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MADISON, WI (WSAU) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court voted Thursday to abolish the state’s Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program, which had been in place for more than 40 years.
According to the court filing, the high court found that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution because the funds are exclusively given to people of specific races and ethnicities rather than being available to all students. A group of private taxpayers filed the complaint, accusing the program of using public funds illegally and discriminating against students who do not belong to the defined groups.
Established in 1985, the program provided taxpayer-funded payments of up to $2,500 per school year to eligible African American, Hispanic, American Indian, and some Southeast Asian students who were admitted to the United States after 1975.
In the majority, Justice Janet Protasiewicz joined the Court’s three conservatives: Brian Hagedorn, Rebecca Bradley, and Annette Ziegler. Meanwhile, liberal Justices Rebecca Dallet and Susan Crawford, along with Chief Justice Jill Karofsky, filed a concurring opinion stating that the program violates U.S. Supreme Court precedents.
Justice Annette Ziegler wrote the majority opinion stating, “At the heart of the Equal Protection Clause is the principle that race-, national origin-, ancestry-, or alienage-based discrimination is unconstitutional except in the most extraordinary instances,” and “The Constitution requires that every person ‘must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.’”
“No State has any authority under the [Equal Protection Clause] to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens,” the opinion concluded.
This ruling brings Wisconsin in line with a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled race-based affirmative action in schools to be a violation of the United States Constitution.
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