The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down a state-funded scholarship program that awarded financial aid based on the race of college students. The Democrat-controlled court followed the precedent laid out by the United States Supreme Court in finding that Gov. Tony Evers and the state were violating the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Two of the most liberal justices, however, wrote a concurrence denouncing the bar on the use of race for such scholarships. If Democrats are able to pack the Supreme Court as demanded by many party leaders, this concurrence is an example of the likely changes that a packed court will bring in reversing anti-discrimination and other rulings.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty represented the taxpayers in this successful challenge of the Wisconsin Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program. That program administered taxpayer-funded grants of up to $2,500 per academic year to eligible students of Black American, American Indian, Hispanic, or certain Southeast Asian backgrounds.
The state paid out roughly half a million dollars in scholarships, now found to be racially discriminatory.
Citing the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Court reaffirmed that “The Constitution requires that every person ‘must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.’”
While many have heralded the new bright line against racial discrimination in higher education, two of the most liberal justices, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky and Susan Crawford, lamented the loss of racially discriminatory programs.
In her concurrence, Chief Justice Karofsky captured the sweeping, open-ended rationales used for such programs:
“Why have we not learned from our past? Why are we not willing to recognize the harms this country has caused to those who are marginalized, disempowered, or disenfranchised? Why, instead of wielding the Equal Protection Clause as a sword against racism, do we employ it to shield against the promise of equality for all? The answer appears to be because we have failed to fully recognize how societal and governmental practices have long continued to enforce a preference for White Americans and to burden Black Americans and those of other disadvantaged races or backgrounds.”
These justices would continue race-based programs indefinitely under the claim that there is a “preference for White Americans” in programs that focus purely on academic achievement or specific non-racial criteria.
The two justices quote from the dissent of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that requiring race-neutral rules is just more “let-them-eat-cake obliviousness” by a white privileged society. She added, “I fully recognize and acknowledge that I am bound by the precedent set forth in SFFA and other cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court…However, I also choose to write separately. I do so because I find it impossible to ignore the truths that Justice Jackson identifies.”
Notably, those “truths” from the Jackson dissent have been challenged as containing glaring false claims.
I have previously discussed my disagreements with Jackson and her jurisprudence, including her dissent in the SFFA case. However, this concurrence vividly shows the jurists whom the Democrats could call upon to pack the Supreme Court to reverse decisions like the one in SFFA.
With various Democratic leaders now openly pledging to pack the Court to reverse such decisions, the 2028 election is becoming a referendum on the future of an institution that has proven key to maintaining this Republic for 250 years.
Democratic politicians and pundits have made clear that they need the immediate control of the Supreme Court to carry out an agenda that would be struck down as unconstitutional. That includes reversing core constitutional rulings. The Karofsky concurrence offers a glimpse into our future if we allow the Court to be the object of a political hostile takeover.
All these threats of Supreme Court packing would be rendered moot if the Chief Justice had any balls.
He could simply order that pretextual “injury lawsuits” brought by “stand in” Plaintiffs whose backers are seeking a major policy — overpowering the Article I and II elected branches — that those lawsuits be turned back at the District Court level by the Court Clerk, and the Plaintiffs be referred to take their policy issue across the street where it Constitutionally belongs.
Policy-seeking pretext lawsuits have become so commonplace and expected, the CJ lost control of the political misuse of the Judiciary the day he was sworn in.
How would that render threats to pack Scotus moot?
If this Supreme Court found this to be unconstitutional, I cannot wait until the first case against reparations (should they ever actualize) is sent to SCOTUS and that manufactured pie-in-the-sky dream pushed by democrats fishing for votes is declared DOA. That will cause much rioting, looting, destruction etc when the democrat nurtured parasites realize that “white privilege” has cost them their bundles of cash.
Liberal judges simply do not follow the Constitution. There should be reviews on every judge’s decision and if they are activists rather than judges, impeachment should be exercised. Corruption of the judicial system was one of greatest fears of the founding fathers.
As they should have. Scholarships, admissions to college, etc. should all be pure merit regardless of race or sex.
So long athletic scholarships and with them March Madness. Thank goodness for that. No need for non-academic perks.
Governmental racial preferences have given minorities the Dutch Disease, which impedes their progress. But keeping minorities down is key to the Left’s grip on power, so they need the scam to continue. Hence the vociferous protestations against race-neutral policies.
No need to prime the pump. If it cannot draw without a prime the pump should be discarded. If it’s on an engine, then the engine discarded. It’s worse than using fertilizer on farms – if the plants can’t grow strong and weed themselves then they are useless plants indeed.
Hasn’t the pump been primed for 60 years now? How many more years are needed for an actual priming of the pump?
Jews were harshly discriminated against, but they succeed because they had to with no racial or religious preferences. They never grew dependent on undeserved governmental preferences over non-Jews.
Did the two justices just reveal that SCOTUS packing means bringing the faith doctrine of original sin into the policy preferences for our constitutional law? That means an overlay of an existing design that says that government is best that governs least. A bounded government. Built to the individual. Including the right to be left alone. Disturb that design and children are born into a servitude for sins committed by others long before birth. A servitude shaped by a supreme court deciding remedies for masses of chosen skin tones untethered by care for any one individual. You have to ask what the nation looks like after the life tenures of those on the court have run. While you are doing that, ask yourself why the original sin proponents are not laying out what they say our nation looks like if they get their way. For example, today proximate cause is the judicial way public policy treats cause in fact. Among other things it says where liability to others stops. Do you want a doctrine of original sin to push your potential individual liability to others beyond where it is now, in the name of “equity”?
Don’t know why the server didn’t get my login for the above.
Glibal Santa Fe would like to have you speak.
How did wr go about arranging it?
Edward R Brown
Workers should vote for who their managers are.
And that company would quickly go out of business.
Soldiers should vote for their commanding officers and the Joint Chiefs of Staff; oh, and God, mortals should vote for God!!!
And the nominees are…!!!
White billionaires should start a fund for the white students that were left behind by this reverse-discrimination.
There were dozens of them, dozens I say! So close to the bottom of the ladder they were easily dislodged.
This has been tried but there are still ghettos.
The Chief Justice should resign her seat so a more deserving “marginalized” person can have it.
“Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids”
— Joseph R. Biden
Sign me up!
The first step to socialism is to make people dependent on government support programs. The second is tell them they are victims of those people who work and pay the taxes that fund the programs and make them the enemy.
The cure for racism comes simply enough. Preach loudly that all are created equal and that no preference or favoritism is allowed in anything, at any time and for any reason. That single governing principle is enough.
In churches for more than 2000 years it’s been preached not to kill, yet killing goes on.
Preaching doesn’t heal the past wounds.
If you are a jerk, then you don’t deserve freedom and prosperity. You deserve to be be tortured in a dungeon and to have your property confiscated.
So you are advocating your own imprisonment, torture and your property confiscated?
I’m not a jerk, but I am the victim of jerks.
Run thing, that’s what all jerks say.
*Rum thing
Jerks don’t deserve to live the good life, playing golf and driving their expensive cars.
You are a jerk, being a jerk, jealous of other jerks for working hard and earning their good life.
Why not? Is sleeping and crapping on the street more desirable in your cultural progrom?
“Why have we not learned from our past?”
Here, Chief Justice, are the lessons you should be teaching Americans:
That racism of any type, whether against or to favor minorities, is unjust and evil.
That the Left’s tribalism sows discord, suspicion, and animosity.
That the only “warmth of collectivism” is the blood in the streets and the corpses in the ground.
💯👍💥👏🤝🫡 YES
Like the Tulsa Race Massacre? That kind of blood in the streets?
He just said that racism in all its forms is evil. Are you unable to comprehend the English language?
Holy Moly – looks like some closet RACIST MAGA Dems on the state supreme court need to be overthrown by the great citizens of Wisconsin! Cheese Heads need to unite to make the state a Socialist Rainbow Paradise and step one is to get rid of any ‘officials’ that won’t resist ANY LAW OF THE LAND that does not feed the BEAST of SOCIALISM and PARADISE! Only DEEP BLUE DEMS know what is best for ALL COMRADES!!!
If folks honestly think race‑targeted scholarships are morally indispensable in 2026, nothing in this ruling stops them from putting their own money where their theory is. What the court said is that you do not get to conscript every Wisconsin taxpayer into underwriting racial line‑drawing with the state seal on it.
Equal Protection and Title VI attach to state action and to programs taking federal money, so the problem here is government using race as a gatekeeper. Private donors and private charities that are not on the public dime can still fund whatever “equity” schemes they can talk their supporters into backing.
That is the right division of labor in a constitutional republic: the state uses coercive power on a color‑blind basis, and people who want to sort by race are free to try it with voluntary dollars, not mine and not yours.
@Olly,
I keep wondering why the people that scream the loudest about racism do not follow your thoughts and act. As has been said many times, Actions Speak Louder Than Words. How many sports figures, politicians, league owners, business people and others have the means to do as you suggest. One president comes to mind however I guess it is much easier to use other peoples money.
rcs, that is exactly the disconnect I am trying to put a spotlight on.
For all the shouting about “systemic racism,” nobody is hauling these folks off in handcuffs if they decide to cut their own checks, endow their own funds, and run their own race‑based philanthropy.
Funny how the moral urgency always seems to cool off right about the point where it stops being other people’s tax money and starts being their own.
That is why equal protection bites here in the first place: the state does not get to draft every taxpayer into a compulsory donor pool for somebody’s racial sorting project.
If the celebrities, owners, and professional “anti‑racism” crowd really believe their rhetoric, they can prove it on their own balance sheets instead of hiding behind the general fund and a batch of slogans.
Funny that line of questioning. The government has recently drafted me into a compulsory donor pool to spend $16M on a failed, literal, pool project and likely $1 Trillion on a war that leaves the opposition in a stronger negotiating position than just 2 months ago. While doing so doesn’t violate the equal protection clause, the spending result is worse.
Does a fire house violate equal protection when they respond to a call but don’t give the same level of service to everyone in the district? Or is it different because just one house is on fire and needs the help?
Always great to see a moral absolutist become a moral relativist whenever the convenience is required.
You cannot punish a man for bashing another in the head with a baseball bat unless you punish everyone just the same.
So say conservatives who wield the baseball bats.
Just because centuries of holding a particularly identifiable group of people in forced labor camps, then holding them in poverty, then holding them in substandard housing and substandard school systems, doesn’t mean that any help at all be extended to their shattered backgrounds and surroundings by which white racists enriched themselves.
So say conservatives living comfortable lives built on the back and labor of that particularly identifiable group.
Some remark their hands are clean, comforted in a single degree of separation, unwilling to map the path wealth took to reach them, either directly or by be buoyed by those who used guns and chains.
What predominantly Black community would you choose to move to, things being so equal as you suggest?
The fallacy of discrimination is demonstrated by the following example. John is Black and his parents make $75k/year. William is White and his parents make $75k/year. Neither set of parents has enough money to send their son to college. So they apply for a scholarship. The school grants scholarship on the basis of race. John scores a 7 out of ten on the entrance test. William scores a 7 out of 10 on the entrance test. John gets the scholarship and goes to college. William gets nothing and does not go. So William just paid for John to go to college. Why? Did William ever do anything to John to justify him having to pay for John’s college? Should William pay for the sins of those who enslaved Black people over 160 years ago? Setting aside budgetary issues, wouldn’t it be better to just give them both scholarships assuming a 7 out of 10 score indicated that both would be able to graduate.
The best college admission policy would be “If you’re objectively prepared, you’re in.”
Imagine all colleges beginning to publish their readiness criteria, and how it is to be validated (tests, portfolio).
As young as middle school, students can choose the college they wish to attend, and start preparing to meet the readiness requirement, knowing that their work will be rewarded with the admission goal they are seeking.
In psychology it’s called a deterministic, operant reward system — the strongest positive motivation toward learning
known to science.
The colleges under this system would learn how to flex the learning environment to accordian with varying class size.
What parent or kid would NOT want college admissions to work this way?
Imagine you are in a sinking boat and ask for help and a racing yacht slows alongside and says “work harder” before laying on more sail and speeding away.
Imagine you are in a cancer ward, wracked with pain, hunched over in agony, and a Republican shows up and says “You would not be ill if you had prayed harder.”
You know from psychology that deprivation of stimulus, of hope, of opportunity, are all crippling factors and, knowing that, you want to remove one slim hope.
Those analogies don’t work at all. Nothing even remotely like that is happening when the government says darker skin gets preference over paler skin.
Or a committee might meet with the two candidates and select the less boring or perhaps the better looking or female.
The fallacy to that:
The US robbed a very identifiable group of people for over 400 years, but now it’s a problem to try to repay that group of people because it would hinder those who benefitted from the robbing in the first place.