Wisconsin Supreme Court to Hear Case About Race-Based College Scholarships
State working out how to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that curtailed race-based college admissions
The interior of the Wisconsin State Capitol on Monday, July 14, 2025, in Madison, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has elected to hear a case about whether education grants for students of certain ethnic backgrounds are constitutional.
The decision from the high court comes after a state appeals court ruled earlier this year that the grants are discriminatory.
It also comes two years after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that significantly curtailed race-based college admissions.
Caleb Gerbitz, an attorney at Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols in Milwaukee who writes extensively about appellate law, said Wisconsin justices could decide just how broadly the U.S. Supreme Court ruling applies.
“This was an interesting case because it’s a category that’s adjacent to college admissions,” said Gerbitz. “What the U.S. Supreme Court left open … is whether you can consider race in other settings, outside of academia.”
In February, an appeals court ruled that the state-run Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by offering taxpayer dollars to low-income students of only some racial or national backgrounds.
Established by the state Legislature in the 1985-87 biennial budget, the grants program is earmarked for students who are Black, American Indian or Hispanic, or Southeast Asian from Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam admitted to the United States after Dec. 31, 1975.
The appeals court ruled the program must end because it uses tax dollars to “discriminate against individuals.”
According to Gerbitz, the Wisconsin court case is partly a response to an “open question” since the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, a landmark decision finding that race-based criteria for college admissions is unlawful.
That question is, “to what extent can race be used in other areas outside of college admissions?” Gerbitz said.
The earlier appeals court decision suggested that question applies in “nearly every context in which government attempts to use race, national origin, ancestry or alienage as a discriminating factor” — even outside of educational situations.
Now, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is poised to take up the question of how expansively to interpret the fair admissions case. A date for beginning to hear the case has not been set.
Wisconsin Supreme Court to hear case about race-based college scholarships was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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