Announcer:
The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Jennifer Mnookin:
People throw around words like unprecedented, but this is a challenging time for higher education.

Frederica Freyberg:
Universities, agriculture, child care and public health. The hits keep coming as federal funding cuts persist.
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” UW-Madison responds to growing top-down pressures. A ginseng farmer on the realities of a trade war with China. The perfect storm of state and federal dollars for child care disappearing. And what’s next for poisonous lead levels in Milwaukee schools. It’s “Here & Now” for April 18.

Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Federal investigations over DEI programs and antisemitism. International students having their visas revoked. Funding cuts and threats of more. Higher education is coming under scrutiny by the Trump administration. Wisconsin’s flagship campus, UW-Madison, has big federal dollars at stake. With that in mind, we wanted to check in with Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin. We offer this disclaimer. PBS Wisconsin is part of UW-Madison. And Chancellor, thanks very much for being here.

Jennifer Mnookin:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So the university is facing many headwinds right now. What stands out as your biggest concern at UW-Madison?

Jennifer Mnookin:
Well, you’re right. It’s a challenging time in higher education across the entire sector right now, including for us. I think the biggest challenge is around questions around federal funding, especially for research. And also more generally, federal funding is our single largest component of our budget. And we’re really proud to be an extraordinary research flagship. We’re doing research on so many different kinds of topics from cancer research to incredible studies about Alzheimer’s to public policy engagements and so much else. And right now, there are a lot of questions about what that funding is going to look like in the time ahead. So that’s probably my single biggest concern.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is the current status of cuts to research overhead costs and funding losses?

Jennifer Mnookin:
Well, there have been a number of executive orders, but several of them are — have been paused through legal processes right now. So there have been efforts to bring down the facilities and administrative — administration rates for NIH, as well as the Department of Energy. And in both of those cases, those are now on hold. Courts have imposed a hold in both of those instances.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now UW-Madison is under investigation by the Trump administration over DEI and antisemitism. What kind of sanctions for funding and program cuts has that resulted in?

Jennifer Mnookin:
So at this point, you’re right that we are one of a great many, many dozens of institutions all across the country that do have Title VI complaints connected to antisemitism. One investigation was opened back in January 2024. It actually is about a protest incident back in October ’23, October 2023. So nothing recent. And we certainly condemn antisemitism in all of its forms and we are cooperating fully with that investigation. But we have not heard anything recently about it. And it’s about an incident that happened quite a long, a long time ago.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, we saw that Harvard University’s president rejected the administration’s demands and saw an immediate federal funding cut of more than $2 billion. Would you or could you reject whatever the demands are?

Jennifer Mnookin:
You know, that’s a very speculative and hypothetical question at this point. We’re all watching Harvard and a number of other institutions very carefully to see, to see how they are behaving and proceeding. We are — we’re just not in that situation right now. I mean, we are again — there are many dozens, probably more than 100 schools that do have Title VI complaints. And we are among those schools, but we haven’t faced anything like what you’re describing there.

Frederica Freyberg:
We know that international students have had their visas terminated throughout the UW system, but more than two dozen of them at UW-Madison. What is your response to those actions?

Jennifer Mnookin:
It’s been very concerning frankly. We’ve had — you’re exactly right, we’ve had more than two dozen students, both current students and some recent graduates who are lawfully working in the country this year face removal from the SEVIS system. And in many of these cases, we really — we and they don’t know why or it’s because of something literally as minor as a traffic ticket. And some of these students were — are literally weeks away from graduation. Our — in our community, international students are an incredibly important part of everything we do here. You know, our very first international student was actually part of our first class at UW-Madison back in 1849. And we’re proud that we’ve had global students and staff and faculty throughout our history. And many of them go on to do incredible things. Some of them stay right here in Wisconsin. It’s been interesting for me to learn that a number of entrepreneurs here in the state got their start when they came as international students or staff here to UW-Madison, and then they’ve gone on to build companies right here in Wisconsin. And so we absolutely want to support our students. I do also recognize that those who come to our country have the responsibility to follow the law. And that the administration has the right to structure visa processes. But what’s been very, very concerning is that it doesn’t — it seems like some of these students are being caught up in a dragnet when they really haven’t done anything wrong.

Frederica Freyberg:
Meanwhile, what are you girding for at the state level around funding for the UW in the midst of a legislative DEI audit which found millions of dollars in DEI spending across the system was not tracked.

Jennifer Mnookin:
Yeah, thanks for that question. We’re obviously also in the middle of a state budget process, and we really appreciate that the governor has prioritized the Universities of Wisconsin, including UW-Madison, in his, in his ask. And we are very hopeful that the state legislature will decide that that we do need to make an investment in our system of higher education. We’re an economic driver. We are preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow, and we think that we do offer a lot of benefit to our wonderful state. I also do understand that there’s people who have questions and concerns about some of the things we do, and some of the choices that we make, and we’re happy to have those, those conversations. And I think we need to be open to asking, what do we need to do better? What do we need to do differently? And we should be open to change, but we should also recognize that we are providing a transformative education to, you know, 52,000 plus students here in our great state of Wisconsin. That our graduation rates are at their all-time high, that our application numbers are also at their all-time high, and that two thirds of our students are graduating, two thirds of our undergraduates are graduating with absolutely no debt. And the average time to graduation is under four years. So there’s all of these amazing things happening in our student community and all of these successes. And so we need to keep reminding people of all of the really great things, even as we also take seriously whatever concerns or questions that community members or others have.

Frederica Freyberg:
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, thanks very much.

Jennifer Mnookin:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
One farm crop in Wisconsin is being hit especially hard by new retaliatory tariffs from China – ginseng. Wisconsin produces over 95% of the medicinal plant that’s grown in the U.S. and it’s exported to customers in China. Our next guest is one of the largest exporters of ginseng to Asia from his farm in Marathon County. But now with Chinese tariffs doubling, the market for his prized product is withering. Will Hsu is visiting his markets in Asia, and he joins us from China. Thanks very much for being here.

Will Hsu:
Thank you for inviting me today.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what are you hoping to achieve on your visit there?

Will Hsu:
Primarily, we’re here to check on the market conditions in light of all the news, the talks about tariffs and the changes in the world economy, but also to reassure our customers and clients that, you know, we’re still trying to service them as best as possible despite some of these headwinds.

Frederica Freyberg:
Are you wanting to convince Chinese customers that the extra cost of your ginseng with the tariffs is worth it?

Will Hsu:
It’s a little bit of that, I think, but it’s also part of my trip prior to coming to China, was also looking at other export markets. Given how dependent our industry is on the Chinese consumer. The two stops I had prior to China were Singapore and Malaysia, which do have a number of ethnic customers, ethnic Chinese customers, but not nearly the size of the market of China.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you said that you’re reliving a nightmare with these latest tariffs. How so?

Will Hsu:
Well, the first round of the trade war that was announced in 2018 took the tariff on our product from 7.5% to 32.5%. With the multiple rounds announced over the last two weeks, since April 2, we are now at 117% tariff. And so it’s reliving a nightmare in the fact that every day you wake up and it’s another round of tariffs and it’s another round of calls from customers who are concerned. We’re getting customers who are delaying or canceling orders. Very similar to the pattern that we saw in 2018 and 2019 during the first round of this trade war.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so what has that done to production of ginseng in Wisconsin?

Will Hsu:
So production of ginseng in Wisconsin has actually remained fairly stable over the last 5 or 6 years since the start of the first trade war. Unfortunately, what has happened during that time, though, is the price per pound has declined. And so about 6 or 7 years ago, the price for ginseng off of the farm was probably closer to $50 to $60 a pound. Today, it’s roughly half of that, about $25 to $30 a pound. And with the current or the most recently announced tariffs, our expectation is that our customers and they actually have been asking us to take price reductions in order to offset the tariff that they’re paying to the Chinese government.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is all of that sustainable?

Will Hsu:
It’s not. We’re currently at prices that are at or below our cost of production. We have rising labor costs. We have inflation in our input commodities. You know, things like chemicals and fertilizer, even land prices are obviously up as well. And so when you add all of those inflationary elements into our production, and then you have customers on the opposite side or consumers on the opposite side who don’t want to pay more for the product. Just like many Americans don’t want to pay more for our groceries. Chinese consumers don’t want to pay more for their ginseng. And so they’re asking the farmers who grow ginseng in Wisconsin to consider taking a price reduction to offset the tariffs so that the prices don’t have to be increased to them. Whether that’s possible or feasible or not will really depend on the market conditions and whether farmers are forced to sell their crop. We have a significant number of farmers who have not sold their crop from 2024, and so it’s a very real possibility that if not this year, this fall’s crop in 2025 may have to see some changes made either to the amount of production or to the price.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you think this is a product and market that U.S. trade representatives understand?

Will Hsu:
I think we’ve done a good job of explaining the impact to the central Wisconsin economy, in particular, Marathon County, if we don’t have a ginseng crop and ginseng farmers. But I do believe the way that tariffs have been rolled out in both phases of this trade war, during Trump’s first administration and now during the second one, is it’s a blanket statement. It’s not targeted. It’s not necessarily pointed at specific industries. You know, there are some specific industries that may be getting additional tariffs, such as steel, aluminum, some of the technology sectors. But when you’re talking about broad swaths of tariffs being rolled out across the board in equal, in equal measure, it’s not really targeted. And so I think that’s what makes this difficult for many of us used to dealing with a changing global environment is it might be one or two or three items here. It’s across the board.

Frederica Freyberg:
Will Hsu, we wish you well and we wish you luck on your visit there and on your crop back here at home. Thank you so much.

Will Hsu:
Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
As we reported last week, the city of Milwaukee and its health department are in crisis mode right now trying to clean public schools of lead contamination. Lead that’s resulted in the closure of schools as mitigation to remove flaking lead paint and lead dust from children’s classrooms proceeds. And now the CDC has alerted Milwaukee that it cannot help because federal cuts have eliminated its lead program. We sat down with Milwaukee Health Commissioner Mike Totoraitis for more on all of this. How big of a public health emergency is this?

Mike Totoraitis:
It is certainly a crisis. We, as you know, the district has around 68,000 students district wide and over 100 buildings that were built before 1978. When we started our investigation in January, it was concerning to see the kind of systemic issues of maintenance that did not maintain the lead painted surfaces. And, you know, the cleaning practices that left a lot of lead dust present in the classroom. So given the number of buildings and the number of students in these buildings, we were extremely concerned about what was happening.

Frederica Freyberg:
So could a public health emergency be declared?

Mike Totoraitis:
Yes. And generally, we use those designations when there’s immediate legal action that has to happen that normally in my role as a health officer for the city, you know, I am charged with protecting the health and safety of our residents and guests of the city. At the same time, I have a lot of authority under state and local ordinance to protect the health of everyone, and in this case, declaring an emergency wouldn’t have afforded me any different authority to say, close a school or to require testing of students. The other really important part is an emergency declaration doesn’t actually release any funds. So there aren’t — there isn’t like a pot of a million dollars just waiting to be tapped for this moment. And thankfully, we’ve been very fortunate in, you know, these are mandated services that we provide as a department is investigating lead hazards here in our city. So I have funding to do this work. We’re thinking about long term ways to do that. But we, at this point, we’re not going to declare one.

Frederica Freyberg:
How did it happen that schools weren’t made safe from lead?

Mike Totoraitis:
We uncovered that the district wasn’t following their lead maintenance plan. So it’s a plan that the district has created that outlines what they will do on an annual basis to ensure lead safe schools and classrooms where the students are. Through our investigation, based on the level of paint degradation and the level of dust that was identified through our investigation, we’ve determined that this wasn’t something that happened overnight. This was, you know, years in the making of the facilities not being maintained. And now we’re at the stage where there’s significant lead hazards present for the students and staff.

Frederica Freyberg:
But meanwhile, you’re now told that the CDC cannot help you because of federal budget cuts that eliminated its lead program. Where does that leave Milwaukee?

Mike Totoraitis:
It’s, you know, a kind of a similar space of trying to navigate the uncertainty. You know, we were really floored to receive that notification that the team that we had been working with since the beginning of the year on their childhood lead team for the CDC, the nation’s top lead experts, were let go across the CDC. The HHS eliminated, you know, you know, several thousand people, including the childhood lead team. Really unprecedented time for the health of our country, and particularly here in Milwaukee as we deal with this crisis. We had planned to have these experts help us validate what we were already doing, and they were going to bring additional expertise to the epidemiologic investigation and to was the child poisoned at their home? Were they poisoned in the schools? As we screened more children.

Frederica Freyberg:
Will all the schools be inspected?

Mike Totoraitis:
Yep. So the plan right now, I think it’s roughly 100 schools. Essentially, we created a prioritization list based on age of school, the age of the students in the school. You know, recent renovations, those kinds of things, to help rank what schools needed to get inspected quickly and which schools are newer and might not have any lead hazards present. So that plan, hopefully actually, will be released either today or on Monday. And then parents can have a general sense of when their school might be closed, as they do renovations and stabilization work, or if they’re going to close part of the school, only to do renovation and stabilization. But the district has a mandate to ensure healthy and safe schools across the entire district. And we’re here to enforce that and really help the district equip themselves with a sustainable plan to manage all of their buildings.

Frederica Freyberg:
What about the children? Will they all be tested?

Mike Totoraitis:
That’s our recommendation to the district. So we are working with them to put a testing plan in place. I think the part I would reiterate is that parents can find out right now if their kid has been poisoned. So whether they’re working with their primary care provider or their pediatrician, that screening data will tell you right away as we work with the district, to have them return to compliance. One of the ways that we feel is warranted, at this point is to require the district to screen the children.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is your message to citizens and parents and students and teachers in this city on all of this?

Mike Totoraitis:
Continue to ask the questions as the district releases their plan with the timeline for future closures and future work. Parents should refer back to that plan as well and continue to ask the district additional questions about progress made and other updates that might be relevant to the learning experience of students here in Milwaukee.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Commissioner, thanks very much.

Mike Totoraitis:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
Head Start programs that help prepare young children from low-income families for school serve more than 700,000 households across the country and 16,000 children here in Wisconsin. But Head Start, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, could be eliminated by federal cuts. The regional office that serves Wisconsin was already closed. The Head Start program that serves four counties in western Wisconsin is anxiously awaiting the other shoe to drop. Joining us is Thanh Bui-Duquette, director of Head Start for the Western Dairyland Community Action Agency. And thanks very much for being here.

Thanh Bui-Duquette:
Thank you so much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do you know about continued funding for your Head Start program and have you already seen cuts to your program?

Thanh Bui-Duquette:
At this time we haven’t seen any cut yet. We are expected to — we — our program is entering our fiscal 2025 budget May 1st. So at this time, we are expected to be fully funded for our fiscal ’25 program. However, beyond that, it’s uncertain right now.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because how many children do you serve?

Thanh Bui-Duquette:
So we are currently serving a total of 442 children. We are in four counties in western Wisconsin. So we are in Buffalo, Jackson, Trempealeau and Eau Claire Counties in nine different centers. And out, you know, out of the nine centers, only three of them are in rural — in urban areas. And then the remaining six centers are in rural communities. And many of them, we are the only licensed providers in that community.

Frederica Freyberg:
Were you surprised to learn of the possible elimination of the program?

Thanh Bui-Duquette:
Absolutely. I was surprised. I was devastated to hear that that is the — that is in part of the proposal in the president’s budget.

Frederica Freyberg:
What would that mean for the children and families that you and other Head Start programs serve?

Thanh Bui-Duquette:
Honestly, the impact is clear. It will be devastating for every community across Wisconsin. And frankly, our country. Children, thousands, hundreds of thousands of children will not have access to a safe and nurturing environments. Our parents, our families will have, will have no one to care for them. They cannot go to work. And that will really create a major labor disruption. You know, when you think about it, it’s already in a market where employers already are struggling to find workers and ultimately this will hurt rural communities the most. You know, I’m in this community. I see the struggles that they face every day. Scarce resources. There’s very few employment opportunities. And it will put more children and families into poverty. And in the long run, it will end up costing taxpayers even more money.

Frederica Freyberg:
Recent survey results of child care providers across the state say one in four could close their doors with the end of the Child Care Counts program. How devastating would kind of both these things be?

Thanh Bui-Duquette:
Honestly, it will be an economic disaster because Head Start is an important pillar of the child care infrastructure. So Head Start and child care works together as two entities that support working families. And so in addition to the potential of Head Start losing its funding and losing access to Child Care Counts for child care providers, I would say the majority of the Wisconsin workforce would have no place to send their children to, and then they can’t go to work. And so that would, that would be an economic disaster.

Frederica Freyberg:
Apart from the economics of it, how successful is Head Start in helping young children with early learning?

Thanh Bui-Duquette:
Yeah, I think there’s a reason why we have had 60 years of bipartisan support, right? Because it works. The, you know, there have been research done that have shown children from low-income families who have gone through Head Start are more likely to graduate, graduate high school, are more likely to go further their education to secondary education and are less likely to end up into the criminal justice system. But when you think about the first five years of life, those are the most important part of any children’s brain development. And Head Start provides that stability and the support for the children and the families. And, you know, for our program, 96% of the children that we serve are either homeless, they are in foster care. They are living below the federal poverty or they are receiving public assistance. These are families that would not be able to have access to the support, nutrition, health, health services that we provide. And we have proven success about families who’ve gone through Head Start are more likely to be out of poverty and less likely to rely on public assistance in the long, in the long run, and are saving to the economy.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, we need to leave it there, but we will be watching this. And thank you for your important work.

Thanh Bui-Duquette:
Thank you so much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSWisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.