The Wisconsin Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety held a public hearing last week on bipartisan legislation aimed at strengthening the state’s response to antisemitism by formally adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism into state law.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin lawmakers hear bill to codify IHRA antisemitism | The Jerusalem Post
The bill, SB 445, would require state and local authorities to use the IHRA definition, including its 11 contemporary examples, when evaluating discriminatory intent in civil rights violations and determining enhanced penalties for hate crimes. The measure is sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Senators Rob Hutton, Rachael Cabral-Guevara, Dianne Hesselbein, Jesse James, Brad Pfaff, Patrick Testin, Jamie Wall, Van Wanggaard, and Bob Wirch.
A companion bill, AB 446, sponsored by a broad coalition in the Wisconsin Assembly, was heard earlier this year by the Committee on State Affairs.
The legislation states that government entities and officials should consider the IHRA definition when assessing whether crimes or discriminatory acts were motivated by race, religion, color, or national origin, particularly in cases involving enhanced criminal penalties.
The bill is supported by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), whose representatives testified during the hearing at the State Capitol in Madison.
CAM Director of State Engagement David Soffer told lawmakers that the bill would provide clarity and consistency in addressing antisemitism.
“SB 445 will make a difference in combating antisemitism,” Soffer said. “It helps identify what is, and just as importantly, what is not, antisemitism, and gives state institutions the tools they need to properly recognize and address antisemitic conduct. The Jewish community is asking for action, and this bill answers that call.”
Also testifying was CAM Public Affairs Officer Natalie Sanandaji, a survivor of the October 7 Hamas attacks. She warned lawmakers that contemporary antisemitism increasingly disguises itself as political activism.
“When people call for October 7 to be repeated, when they chant to ‘globalize the intifada’ or glorify those who carried out mass murder, they are not calling for peace,” Sanandaji said. “They are calling for the killing of Jews.”
Written testimony was also submitted by CAM President of U.S. Affairs Alyza Lewin, who emphasized that the IHRA definition does not restrict legitimate political speech.
“The IHRA definition provides a framework for identifying modern antisemitism while protecting free expression,” Lewin wrote. “It does not prohibit criticism of Israel. It simply draws the line when criticism becomes demonization, delegitimization, or the application of double standards to Jews or the Jewish state.”
“Hate that is ignored does not disappear,” she added. “It escalates. If we want to stop antisemitic violence, we must first be willing to recognize antisemitism in all its contemporary forms.”
According to data compiled by CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center, 37 U.S. states have now adopted the IHRA definition in some form. Wisconsin’s proposal is part of a broader nationwide effort to address rising antisemitism through legislation, education, and law enforcement coordination.
Over the past year, CAM has worked closely with lawmakers in multiple states on similar initiatives. Legislative efforts have been introduced in Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, with six of those states enacting new laws since April 2025.
In June, elected officials and senior government representatives from 17 states gathered in Kansas City for the first-ever CAM-organized State Leadership Summit on Antisemitism, aimed at coordinating policy responses and sharing best practices nationwide.
If enacted, SB 445 would place Wisconsin among a growing number of states using the IHRA definition as a formal tool to confront antisemitism in law enforcement, education, and public policy.
(WLUK) — Wisconsin State Patrol troopers are teaming up with truckers to better spot dangerous driving behaviors.
The annual Trooper in a Truck initiative kicks off next week in Wisconsin.
Troopers will ride along with with semitruck and bus drivers to use the higher vantage point to spot dangerous driving behaviors, especially near commercial motor vehicles.
Troopers will be looking for risky driving behaviors, including distracted driving, speeding, following too closely and seatbelt violations. When an officer identifies a violation from the truck or bus, they will radio to patrol cars in the area for appropriate enforcement action.
Drivers can expect to see Trooper in a Truck enforcement in the following areas:
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- Monday, July 13: Eau Claire
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- Friday, July 17: Wausau
New Wisconsin athletic director Shawn Eichorst, who spent the last eight years at Texas, believes his new and old schools have much in common.
Both are well-regarded research universities in state capitals that belong to major conferences and have relatively similar enrollments.
He also pointed out one difference.
“There’s swag at Texas, right?” Eichorst said Tuesday during his introductory news conference. “There’s 30 million people in Texas. We’ve got swag, too, but we have a little humility with that deal. We need to get our shoulders up. We need to feel good about what it is that we’re doing.”
Wisconsin could gain more of that Texas swagger if its football program gets back to winning the way it did the last time Eichorst was employed in Madison. Eichorst, who most recently worked as a deputy athletic director at Texas, received a five-year deal worth $1.6 million annually, with provisions for increases and incentives. He was hired 2½ months after Chris McIntosh left to become the Big Ten’s deputy commissioner for strategy.
Eichorst worked at Wisconsin from 2006-11 when Barry Alvarez was AD and Bret Bielema was leading the football program. He followed that up with stints as an athletic director at Miami (2011-12) and Nebraska (2012-17) before Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte hired him in 2018.
He returns to Wisconsin with the Badgers coming off back-to-back losing seasons in football, a notable fall for a program that had 22 straight winning seasons from 2002-23. Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell has gone 17-21 after posting a 53-10 record with one College Football Playoff appearance in his last five years at Cincinnati.
Eichorst hasn’t worked with Fickell before but said he’s encouraged by their initial conversations.
“Obviously he’s won every place he’s been,” Eichorst said. “My expectation is more of me than him, meaning I need to pour into him, learn more about his program, how he has things set up, how his athletes are taken care of, how we’re supporting that endeavor. And then we can figure out, as we move along, what that might look like.”
Football struggles led to Eichorst’s downfall the last time he was an athletic director.
He fired Nebraska coach Bo Pelini in 2014 and hired Mike Riley, who had gone 93-80 in 14 seasons at Oregon State. Eichorst was dismissed shortly after Nebraska suffered an early-season loss to Northern Illinois in 2017. Riley was fired at the end of that season after going 19-19 in three years.
When Eichorst’s hiring was announced last week, he spoke about how much he had grown from that Nebraska stint. Wisconsin interim chancellor Eric Wilcots led the search and has emphasized Eichorst’s accomplishments at Texas, which has won the Learfield Directors’ Cup all-sports standings five times in the last six years.
Texas ranked anywhere from fifth to ninth in the Directors’ Cup standings in the five years before Wilcots’ arrival. Texas’ football team went a combined 23-27 from 2014-17 but has made two College Football Playoff appearances in the last three years.
“Everybody looks at the end result of what we did at Texas,” Eichorst said. “When we got there in 2018, we weren’t very good in a lot of areas. And that didn’t change overnight.”
Eichorst said one thing that has caught his attention about Wisconsin is the overall quality of its head coaches.
“You’re going to be as good as your coaches,” Eichorst said. “That’s it. If you have an elite group of coaches who are working together and uniting and galvanizing and learning from one another and taking it out to their individual programs, I think you can start to build something special. I go back to Texas. We built a room of really elite head coaches and put them at the top of everything we did to help guide us.”
Eichorst said this job is particularly important to him because of his Wisconsin roots. He was born in Lone Rock, about 45 miles northwest of the Madison campus.
He treasured his previous stint at Wisconsin and says he believes this school “represents everything that is great about higher education and college athletics.”
“Nobody will work harder for Wisconsin athletics,” Eichorst said. “I love this state, and I love everything that it represents. The passion is there. You can see it. I don’t have to make it up. I’ve lived it. It’s in my heart.”
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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports
Wisconsin
South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, officials in standoff with homeowner over year-round skeleton display
The city of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has ordered a homeowner to take down his year-round giant skeleton display or face fines, but the homeowner is standing firm and refusing, even as the deadline to remove the display has passed.
Now there’s a skeleton standoff.
The city cited ordinance violations in their order for Sean Oster to dismantle the lawn decorations. The notice specifically references “large Halloween decorations being displayed not during the appropriate time of year.”
Oster was also ordered to make other improvements to his property.
But Oster has refused to take down the display, which is re-dressed as the year goes on and is currently sporting a Fourth of July theme. The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, has come to his aid, saying the city’s actions violate Oster’s First Amendment rights.
City administrators declined to comment, citing a pending investigation. Neighbors have been divided by the display; some say they’re fine with it, and think it brings fun and positivity to the neighborhood, but some others want to see it removed and say the lawn should be kept up better and more consistently.
Oster said he’s hoping to reach an agreement with the city, and said he’s corrected all other violations outside of the display.
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