The fight for equal treatment notched a victory Tuesday night in the Badger State, as voters approved a measure to bar discrimination on the basis of race in public contracting and education.
Republicans pushed for the constitutional amendment to prevent illegal racial discrimination and combat DEI.
The amendment will “prohibit governmental entities in the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, public contracting, or
public administration.”
About 57% of voters backed the amendment, titled Question 3, according to CBS News.
The measure applies to educational institutions, including the University of Wisconsin system.
The language mirrors a 1996 California law, Legal Insurrection founder William Jacobson previously told Campus Reform.
“The proposed Wisconsin constitutional amendment is substantively identical to California 209, passed in 1996, which established equality as a matter of state constitutional law across government and public entities,” Jacobson said.
“This would be a positive development for Wisconsin as it would remove any purported legal basis for discrimination in public entities and state contracting,” Jacobson added.
University of Wisconsin campuses have come under scrutiny from the Equal Protection Project for discriminatory language. The flagship Madison campus operated a discriminatory “BIPOC Fellows” program, Legal Insurrection reported in 2024.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty challenged 20 discriminatory scholarships earlier this year, alongside Young America’s Foundation.
The College Fix reported:
One such scholarship is the Lawton Undergraduate Minority Retention Grant Program, which seeks “to provide financial assistance to statutorily designated minority undergraduate students,” according to the UW System website.
The Lawton Program notes that it is only available to “Black, Hispanic, Native American and Southeast Asians of Vietnamese, Cambodian or Laotian descent.”
Another scholarship, the Alliant Energy/Erroll V. David Achievement Award, is available only to African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian, Southeast Asian, and other underrepresented groups.
Tuesday’s vote for common-sense conservative principles, such as equality under the law, followed a trend. While Democrats generally did statewide, retaining the governor’s mansion, their favored DEI policy lost at the ballot box.
While 54% of voters chose Democrat Dave Crowley for governor, Wisconsin citizens proved they support conservative values when it comes to merit.
As Corey DeAngelis noted: “The Democrat candidate for governor won by 8 points yet DEI went down by 13 points.”
[Featured image via Fox 6]
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