LoginGOP efforts to limit DEI move ahead as Democrats criticize ‘attack’ on marginalized communities
Wisconsin Republicans are pushing to eliminate diversity initiatives throughout the state with a constitutional amendment that will likely go to voters this fall and through a government efficiency effort that seeks to cut DEI training and programs. | Illustration by stellalevi/Getty Images Creative
Republican efforts to target diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs throughout Wisconsin are advancing this week with a constitutional amendment likely to appear on ballots this fall following a Wednesday Senate vote.
For the last several years, Republican lawmakers have sought to limit DEI in Wisconsin including by introducing bills that were vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers, holding hostage pay raises for the University of Wisconsin system employees during negotiations to limit DEI, and now, placing a constitutional amendment before voters. The efforts come as the Trump administration has also targeted DEI in the federal government and throughout the country.
“It’s just a larger attack that we’re seeing in this country against anything that uplifts our most marginalized communities…,” Chair of the Legislative Black Caucus Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview. “This started even before, you know, President Trump was elected. There’s just been a pushback with these programs and it’s because we’re starting to see some progress.”
The Wisconsin State Senate will vote this week on a constitutional amendment that would prohibit local governments from “discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to” anyone based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. The proposal was first introduced and passed by the Republican-led Legislature in 2024. It is one of three constitutional amendment proposals that voters may have the final say on in November.
Drake has been seeking to increase awareness of the anti-DEI constitutional amendment over the last week.
Constitutional amendment proposals must pass two consecutive sessions of the state Legislature before they are placed on ballots. In recent years, Republicans have, with mixed results, relied on constitutional amendment proposals to bypass Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
If AJR 102 passes on Wednesday, voters will see the following question on their ballots in November: “Shall section 27 of article I of the constitution be created to 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?”
Authors of the amendment, including Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), have said the proposal will restore “merit, fairness and equality to government practices from the state Capitol, all the way down to our school boards and everything in between.” It passed the Assembly last week.
Drake counters that Republican lawmakers are misleading Wisconsinites.
“Legislative Republicans had the opportunity to expand economic and educational opportunities for all Wisconsinites. They’re the ones that have power, and yet they chose not to,” Drake said. “They are now trying to pin the reason why people are struggling on Black and brown people, women and other minority Wisconsinites for their failures by misleading people with what this ballot measure would do.”
Drake brought together Black leaders in Milwaukee including Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who is running for governor, to speak against the constitutional amendment proposal.
Johnson said at the press conference that the city complies with state and federal law.
“As mayor of a majority-minority city, I know firsthand that when every resident has the tools and every resident has the resources at their disposal to succeed, the entire community is strong,” he said.
Drake has spoken about the risk of losing programs including the state’s Supplier Diversity Program, which was established in the 1980s and certifies minority-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned and woman-owned businesses to provide better opportunities for them to do business with the state of Wisconsin. She also says she thinks the proposal could have farther reaching consequences. For example, she said, she thinks the Holocaust education bill that lawmakers passed and Evers signed last session could be disallowed. That effort was approved in the same year that the state enacted legislation to require education on Hmong and Asian American history in schools.
“The reality is in the constitutional amendment resolution they’re putting forth, it applies for any type of public dollars, so… if our public schools and school boards put money towards that, in a way, you’re giving preferential treatment to teaching that specific history,” Drake said. “It’s so much more than just the programs… that Milwaukee county and the city have.”
“They’re saying that this constitutional amendment would prevent discrimination, but then it’s preventing the government from taking actions when discrimination actually happens, so essentially, you’re outlawing accountability when discrimination does occur,” Drake said.
The Senate will vote on the proposal just days after Martin Luther King Day. Republican lawmakers have cited the civil rights leader’s teachings as justification for the amendment.
“The principle of a colorblind equality and merit-based decision-making is again articulated by one of their greatest civil rights leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr,” Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), the other lead author of the proposed amendment, said at a hearing in the Senate Licensing, Regulatory Reform, State and Federal Affairs Committee on Jan. 7. “Using immutable characteristics like race, sex, color, ethnicity, national origin and the like to discriminate against or grant any individual or group is wrong, no matter who it targets or what the reason, it creates distrust and injust division and represents resentments that divide people instead of uniting them. Past discrimination, however wrong, cannot be corrected with more discrimination.”
Nass said the amendment would ensure people are hired, promoted, selected and admitted to school in the “same way we choose people for our Olympic team.”
Drake said the lawmakers who are citing MLK misunderstand his legacy.
“The reality is that he was someone that was a pioneer in his time and he wasn’t liked because he actually challenged and named the systematic structures that cause disparities throughout this country,” Drake said. “He actively called out his fellow white faith leaders on why they were silent in the face of injustice. He never advocated for a so-called colorblind society. What he was advocating for was that people have access to opportunity.”
GOAT report identifies recommendations to eliminate DEI
The goals of the amendment — and the broader desire to eliminate DEI — were on display during an informational hearing in the Assembly Government Operations, Accountability and Transparency (GOAT) committee on a recent report compiled by Rep. Shae Sortwell.
The Republican from Two Rivers used his authority on the GOAT committee, which was created to be the state’s version of the federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in February 2025 to begin investigating DEI practices in local government. He submitted open records requests to Wisconsin’s 72 counties, the 50 largest municipalities throughout the state and all school districts.
The resulting report released on Jan. 9 was more than 80 pages long. Sortwell also listed thousands of pages of records from counties and municipalities on his website.
During a Jan. 15 hearing on the report, Sortwell told the GOAT committee that he wanted it to be a “fact-finding” mission. The Wisconsin Counties Association helped guide counties in responding to the requests.
“This is what we found so that you can draw your own conclusions as to what you think,” Sortwell said.
Four counties Buffalo, Richland, Sawyer and Waupaca didn’t have relevant records to share.
Pierce County did not provide any records to the committee and was identified as uncooperative, according to the report. Sortwell noted during the hearing that Pierce is small and it is possible that is the reason they didn’t reply.
The following municipalities reported that they had no records: Ashwaubenon, Brookfield, Caledonia, Fond du Lac, Fox Crossing, Germantown, Howard, Marshfield, Menasha, Menominee Falls, Mequon, Mount Pleasant, New Berlin, Oak Creek, Oconomowoc, Pleasant Prairie, West Bend and Wisconsin Rapids. Janesville and Sheboygan failed to provide records to the committee.
Sortwell discussed spending that some counties, including Rock, Milwaukee and Waukesha, did on DEI training and a “disproportionality” conference hosted by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) in 2024.
He also highlighted the report’s finding that the Manitowoc mayor attended 24 DEI-related trainings between 2021 and 2023 for a cost of $4,000.
“I’m trying to understand what he didn’t get in the first 23… Is he so racist and homophobic or something that you couldn’t manage to figure out not to treat people badly because they’re different from him in the first 23?” Sortwell said. “Where’s the controls here?”
The report listed a number of recommendations for potential bills lawmakers could pass including one to remove DEI language from state grants, to “prohibit all levels of government from contracting with vendors within a discriminatory DEI lens,” to remove the term “health equity” from all state laws and administrative codes, to prohibit policies and practices relating to equity, prohibit the hiring of DEI staff and use of DEI terminology throughout government, the use of funds for DEI trainings and the requirement that employees participate in such trainings and to prohibit DPI from requiring that school districts “adhere to discriminatory and race-based policies and practices, including spending local tax dollars to fund such.”
Sortwell said he thought the constitutional amendment would take care of some of the recommendations, but that other measures could be needed.
Chair of the committee Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) said at the hearing that she thought the report “presents a lot of high-level evidence, probably just scratching the surface really, for why we need this constitutional amendment.”
Sortwell said the recommendations included in the report were based on his judgment.
Democratic lawmakers on the committee, however, spoke to the value of DEI work and questioned the framing and findings of the report.
Rep. Angelina Cruz (D-Racine) told the Wisconsin Examiner that the report includes “gross mischaracterizations” of DEI and “reflects a deep misunderstanding of what DEI is,” and said she would frame the report as more of a “witch hunt” than an investigation.
Cruz said she thought the process of compiling the report was not transparent. She noted that Sortwell’s work on the report was not discussed with Democratic members of the committee before he started and that lawmakers did not have much time to review the thousands of pages before the hearing.
“If you want to talk about waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money, it is to waste public servants’ time and our taxpayer resources on generating the data that produce these conclusions that are not grounded in good research methodology,” Cruz said.
Rep. Mike Bare (D-Verona), the ranking member of the committee, told Nedweski during the hearing that he found her comment troubling.
“I don’t want to make a partisan game here, but I think there’s one side who sees these as not valuable and one side that does see them as valuable,” Bare said.
The report noted that local health departments have prioritized “health equity” — noting that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) includes in its rules that local health departments work to help create it. The report called “health equity” a “phantom DEI term.”
Republicans and Democrats then engaged in a back and forth about the meaning of the term health equity.
“I don’t think we should be treating people differently because they check some box… that’s equality and I support that, and equity says I want a certain outcome, so I’m going to rig the system,” Sortwell said.
“I don’t think you have to rig the system — and I don’t think a lot of the things that you’ve pointed out are about rigging the system — services for moms or children support services,” Bare said. “We’re trying to allow for an outcome to be possible… You’ve got 50,000 pages. You didn’t do any analysis to tell us why this is bad. There is a lot more that goes into [the question] should we have health equity or not beyond ideology.”
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