Clean Energy Works is RENEW Wisconsin’s initiative to get into the field with our business members and learn directly from those doing the work each day. By shadowing installers, technicians, and staff across the clean energy industry, we gain a deeper understanding of what goes into the work. These experiences directly inform how RENEW supports and advocates for the people and companies driving clean energy forward.
The heart of many Wisconsin communities is the local school district, and that is certainly true in Amherst. When Amherst High School decided to install a rooftop solar array, it was not just about saving money on energy. It was about helping students see renewable energy in action every day. Through the Solar on Schools program, supported by the Couillard Solar Foundation and administered by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA), the district added a solar system that both powers the school and offers hands-on educational value.
To see how this project came together, I joined Isaiah “Zay” Miller, Commercial Project Manager at Northwind Solar, a worker-owned cooperative based in Amherst, WI.
Meet the Crew
Zay’s path into solar started with curiosity and a willingness to learn. He got his start in 2018, doing mostly residential rooftop installations with almost no construction experience under his belt.
He quickly found his footing at Northwind. Within a few months, he was leading the DC side on commercial projects, later moving into Field Manager and Project Manager roles. Today, he oversees commercial systems and handles much of the design work.
Having worked in nearly every position in the company, Zay brings a deep understanding of what it takes to install systems safely and efficiently.
Before joining Northwind, Zay studied ecological engineering at Oregon State University. His background in water systems gave him a useful way to think about energy. “It’s all systems thinking,” he said. “How water moves, how power moves, it’s just a different medium.”
At around 7 years with Northwind, Zay is now a member-owner of the company. Northwind operates as a worker-owned cooperative, which shapes how the company approaches its projects.
“You have to work here for two years before you can buy in,” Zay said. “The cooperative model means we make decisions together. It’s a shared responsibility.”
About the Technology
The Amherst High School system was designed to match how the building actually uses power. The panels sit above the cafeteria because that section of the roof is closest to the cafeteria’s service connection and where the school’s electricity demand peaks.
Zay explained that the cafeteria experiences the highest energy demand during the day, especially around lunchtime when kitchen equipment, lighting, and ventilation are all running. The system was designed and sized to offset that exact peak. “That’s what makes the system efficient. It’s tied to real usage, not just open roof space,” he said.
On top of the school, the array sits on a weighted mounting system designed to rest securely on the roof without drilling into it.
“Flat roofs are never truly flat,” Zay said. “There’s always a slope for drainage, so we adjusted the racking to make sure everything sat evenly.”
Zay explained that the layout was built with flexibility in mind, allowing the district to expand the system later or connect to another service point if they decide to increase their solar capacity.
Why It Matters
For Zay, the Amherst project shows how clean energy can fit naturally into community spaces. “This work builds community,” he said. “It’s local jobs, local power, and you can see what you’ve built every time you drive by.”
He also emphasizes that success in solar depends on strong trade skills and an eye for detail. Carpentry, measurement, and problem-solving often matter more than electrical training at first. Many of the best installers, he noted, come from farming, construction, or mechanical backgrounds where those instincts are second nature.
Zay sees solar installation as a skilled trade that blends craftsmanship, teamwork, and purpose. Many of the people he works with come from different backgrounds and discover the field by chance, but stay because the work is meaningful. As he put it, “Being able to think ahead and problem-solve is what separates a good installer from a great one.”
Looking Ahead
Zay sees a future where solar projects continue to connect people to both energy and place. He is particularly interested in the potential of agrivoltaics, an approach that allows land to be used for both solar generation and agriculture. By combining the two, solar arrays can produce clean energy while also supporting crop growth and improving soil health. To Zay, this kind of dual-purpose design shows how renewable energy can work in harmony with Wisconsin’s agricultural roots rather than compete with them.
He also sees value in bringing policymakers and educators closer to the field. “It’s great when people from the policy side come out here,” he said. “A lot of the challenges we deal with, like permitting delays or utility rules, aren’t visible from an office.”
As Amherst High School’s system begins generating power, it reflects the kind of thoughtful design and craftsmanship that defines Northwind’s approach. For Zay, it is another example of what good planning and teamwork can accomplish.
“At the end of the day, we’re just trying to build good systems and do right by our customers and our team,” he said.
If you are part of this work and would be willing to share your story, I would love to join you for a day. Feel free to reach out to me at ben@renewwisconsin.org.
(The Center Square) – A bill that would require school boards across Wisconsin to create rules banning cell phones during instructional time took another step to becoming law when the Wisconsin Senate approved Assembly Bill 29 with a 29-4 vote.
Standard driver’s licenses are not proof of U.S. citizenship.
Enhanced driver’s licenses, which require documents such as a birth certificate or passport, provide proof. Intended for use in U.S. border crossing by vehicle, they are available in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington.
To register to vote, people in Wisconsin and most states must declare citizenship, under penalty of perjury. Proof isn’t required.
A 2024 lawsuit sought to require the Wisconsin Elections Commission to verify citizenship for voting. The commission argued that no state law requires citizenship proof.
A judge Oct. 3 ordered the commission to determine whether any noncitizens are registered to vote and to stop accepting voter registrations without verifying citizenship. The state is challenging the order.
Audits have found that very few registered voters are noncitizens.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
Following public outcry, the U.S. Department of Education has restored funding for students who have both hearing and vision loss, about a month after cutting it.
But rather than sending the money directly to the four programs that are part of a national network helping students who are deaf and blind, a condition known as deafblindness, the department has instead rerouted the grants to a different organization that will provide funding for those vulnerable students.
The Trump administration targeted the programs in its attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion; a department spokesperson had cited concerns about “divisive concepts” and “fairness” in explaining the decision to withhold the funding.
ProPublica and other news organizations reported last month on the canceled grants to agencies that serve these students in Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as in five states that are part of a New England consortium.
Programs then appealed to the Education Department to retain their funding, but the appeals were denied. Last week, the National Center on Deafblindness, the parent organization of the agencies that were denied, told the four programs that the Education Department had provided it with additional grant money and the center was passing it on to them.
“This will enable families, schools, and early intervention programs to continue to … meet the unique needs of children who are deafblind,” according to the letter from the organization to the agencies, which was provided to ProPublica. Education Department officials did not respond to questions from ProPublica; automatic email replies cited the government shutdown.
When the funding was canceled, the programs were in the middle of a five-year grant that was expected to continue through September 2028. The funding from the center is only for one year.
“We don’t know what will happen” in future years, said Lisa McConachie of the Oregon DeafBlind Project, which serves 114 students in the state. McConachie said that with uncertain funding, her agency had to cancel a retreat this fall that had been organized for parents to swap medical equipment, share resources and learn about services to help students when they get older. She hopes to reschedule it for the spring.
“It is still a disruption to families,’’ she said. “It creates this mistrust, that you are gone and back and gone and back.”
Oregon’s grant application for its deafblind program, submitted in 2023, included a statement about its commitment to address “inequities, racism, bias” and the marginalization of disability groups, language that was encouraged by the Biden administration. It also attached the strategic plan for Portland Public Schools, where the Oregon DeafBlind Project is headquartered, that mentioned the establishment of a Center for Black Student Excellence — which is unrelated to the deafblind project. The Education Department’s letter said that those initiatives were “in conflict with agency policy and priorities.”
An advocate for deafblind students said he was happy to see the funding restored but called the department’s decision-making “amateurish” and disruptive to students and families. “It is mean-spirited to do this to families and kids and school systems at the beginning of the year when all of these things should be so smooth,” said Maurice Belote, co-chair of the National DeafBlind Coalition, which advocates for legislation that supports deafblind children and young adults.
Grants to the four agencies total about $1 million a year. The department started funding state-level programs to help deafblind students more than 40 years ago in response to the rubella epidemic in the late 1960s. Nationally, there are about 10,000 children and young adults, from infants to 21-year-olds, who are deafblind and more than 1,000 in the eight affected states, according to the National Center on Deafblindness.
While the population is small, it is among the most complex to serve; educators rely on the deafblindness programs for support and training.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
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Looming sales of manufactured housing parks can cause anxiety among residents who own their homes but rent the land they sit on — especially as profit-maximizing private equity companies increasingly make purchases.
In some communities, residents have purchased parks themselves and run them as cooperatives. Converting into a cooperative often initially increases monthly fees, but residents typically see smaller increases over time when compared to commercially owned parks.
Wisconsin’s relative lack of consumer protections and incentives for co-op sales doesn’t make the process easy. Minnesota offers more resources to make co-op purchases more viable.
Listen to Addie Costello’s story from WPR.
Standing on her porch, Vikki Braker pointed out her favorite lawn cutouts, arranged in a colorful scene: Silhouettes of two children smelled pink flowers as a line of googly-eyed red ants marched beneath their feet. A tree stretching over them wore a Green Bay Packers hat.
The decorations were among many Braker inherited during nearly half a century at Cedar Falls Acres mobile home park near Menomonie, Wisconsin. She figures more people get to enjoy her outdoor display than anything she keeps inside.
Neat rows of brick bordered each decorative scene atop grass her son had trimmed. Even as she slows down in her yardwork, the 67-year-old can’t imagine giving it up.
But Braker does not own her yard, only the home that sits on top of it. She worries about who will soon control her well-manicured lot.
Like thousands of Wisconsinites, Braker lives in a manufactured home, the more accurate name for what many call mobile homes or trailers — structures that make up the country’s largest portion of unsubsidized low-income housing.
Braker has rented her lot since she was 18. It’s where she raised three children, battled cancer and took care of her dying husband.
She paid rent to the same owner for most of those years: Vince Hague, 81. But he’s retiring and selling the lot. Braker and her neighbors are nervous about what’s next, especially as profit-maximizing private equity companies are buying manufactured home communities nationwide.
Some of Braker’s neighbors have discussed buying the park themselves and running it as a cooperative. Many view the model as a way to keep communities well-maintained and affordable. But forming a resident-owned cooperative can be difficult — especially in Wisconsin.
Might Braker want to join a cooperative if she gets the option? She’s not sure. She wants more information to feel more comfortable about her future.
Co-op conversions aren’t easy
Braker and her husband, Roger, bought a mobile home in Cedar Falls Acres 49 years ago, seeing it as an affordable way to move out of Roger’s parents’ house. They planned to buy land of their own and build a home when they got older. But as decades passed by, they remained happy enough in their peaceful community.
“We never did buy a house,” Braker said. “We were always very comfortable here.”
Roger worked as a school bus driver. Braker worked in education before managing a Walmart and a gas station. Even when the couple could have afforded a down payment on a traditional home, they worried money would later get tight, she said.
The looming sale of Cedar Falls Acres — and the anxiety that comes with it — makes her wonder whether they should have tried to make traditional ownership work. Or if she should give up her home and yard and consider an apartment.
“But I just can’t make myself do it,” Braker said. “I love being outside.”
Decorations cover Vikki Braker’s manufactured home at Cedar Falls Acres mobile home park near Menomonie, Wis., on Oct. 2, 2025. (Addie Costello / Wisconsin Watch / Wisconsin Public Radio)
(Addie Costello / Wisconsin Watch / Wisconsin Public Radio)
(Addie Costello / Wisconsin Watch / Wisconsin Public Radio)
In an ideal world, Braker said, Hague would find another local buyer to step in to keep the park peaceful and affordable. But such “mom-and-pop” owners are increasingly rare. Large corporations are taking their place, often raising lot rents and sometimes neglecting conditions.
Braker attended multiple resident-led meetings to explore whether a cooperative might preserve a semblance of the status quo. She left “really confused.”
Converting a manufactured home community into a resident-owned cooperative isn’t easy.
In this case, Cedar Falls Acres homeowners and those at a neighboring park Hague owns would likely form a limited equity co-op. Residents would pay little up front but would not profit from their ownership over time.
Residents of limited equity co-ops pay a small fee to join, usually between $100 and $1,000, and simply get that fee back if they leave, even if the co-op’s land increases in value.
Cooperatives need large loans to cover the land purchase and any overdue maintenance.
Residents pay monthly fees to pay down park debt over time and cover routine maintenance. When major projects pop up, like fixing septic system issues, residents may vote to increase lot rent or refinance the debt.
Manufactured homes at Countryside Park Cooperative on May 7, 2025, in Cumberland, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
What would a co-op mean for Braker’s pocketbook?
When they first moved in, Braker and her husband paid $60 in monthly rent. That gradually increased to the $360 she pays today, slightly above the rate of inflation since the 1970s. Braker now lives on a fixed income from Social Security and can’t afford to pay much more.
Converting into a cooperative often initially increases monthly fees, said Victoria Clark-West, executive director of CoNorth, a nonprofit focused on developing manufactured home co-ops in Minnesota and Wisconsin. But residents typically see smaller rate increases over time when compared to commercially owned parks.
CoNorth is part of a nationwide network called ROC USA. The organization has reached out to Hague about a resident purchase of his Menomonie parks, Clark-West said.
Co-ops allow community residents to control what happens to the equity their land builds over time, Clark-West said.
“Manufactured home communities are uniquely positioned to be really successfully, cooperatively owned,” she said. “You have an existing constituency of folks that already own their home, and they have the land in common.”
Morris Bussewitz, a resident at Countryside Park Cooperative, looks at a schematic of the neighborhood’s sewer and electrical layout that hangs on a cork board in the park office, May 7, 2025, in Cumberland, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
But like a business, co-ops can fail. For instance, a ROC USA co-op in Colorado faced foreclosure earlier this year. While residents are not liable when a co-op defaults on a loan, they lose their say in what happens to the land.
None of the co-ops CoNorth has supported since 2004 have defaulted on their debt, Clark-West said. Only one has voted to dissolve. Typically, co-ops’ loan agreements specify that if a co-op decides to sell its land, the profits go to a nonprofit.
CoNorth has answers to Braker’s questions, but the organization does not start fully engaging residents until a park owner agrees to sell to a co-op.
Hague said he’s open to selling to any qualified buyer. He’s ready for someone else to take over. The Menomonie resident has enjoyed interacting with residents during his decades running Cedar Falls Acres.
But it’s getting harder for residents to compete with commercial buyers as investors increasingly eye park sales, Clark-West said.
Wisconsin’s relative lack of consumer protections and incentives for co-op sales doesn’t help.
CoNorth assists 13 co-ops in Minnesota but just three in Wisconsin. That’s partly because of the nonprofit’s St. Paul headquarters, but it’s also because Minnesota offers resources to make co-op purchases more viable, Clark-West said.
“There’s definitely more scrapping it in Wisconsin.”
Evening sunlight shines on manufactured homes at Countryside Park Cooperative, a resident-owned manufactured housing community, May 7, 2025, in Cumberland, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
The Minnesota Legislature in 2023 enacted a 5% tax incentive for park owners who sell to resident-owned co-ops or nonprofits — along with expanded requirements that owners notify residents about potential sales.
Wisconsin has no such incentive or requirement. Legislation last session would have required such notification and “good faith” negotiation with co-ops, but it failed alongside a proposed grant and loan program to fund park improvements.
Policies interfering in the sales of communities could have unintended consequences, said Lesli Gooch, the CEO of the Manufactured Housing Institute, national trade group for the manufactured home industry.
“If this market is stifled, you are going to see more community closures,” Gooch said.
Signs are posted at the driveway entrance of Countryside Park Cooperative on May 8, 2025, in Cumberland, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Morris Bussewitz, a resident at Countryside Park Cooperative, prepares a lease for a new tenant moving into the neighborhood, May 8, 2025, in Cumberland, Wis. Countryside Park Cooperative, where Bussewitz and his wife have lived for 20 years, is a resident-owned manufactured housing park. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Private owners often increase rents to cover the costs of deferred maintenance. Those increases are necessary to preserve communities that remain more affordable than other forms of housing, she said.
When residents form co-ops, they are taking on the maintenance responsibilities without the property management experience of many for-profit owners, she said.
Expensive maintenance costs can challenge any owner. That’s why Minnesota’s grant dollars for park infrastructure projects have been transformative for the state’s co-ops, Clark-West said.
The neighboring state has allocated millions of dollars to help manufactured home park owners make major repairs. That allows co-ops to avoid taking on more debt and bolsters lender confidence, Clark-West said.
Two decades of community ownership
Steve Parliament has observed the anxiety a pending manufactured housing park sale can bring — like when he learned 20 years ago that Countryside Park in Cumberland, Wisconsin, was set to close and residents were being evicted. The news sent him door knocking.
The details are now fuzzy, but he remembers the tears. Residents felt helpless, with many of their homes too old to survive a move.
Parliament had organized co-ops in Minnesota and San Francisco before starting at West Central Wisconsin Community Action Agency, a quasi-governmental agency created to fight poverty. He told one park resident to invite his neighbors over for coffee and a discussion about trying to buy their community.
“That was the easiest organizing job I ever did,” Parliament recalled.
Steve Parliament, who helped form Countryside Park into a cooperative, poses for a portrait along Beaver Dam Lake on May 7, 2025, in Cumberland, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Financing the purchase was more difficult. After working with the city to address the park’s sewage issues, Parliament’s employer, WestCap, stepped in to help. The organization lined up loans and grants to purchase the community before the co-op was ready to take ownership.
The cooperative is still running today.
Replicating the Countryside sale today would be difficult, Parliament said, adding that the rise of private equity has only bolstered the need for co-ops.
That was his motivation to co-found the Wisconsin Manufactured Home Owners Alliance late last year. The nonprofit aims to keep manufactured home communities viable by pushing for stronger legal protections and helping residents organize.
An antidote to loneliness
Co-ops are not the solution for every community, said Arica Young, director for housing access and affordability at the nonprofit Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, which researches issues related to land use.
“They are a lot of work. There’s a lot of expense entailed,” Young said.
But co-ops may deliver benefits beyond housing stability, Young said, such as a sense of community that can counteract the loneliness epidemic.
Morris Bussewitz jokes that the friendliness of his neighbors at Countryside has become a problem. More than a decade after he and his wife moved in, he can’t finish a lap around his home without getting stopped for a chat, interfering with his exercise.
He started walking in the cemetery across the street to get his steps in uninterrupted.
“My friends there, they don’t want to stop and talk to me. They let me walk right by,” he said.
Priscilla Bussewitz, a resident at Countryside Park Cooperative, left, serves breakfast for herself and her husband, Morris, right, on May 8, 2025, in Cumberland, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Countryside had just become a co-op as Bussewitz and his wife were looking for a permanent place to retire. Community ownership was a draw.
Monthly fees for their lot started around $140 and have since increased to just $230. They are able to keep fees low by volunteering to finish park maintenance, Bussewitz said.
“It has worked out really good,” he said.
Members attend multiple meetings each year to vote on significant spending items or changes. Residents volunteer as leaders. Bussewitz has spent years on the co-op’s board. Others take turns mowing the grass. One resident makes bird houses that decorate yards throughout the small park.
“People own part of the park,” Bussewitz said, “and they take care of it.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
For the first time in its history, the St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin released lake sturgeon into Clam Lake on the tribe’s reservation as part of efforts to restore the ancient fish.
“I basically went ahead when I probably should have turned back,” climate reporter Alec Luhn recently said on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” Luhn went missing for six days this summer.
The measure was among a long list of bills that were aimed at allowing candidates to remove their names from general election ballots after they've dropped out of a race, expanding health insurance coverage of enhanced breast cancer screenings and honoring conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Assembly lawmakers approved a range of bills related to crime, policing and trafficking Tuesday. And Democrats used the debate to shift focus to the Epstein files.
A Wisconsin immigration attorney Grant Sovern says the Trump administration's fee for H-1B visas lacks clarity on how to pay and raises legal questions.
A recent report from FICO finds that Americans’ average credit score is on the decline, with Gen Z borrowers being most affected. An economics professor says the dropping score isn’t the most alarming findings in this analysis.
If someone had walked past the storage of the neuroscience lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May, they might have heard quiet sobbing.
It was Uma Chatterjee, a doctoral student, having a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder flare-up triggered by the pressure of disappearing research funding.
This articlewas produced by the nonprofit journalism publication Capital & Main. It is co-published here with permission.
Since January, core funding from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health has faced deep cuts. The administration of President Donald Trump has cut more than $4 billion from the National Institutes of Health and $970 million from the National Science Foundation, affecting more than 7,000 grants, according to Grant Witness, a database tracked by scientists. Although a federal judge ordered the NIH to reinstate some funding, Scott Delaney, a co-founder of Grant Witness, said that “most grants that have been terminated are still terminated. They haven’t come back, and they likely won’t.”
Among the programs being targeted are those designed to expand access to science for underrepresented groups — including people with disabilities, who account for one in four adults in the U.S.
In 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration issued an executive order that prioritized their inclusion in the federal workforce. But the Trump administration has mounted a broad attack on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives, leaving some early career scientists with disabilities increasingly uncertain about their place in a field where they have long faced systemic barriers.
Chatterjee studies the biology and treatment of OCD, a neuropsychiatric disorder that affected an estimated 1.2% of U.S. adults last year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Her lab was awarded a five-year NIH grant expected to provide annual funding, but a few months ago the amount was reduced without explanation, according to Chatterjee. Now the lab is struggling to pay its staff, she said.
Disability researcher harmed
Chatterjee is not the only early career disabled scholar affected. Soli Guzman, a Mount Holyoke College graduate with multiple chronic and neurological conditions, had plans to continue research in protein biochemistry through a program that places underrepresented recent graduates in labs across the country — but those plans were upended by funding cuts.
In April, the NIH ended funding for the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program, forcing colleges nationwide to halt applications. About 50 campus-based programs were affected when DEI initiatives came under political attack, according to John Shacka, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who chairs a group of PREP program directors. After two lawsuits — one brought by Massachusetts and a coalition of states, the other by public health groups and others — challenged the cuts, a federal judge ordered the grants restored. But last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower court lacked jurisdiction, although it left in place the finding that NIH’s process was unlawful. Meanwhile, roughly half of PREP programs remain without support, according to Shacka.
When PREP was first suspended, Guzman had just finished submitting 27 applications to local programs across the country. “The ground was ripped out from under me,” they said. “I’m a planner. I always have a backup. But suddenly, Plan A and Plan B were both gone. I was devastated.”
In April, Guzman received an offer from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Because of funding delays, the university could not place them with a principal investigator until early August. At that point, the lab required them to commit within 10 days.
They turned it down.
They also faced financial and logistical hurdles: the challenge of finding affordable housing, the difficulty of quickly finding a roommate, and the need to pay out of pocket for repairs to a car that lacked proper heating. As a person with disabilities, moving would also have meant establishing a new network of care providers. “My health is at its best since 2020, and I didn’t want to change how good my health is,” they said. “If I got sick, I was stuck.”
NSF grantmaking has also stalled. Tara Lepore, a postdoctoral researcher at Western Michigan University and a grant reviewer, said NSF had paused most review activity for months. While the agency’s grantmaking process has recently resumed, many grants that were already awarded were revoked, something they had never seen before.
Lepore, who lives with multiple disabilities, studies equity in STEM education, or science, technology, engineering and math education. The NSF proposal that they submitted would have funded undergraduate and doctoral students to build collaborations between STEM instructors and neurodiverse students. In June, they heard that while the NSF grant was deemed “highly competitive,” it would not be funded because it did not align with the administration’s priorities.
“It has all the words that the administration doesn’t like in it,” Lepore said.
In February, NPR reported that the NSF had begun using a keyword filter, flagging terms such as “diverse” and “underrepresented” to screen applications, aligning with new restrictions on DEI content.
Lepore’s project centers on “STEM,” “education” and “equity.”
Capital & Main contacted the NSF and the NIH to ask whether the cuts will affect initiatives designed to expand disabled people’s access to the workforce, education and other areas of public life.
Cassandra Eichner, a spokesperson for the NSF, pointed Capital & Main to a statement made by Sethuraman Panchanathan, the NSF’s director, in April, in which he said that the agency’s investments “should not preference some groups at the expense of others, or directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups.”
An email from the NIH press team said: “NIH and [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] are taking actions to prioritize research” that directly affects “the health of all Americans. We will leave no stone unturned in [our] mission to Make America Healthy Again.”
The New York Times reported in February that the NSF had indefinitely postponed an engineering workshop aimed at workforce inclusion for people with autism and other neurocognitive differences in the workforce.
Funding cuts worsen longstanding systematic bias
Guzman’s path to becoming a scientist has been marked by significant health challenges. In college, they developed long COVID-19 and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, leaving them mostly bedridden. They were later diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. Despite holding student leadership roles and completing three research projects, their chronic health issues affected their grade point average, which stood at 3.4.
“Disabled people are the only minority group anyone can join at any point in their life — but we’re treated like a problem,” they said. “I’ve even been told not to mention my disability in job applications because, in this political climate, it’s too risky. ”
Chatterjee, who studies biomedical science, shared that view. While she was in college, her health nearly derailed her studies. She graduated with a 1.83 grade point average and had to pursue a master’s degree before applying to doctoral programs. She said lab work remains one of the least accessible academic environments for disabled scientists.
“Our work is dependent on rigid protocols, timing and animal models. There’s almost no room for flexibility,” Chatterjee said. “In theory, there should be systems to help — accommodations, people to back you up — but in practice, the culture is incredibly toxic. People brag about working 80, 100 hours a week, skipping holidays, never taking time off. I fought tooth and nail to get here.”
And it’s not just about inclusion or justice. Chatterjee said she believes the Trump administration’s assault on accessibility represents a loss of potential.
Guzman, who is working in a lab focused on disability-related research, echoed this view. They pointed to the Norris Lab at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Regenerative Medicine & Cell Biology in Charleston, South Carolina, which studies Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and said that many in the lab live with the condition themselves. To Guzman, this is a clear example of how lived experience can drive empathy and innovation. “We’re often more flexible and empathetic because of our own experiences,” they said. “That makes a difference not just in what gets studied, but in how labs are run and how students are supported.”
Yet scientists who bring their perspective remain scarce. According to the National Science Foundation, only about 10% of STEM Ph.D. recipients reported having a disability.
“A lot of diversity fellowships end up going to people who are marginalized but still fit the mold of being ‘high-performing,’” Chaterjee said. “Disabled researchers who need real accommodations are often left out, because the system still measures worth by productivity instead of equity.”
Copyright 2025 Capital & Main. Credit and a link to the original story at Capital & Main are required when republishing.
Capital & Main is an award-winning nonprofit publication whose mission is to educate the public on matters of importance such as economic inequality, climate change, health care, threats to democracy, hate and extremism and immigration.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Oct. 8, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday following a four-day weekend, but neither Republicans nor Democrats appeared ready to work toward ending the government shutdown following another failed vote to advance a short-term funding bill.
President Donald Trump and administration officials also didn’t seem inclined toward compromise anytime soon, if ever, previewing more spending cuts and layoffs as soon as this week.
“We are closing up programs that are Democratic programs that we wanted to close up or that we never wanted to happen and now we’re closing them up and we’re not going to let them come back,” Trump said. “We’re not closing up Republican programs because we think they work.”
Trump said his administration will release a list of projects it’s cancelled or plans to eliminate funding for on Friday — another step that’s unlikely to bring about the type of bipartisanship and goodwill needed to end the shutdown.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget posted on social media it will try to alleviate some of the repercussions of the funding lapse and reduce the size of government while waiting for at least five more Senate Democrats to break ranks to advance a stopgap spending bill.
“OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence,” agency staff wrote. “Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait.”
RIFs refers to Reductions in Force, the technical term for layoffs. The administration announced Friday it sent notices to employees at several departments, including Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Treasury telling them they would soon not have jobs.
Labor unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers filed a lawsuit to block the layoffs from taking effect. The judge overseeing that case scheduled a Wednesday hearing to listen to arguments before deciding whether to grant a temporary restraining order.
Back pay in question
The Trump administration has made several moves during the shutdown that are not typically taken during prolonged funding lapses.
Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought have indicated they may not provide back pay to furloughed federal workers after the shutdown ends, which is required by a 2019 law. And they have sought to cancel funding approved by Congress for projects in sections of the country that vote for Democrats.
The Pentagon is also reprogramming money to provide pay for active duty military members this week, despite Congress not taking action on that issue.
The Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the size of government during the shutdown are widely seen as an effort to pressure Democrats to vote for the stopgap spending bill, but they haven’t had any measurable effect so far.
Another failed Senate vote
The Senate deadlocked for an eighth time Tuesday evening on the House-passed funding bill that would last through Nov. 21. The vote was 49-45. The bill needs at least 60 senators to advance under the chamber’s rules.
Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance their bill. Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who has been voting to advance the bill, didn’t vote. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.
Trump said during his afternoon event he wanted Democrats to sign something to reopen government, though it wasn’t clear what he meant since lawmakers in the Senate vote by giving a thumbs up or down.
“This was a position that’s being forced upon us by Democrats and all they have to do is just sign a piece of paper saying we’re going to keep it going the way it is,” Trump said. “You know, it’s nothing. It shouldn’t even be an argument. They’ve signed it many times before.”
No strategy
During a morning press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would not change his approach or negotiate with Democrats on a stopgap measure.
“I don’t have any strategy,” the Louisiana Republican said. “The strategy is to do the right and obvious thing and keep the government moving for the people.”
Johnson has kept the House out of session since late September but has been holding daily press conferences with members of his leadership team to criticize Democrats and press them to advance the short-term funding bill.
GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, said starting Tuesday an additional 400,000 civilian federal workers would receive partial paychecks due to the government shutdown. Those federal employees work at the departments of Education and Interior, as well as the National Science Foundation.
“This will be the last paycheck that these federal workers receive until Democrats grow a spine and reopen the federal government,” she said.
Last week, 700,000 civilian federal workers received about 70% of their usual paycheck, due to the shutdown. Those employees work for the Executive Office of the President, Health and Human Services, Department of Veterans Affairs, civilians at the Defense Department, NASA, General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management, among others.
Active duty military members were set to miss their first paycheck Wednesday until the Pentagon shifted $8 billion in research funds to pay the troops on time.
U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee Chairman Gus Papathanasiou released a statement Tuesday that the thousands of officers who protect members of Congress missed a full paycheck Friday.
“The longer the shutdown drags on, the harder it becomes for my officers,” Papathanasiou wrote. “Banks and landlords do not give my officers a pass because we are in a shutdown — they still expect to be paid.
“Unfortunately, Congress and the Administration are not in active negotiations, and everyone is waiting for the other side to blink. That is not how we are going to end this shutdown, and the sooner they start talking, the quicker we can end this thing.”
Maryland, Virginia Dems rally
Seeking to pressure the Trump administration to negotiate, Democratic lawmakers who represent Maryland and Virginia, where many federal workers live, held a rally outside the Office of Management and Budget in the morning.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner rebuked GOP leaders, including OMB Director Vought, for using federal workers as “political pawns” and “trading chips in some political debate.”
He said that when an agreement is brokered to reopen government, the Trump administration must adhere to it and not illegally withhold or cancel funds approved by Congress, which holds the power of the purse.
“We’ll get the government reopened, but we have to make sure that when a deal is struck, it is kept,” Warner said. “Russ Vought at the OMB cannot pick and choose which federal programs to fund after Congress and the president have come together.”
Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks sought to encourage Republicans to negotiate with Democrats to extend the enhanced tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year for people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
“The Republicans would prefer to shut down the government than to ensure your family has affordable health care,” Alsobrooks said. “It is more than shameful, it is immoral and it is the kind of immorality that will hurt our country for generations to come.”
Democrats in Congress insisted before the shutdown began and for the 14 days it’s been ongoing that they will not vote to advance the short-term government funding bill without a bipartisan agreement on the expiring subsidies.
GOP leaders have said they will negotiate on that issue, but only after Democrats advance the stopgap spending bill through the Senate.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries argued during an afternoon press conference that Republicans need Democratic votes in the Senate to advance the stopgap funding bill and should try to negotiate a deal.
“We need them to abandon their failed ‘my way or the highway’ approach,” the New York Democrat said. “If Democratic votes are needed to reopen the government, which is the case, then this has to be a bipartisan discussion to find a bipartisan resolution to reopen the government.”
Smith and Wesson handguns are displayed during the 2015 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits in Nashville, Tenn. A new report found Wisconsin gun deaths have increased since 2002. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Jenevia Blanks’ young cousin was killed by gun violence, Blanks wrote in personal testimony included in a report released Tuesday that analyzes gun deaths in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
“I want to keep sending a message to legislators that this violence is an epidemic, and something has to be done,” said Blanks, who volunteers with the advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “It’s not acceptable that we keep having so many lives cut short by gun violence.”
Firearms claimed the lives of 762 Wisconsinites in 2023, according to a report from the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) Educational Fund and the Violence Policy Center. This included suicides, homicides and other firearm deaths.
The total number marks a decline from the 830 deaths reported for 2022 and the 793 deaths reported for 2021. The report also says that rates of overall suicide and firearm suicide in Wisconsin are similar to national rates, while homicide and firearm homicide rates are lower in Wisconsin than in the nation.
However, overall rates of firearm suicides and firearm homicides have increased in Wisconsin since 2002. Since 2020, firearm deaths have reportedly outpaced motor vehicle deaths in Wisconsin.
“One death from gun violence is too many,” Nick Matuszewski, associate executive director of the WAVE Educational Fund, said in a statement. “But 762 deaths is a disgrace and an urgent call to take the kind of actions that have been proven to save lives.”
The 762 deaths include 502 firearm suicides and 236 firearm homicides. The report includes findings related to sex, age, race and ethnicity and rural and urban areas.
WAVE reports that in 2023, suicides took up a larger percentage of firearms deaths in rural Wisconsin (88.5%) than in urban Wisconsin (58.2%).
According to the report, guns were used in 54.6% of suicides and 83.1% of homicides in Wisconsin.
Black residents of Wisconsin were 40 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than white residents. The report states that an annual study by the Violence Policy Center found that Wisconsin had the fourth highest rate of Black homicide victimization in the nation in 2023.
In 2023, 8,441 firearms were recovered in Wisconsin and traced, according to WAVE, most of which were handguns. The report found that 84.9% of firearms recovered in Wisconsin originated in the state.
The study was released the day before the Emergency Gun Violence Summit, which will take place Wednesday in Milwaukee.
UW-Milwaukee offers its own tuition promise program which covers up to four years of tuition and segregated fees for students from families earning less than $62,000 per year. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Democratic lawmakers are proposing a package of higher education bills to help address affordability for students by investing in a statewide tuition promise program and to support faculty and staff members by reversing Walker-era collective bargaining and tenure policies.
Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), the ranking member on the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee, said Democratic lawmakers are looking for ways to ensure Wisconsin’s higher education system is strong and accessible to “anybody who has the talent and the work ethic to want to pursue something.”
“That’s part of our American dream, is that no matter where you start out in life, you’ve got an opportunity to do better and to gain knowledge and training,” Emerson said.
Emerson said Democratic lawmakers hope the bills can kickstart discussions about policy changes that could be made. She noted that Republican lawmakers have often stripped proposals from the budget, saying that policy should be passed through individual bills outside of the budget process.
“We’re putting some of these bills back out now and saying, let’s have the policy discussion,” Emerson said. “If you’re not willing to have that during the budget, let’s have the discussion now.”
Emerson said the first pair of bills that lawmakers unveiled at a press conference last week seek to specifically help with the affordability of higher education.
“A lot of us heard loud and clear last election that pocketbook issues are really what are leading people right now,” Emerson said, adding that it’s part of the reason she supported the recent state budget. “But it wasn’t a perfect budget, and so we thought, how can we make this a little bit better?”
One bill, coauthored by Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) and Rep. Brienne Brown (D-Whitewater), would implement a statewide “tuition promise” program, allowing first-time, in-state students from households with an adjusted gross income of $71,000 or less to have their tuition covered at any UW school, other than UW-Madison. Under the bill, the state would dedicate nearly $40 million towards the program.
The program would function as “last-dollar, gap funding” meaning it would fill in the rest of the tuition costs after all federal and state grants and scholarships are calculated.
UW-Madison already offers “Bucky’s Tuition Promise,” which launched in 2018 and is funded with private gifts and other institutional resources, not state tax dollars. The program guarantees four years of tuition and segregated fees for any incoming freshman from Wisconsin whose family’s annual household adjusted gross income is $65,000 or less.
Recent studies have found the tuition promise program increased enrollment among accepted students at UW-Madison and increased retention rates.
UW-Milwaukee also offers its own program which covers up to four years of tuition and segregated fees for students from families earning less than $62,000 per year.
The UW system also has a version of the program that recently relaunched in 2025 after the system secured private funding. The Wisconsin Tuition Promise first launched in 2023, but was ended in 2024 after Republican lawmakers declined to fund the program.
Another bill by Dassler-Alfheim and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland) would invest $10 million in the UW system for student retention and talent development efforts.
At the press conference last week, Dassler-Alfheim said the bills are essential for supporting the state’s workforce.
“If our workforce is the engine that runs our economy, then our Universities of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Technical Colleges are the gasoline that power that engine as our baby boomers retire in droves. We have workforce shortages in every category. We have all struggled to schedule a doctor’s appointment, a plumber, an accountant, or even a cleaning at the dentist,” Dassler-Alfheim said. “The purpose of these two bills is to help qualified students access the higher education needed to advance themselves and to fulfill the promise to Wisconsin employers to develop the workforce necessary to maintain and grow Wisconsin’s economy.”
Democratic lawmakers also circulated bill drafts meant to help support staff and faculty at UW system campuses.
One would again allow most UW system employees, faculty and academic staff to collectively bargain over wages, hours, and conditions of employment. UW employees were stripped of that ability under the Walker-era law Act 10.
Another bill would reverse changes made in the 2015 state budget that eliminated language in state statute that protected tenure. Lawmakers said in 2015 that the changes were necessary to give the UW system flexibility to deal with budget cuts, though faculty members said then that the changes were an attack on tenure.
Emerson said it is getting harder to recruit people to work at the universities in the state and that some of the changes could help.
“If we’re making these big changes about how universities are dealt with, staff and faculty need to have a seat at the table for having these conversations and having a seat at the table in meaningful ways where their concerns are addressed too,” Emerson said.
Emerson noted that in recent years Republican lawmakers have pushed through proposals and deals that triggered pushback from faculty members.
The most recent budget deal negotiated between lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers included new work load requirements for UW faculty, mandating that they teach a minimum of 24 credits per academic year, or four 3-credit courses, starting in Sept. 2026. The requirement has garnered concerned reactions from faculty, some of who have said it could be difficult to balance teaching and research demands.
In 2023, Republican lawmakers negotiated with UW leaders to secure concessions on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in exchange for staff pay raises and money for buildings. The deal garnered a lot of pushback from staff and students at the time.
“You know, the workload requirements that came through the budget, or the DEI deal that happened last session, none of those would have happened if we had collective bargaining in place,” Emerson said. “Those are two things that when you have people who don’t work in an industry trying to put working parameters around that industry, it falls flat.”
Bills likely won’t advance in Republican Legislature
The Democratic proposals will face a difficult road in the Republican-led Legislature. Emerson said the likelihood for a public hearing on the Democratic bills is “slim to none.”
However, Emerson said Democratic lawmakers plan to take the ideas to people in the state other ways. She and some of her Democratic colleagues will be on the UW-Stevens Point campus this week to start a tour of campuses around the state.
Emerson said the purpose is to have as many conversations with staff, faculty and students as possible.
“If we’re not going to have a hearing in Madison on it, we are ready to take this around to other campuses and other parts of the state and have the conversation on the college campuses,” Emerson said. “I want to hear what matters to the students. I want to hear what, you know, the career people need their students to have to get jobs. I want to hear from the business people in these communities.”
Emerson said part of the goal is to also start laying the foundation for if Democrats win more legislative power in 2026.
“It’s always good when you’re making policy about something that you’re talking to the people that this is going to impact, so this is what we’re really hoping to do — work out all the kinks, and dust everything off, and, hopefully, have a little bit more governing power coming up in the next session, and be able to really hit the ground running with some of these bills,” Emerson said.
Emerson said Democratic lawmakers’ approach is focused on figuring out how the state can make higher education available for “anybody no matter their zip code, no matter their income level,” and she expressed skepticism the Republican bills will do that.
“A lot of the bills that I see coming from my Republican colleagues about higher education tend to either be punitive — one person said one thing on one campus, therefore we have to make sure nobody ever says that again and getting into these free speech pieces — or they’re doing things in a way that tells me that they haven’t been on a college campus for a really long time,” Emerson said.
The Senate Universities and Technical Colleges Committee is scheduled to have a public hearing on eight Republican-authored higher education-related bills Wednesday.
One bill, coauthored by Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) and Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), would place caps on annual tuition hikes. It was proposed in reaction to the 5% tuition increase that was approved after the recent state budget was completed. The increase was the third annual hike in a row. UW President Jay Rothman and UW regents had said the tuition increases would be necessary if the system didn’t secure enough funding from the state.
In a memo about the bill, the Republican lawmakers said the Legislature needed to “implement a common sense law placing controls on these types of skyrocketing tuition increases” and that a cap on tuition increases would provide families with “the predictability required to budget for college expenses into the future.” Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) has also argued that the bill is about “protecting affordability.”
Under the bill, the UW Board of Regents would be prohibited from increasing undergraduate tuition by more than the consumer price index increase in a given year.
Emerson said she didn’t think the bill would have the intended effect of helping students and families afford school. She noted some of the effects seen during the decade-long tuition freeze implemented under the Walker administration.
UW leaders saidat the time that the freeze was unsustainable as it limited campuses ability to maintain its program and course offerings and wages for staff and faculty.
“Students couldn’t get the classes that they needed… so people would sometimes have to go for an extra year to get all of the classes that they needed to complete their degree. It ended up costing people more because they had to stay in longer to get the one last requirement that they needed for their degree,” Emerson said. “It’s a good messaging point to say we’re gonna not increase [tuition] by a certain amount, but I don’t think that that has the end result that they’re thinking it does.”
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