for more clarity regarding student organizations rights.
""We have a couple of legal questions and lawsuits that have been brought and I think there was sort of a belief particularly on the part of the legal counsel for the university and some of the individual campuses that we provide as clear a policy as we can,"" Pruitt said, referring to federal lawsuits filed against the university by the UW-Superior chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and the UW Roman Catholic Foundation.
The groups filed the lawsuits claiming discrimination on the basis of religion after the UW-Superior and UW-Madison campuses, respectively, denied the organizations official recognition. UWRCF, however, is still in discussion with the university regarding its Registered Student Organization status.
""We've tried very hard in the policy to make it very clear that while organizations retain certain rights in terms of membership, one of the key factors that they can't do is discriminate on a range of factors""race, religion, ethnicity, sexual preference and other things,"" Pruitt said. ""So we've made it pretty clear we're standing by the insistence that they not be discriminatory.""
The Regents also voted Friday to make efforts to improve Milwaukee's public health situation and to request funding for full domestic partner health care benefits for university employees from the state Legislature.
