Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
Press Release

WILL Sues State Board for Race Discrimination

Higher Educational Aids Board offers scholarships with narrow racial categories

By - Apr 15th, 2021 01:03 pm

The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court against the Higher Educational Aids Board, a state agency responsible for administering the Minority Undergraduate Retention Program, for violating the Wisconsin Constitution by discriminating based on race and national origin. WILL represents five Wisconsin taxpayers who object to the state of Wisconsin administering this race-based scholarship program.

The Quotes: WILL Deputy Counsel, Dan Lennington, said, “The state of Wisconsin is engaged in race discrimination, pure and simple. Many students are denied scholarships based on their race or where their family comes from. This program violates the state Constitution and basic notions of equality and fairness.”

“America is a land of opportunity,” said Kiki Rabiebna, a WILL client. “Government programs must be available to everybody, not just certain racial groups.”

“When government discriminates by race, it pits different groups against each other,” said Rick Freihoefer, a WILL client. “That isn’t progress. That just fans the flames of our divisions.”

Background: The Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board administers the Minority Undergraduate Retention Program, a taxpayer-funded scholarship available to minority undergraduates enrolled in private, nonprofit higher educational institutions or in technical colleges in Wisconsin.

The minority undergraduates eligible for the taxpayer-funded program, according to state law, are: Black American, American Indian, Hispanic, and those specifically from Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia who immigrated after 1975. These narrow racial and national origin criteria mean other students—Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, North African, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, resident aliens from Africa, or White, for example—are ineligible to receive a scholarship.

The eligibility categories in the Minority Undergraduate Retention Program amount to discrimination based on race, national origin, and alienage, a practice clearly forbidden by the Wisconsin Constitution. The state of Wisconsin can offer aid based on need, income-level, family background, or even location – but not race. WILL’s clients are seeking a declaration, from the court, that this program is unconstitutional and an injunction preventing its race-based qualifications.

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NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.

Comments

  1. Mingus says:

    WILL is always needing some issue to keep their well paid attorneys busy.

  2. frank a schneiger says:

    WILL is not much in the larger scheme of things, but it is a symptom of something very dangerous. Americans tend to believe that we are unique and can’t learn anything from others. That is unfortunate. The WILL suit is part of a messaging pattern that took off 40 years ago with Reagan’s election. The core of that message is that white people are the real victims of racism in the United States. It is now a Republican and FOX News staple, in some ways, the heart of their appeal.

    Warren Zimmerman was our last ambassador to Yugoslavia before that country destroyed itself in a fratricidal conflict. In a meeting, Zimmerman made two relevant points. The first was that it is extremely dangerous when a dominant group defines itself as a victim. By doing so, there are no longer any constraints on what “our” group, in that case the Serbs, Yugoslavia’s white people, can do to the others. All based on what “they” had done to “us” in the past, or what they would do to us in the future if they could.

    Zimmerman’s second point was that, even with full control of national media, it took the Serbs five years of relentless hammering on the theme of victimization to crank up hatreds to the point that a genocidal war was unleashed. Question: if people only get their information from Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, isn’t that the same as controlling national media?

    Final notes: there was nothing inevitable about the Yugoslav tragedy, and, as always, they didn’t ring a bell when it is too late to step back from a disaster. Once again, WILL is just a buzzing little mosquito, but it is part of something much bigger and more dangerous.

  3. Jake formerly of the LP says:

    Isn’t it well past time for the Milwaukee Common Council to slap the Bradley Foundation with a multi-million dollar lawsuit for back taxes. The Bradleys (aka, the people who created and pay WILL to file these BS suits) have dodged property taxes for decades because they claim to be a “charity”.

    Why do we allow this fraud to continue, and let these skeezy oligarchs waste our time and money in the process?

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