State Supreme Court Ends Wisconsin Minority College Grant Program

The interior of the Wisconsin State Capitol on Monday, July 14, 2025, in Madison, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

In a unanimous ruling Thursday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared undergraduate retention grants for certain minority students are unconstitutional.

The ruling is based on precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 that significantly curtailed race-based college admissions.

Thursday’s decision by the state’s high court will end the minority grant program that was established by the state Legislature in the 1985-87 biennial budget.  Awards were based on financial need, with a minimum grant of $250 and a maximum grant of $2,500 per year.

The grant total in 2023-24 was $440,433 for 770 students according to the program’s 2023-24 annual report.

According to statute, a minority student is defined as a student who is a Black American, American Indian, Hispanic, or Southeast Asian from Laos, Cambodia, or Vietnam admitted to the United States after Dec. 31, 1975.

Justice Annette Ziegler delivered the majority opinion.

“We conclude that the Taxpayers have standing and that the Grant Program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Ziegler wrote. “Accordingly, we affirm the court of appeals’ decision that the statute is unconstitutional and conclude that HEAB (Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board) is enjoined from operating the Grant Program.”

The 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship and ensures “equal protection of the laws” for all persons.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty argued the case on behalf of “taxpayers.” In a statement Thursday the conservative law firm called the decision a “major win” for students.

“Race cannot be used to dole out scholarships and other financial aid,” said WILL Managing Vice President Dan Lennington. “This is also a big win for taxpayers, who can now challenge many other race-based programs in state court.”

Caleb Gerbitz, an attorney at Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols in Milwaukee who writes extensively about appellate law, said the outcome was all but assured following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2023.

“The question was always going to be how expansive a ruling the (Wisconsin) court would issue,” Gerbitz said, adding that the Court of Appeals has ruled that considering a person’s race is prohibited in nearly all cases when government funding is used. But he said Justice Ziegler’s majority decision is much narrower, holding only that this grant program is unconstitutional.

The liberal justices on the bench wrote concurring opinions saying they were bound by the precedent set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Jill Karofsky said she wanted to write separately to recognize the racial disparities in Wisconsin with respect to education, housing, employment, criminal justice and health care.

“Despite this longstanding commitment to education, Wisconsin still grapples with segregated and unequal educational opportunities,” Karofsky wrote.

“Clearly many students of color in Wisconsin leave high schooland enter college with distinct disadvantages. That disparity is not aboutstatistics or mere correlation.”

“Rather, that disparity is about a reality where past state-sponsored racism continues to affect educational opportunities, and systemic racism continues to rob non-White people of equal educational opportunities,” Karofsky continued.

“And as difficult and uncomfortable as that may be for some to acknowledge, it is the truth, and it cannot and should not be ignored.”

Wisconsin Supreme Court rules college minority grant program unconstitutional was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.