Black students at Milwaukee Area Technical College have regularly received the most funds through the state's Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant program. (Photo Courtesy of MATC)

A Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a grant program run by the Wisconsin Higher Education Aids Board (HEAB) to provide scholarships to students of certain minority groups is unconstitutional. 

The 2nd District Court of Appeals cited a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision in its ruling that found the program discriminates based on race. 

A group of families, represented by the right-wing Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), sued the HEAB in 2021 to end the minority grant program. The program, established in 1985, targets student aid at students who are Black, Hispanic, Native American and immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Students receive between $250 and $2,500 in aid. The program goes to students in Wisconsin’s technical colleges, private universities and tribal colleges. The UW System operates a similar program for its students.

In the 2021-22 academic year, $819,000 was given out through the program. 

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA) that race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions are unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. 

“SFFA completely cut the legs out from under HEAB’s originally asserted government interest of student body diversity,” the Court of Appeals wrote. “But HEAB also does not meet its burden to show that its revised post-SFFA asserted government interest of increasing retention/graduation rates of students in the preferred groups, and relatedly reducing the disparity in retention/graduation rates between students from those groups and students from nonpreferred groups, is a compelling interest.” 

In a statement, WILL deputy counsel Dan Lennington said the ruling helps the state reach “true equality.” 

“The appellate judges agreed with WILL that the state of Wisconsin can offer aid based on need, income level, or personal hardships — but not race,” Lennington said. “Their comprehensive decision marks a turning point in the fight for true equality for both our state and country.”

After the Supreme Court ruled in SFFA, Wisconsin legislative leaders said they’d take aim at race-based scholarships like the minority grant program. While a legislative change would likely have been vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers, a Wisconsin Examiner analysis found that the money in the program largely went to Black students at Milwaukee Area Technical College.