The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed a lawsuit challenging the state's Minority Teacher Loan (MTL) program, which denies potential future educators up to $30,000 in education assistance based on race. WILL argues the program is not just discriminatory, but that it further exacerbates Wisconsin's already serious teacher shortage.

Here's more:

The MTL Program provides loans of up to $10,000 each year for three years to students pursuing teaching licenses in designated teacher-shortage areas. These taxpayer-funded loans can be fully forgiven for graduates who teach in qualifying Wisconsin schools. But even students who meet the program’s academic, licensing, and teaching requirements are ineligible unless they belong to racial or ethnic groups specified by state law. A student who would otherwise qualify is prevented from receiving up to $30,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance solely because of his or her race.

Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously struck down Wisconsin’s Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program in Rabiebna v. Higher Educational Aids Board, reaffirming that the Equal Protection Clause requires equal treatment without regard to race, ancestry, origin, or ethnicity.

The race-based criteria used by Defendants in administering the Minority Teacher Loan Program are nearly identical to those that the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

The MTL Program has also never identified a compelling government interest to support race-based criteria. As the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently reaffirmed, the U.S. Supreme Court has only “recognized two compelling interests justifying the governmental use of racial classifications”: (1) avoiding race riots in prisons; and (2) “remediating specific identified instances of government-sanctioned discrimination.”

The suit was filed on behalf of Citizens Defending Liberty, a group of Wisconsin taxpayers who want to see their tax dollars spent lawfully.

The complaint names the Higher Educational Aids Board, a Wisconsin state agency, and Tammie DeVooght Blaney, the Board's Executive Secretary. It outlines the case against the MTL program, noting that race discrimination is unconstitutional and a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The complaint also notes the teacher shortages in several disciplines, including English as a Second Language, bilingual education, foreign languages, library media, mathematics, music, reading, and sciences. Several areas of Special Education also face significant educator shortages.

Enough is enough. Wisconsin students are lagging behind in reading and math, and in Milwaukee Public Schools, black students are testing at the bottom nationally in both. The state needs good educators, not race-based programs.

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