What the Amendment Would Do
On November 3, Wisconsin voters will decide whether to write a new section into the state constitution, Article I, Section 27, that would bar every layer of government in the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. The prohibition would include public employment, public education, public contracting and general public administration, and it applies broadly: state agencies, the University of Wisconsin System, the technical college system, school districts, municipalities, even the legislature and the courts all count as “governmental entities” under the amendment’s language.
Under the proposed amendment, a government office that currently sets aside contracts for minority-owned businesses, or a university that factors race into hiring or admissions decisions, would have to stop, just as a policy that disadvantaged someone because of their race or sex would have to stop. Two exceptions are written into the text: the state can still take actions necessary to keep federal funding, and it can still make “bona fide qualifications based on sex” where those are reasonably necessary to normal operations, to ensure things like sex-separated locker rooms or shelters stay intact.
Background
The push traces directly back to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious college admissions nationwide. Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), the amendment’s lead author in the Assembly, has said publicly that the ruling was the spark, but that he didn’t want to stop at admissions. If race and sex preferences were off-limits for one function of government, he reasoned, why not all of them?
Wisconsin’s constitution can’t be amended in one legislative session; the same language has to pass two separately elected legislatures before it goes to voters. Murphy and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) first pushed the language through in 2023-24 as Assembly Joint Resolution 109, clearing the Assembly 62-35 and the Senate 22-10. It was reintroduced this session as AJR 102 and SJR 94, passing the Assembly 54-45 in January and the Senate 18-15 a week later, both votes falling along party lines, Republicans for and Democrats against.
The amendment picked up an unlikely assist earlier this year when the Wisconsin Supreme Court, not exactly a conservative-friendly bench, ruled unanimously in Rabiebna v. Higher Educational Aids Board that a state financial-aid program limited to minority students was unconstitutional. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which brought that case, has pointed to the ruling as proof that race-based carve-outs in state programs were already on shaky legal ground, and that the amendment simply locks that principle into the Constitution so it can’t be relitigated program by program.
Strip away the framing on both sides and the amendment asks a pretty direct question: should Wisconsin’s constitution allow government to treat people differently based on race or sex, even when the goal is a good one? For readers who take the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection guarantee seriously, the honest answer is no.
Supporters & Opponents
WILL has been the loudest institutional voice pushing the amendment. As of early February, no political committee had registered to spend money specifically supporting or opposing the measure, and no ad-buy activity has surfaced publicly.
On the other side, the ACLU of Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin both formally registered opposition during the legislative process. Embolden WI, a Madison-based advocacy nonprofit, published a lengthy “vote no” argument warning that Michigan’s similar 2006 ballot measure was followed by steep declines in minority enrollment at flagship public universities and in state contracts awarded to minority-owned firms. Democratic state Sens. Chris Larson and Dora Drake, along with Rep. Kalan Haywood, have been the most visible legislative critics.
What the Polling Shows
No independent, nonpartisan poll appears to have asked Wisconsinites directly about this amendment as of this writing. The one poll in circulation was commissioned by WILL itself, conducted by Verasight in mid-August among 750 respondents: 61% supported the amendment, 15% opposed it, and 24% were undecided, with the pollsters reporting majority support even among self-identified Democrats.
The Arguments, For and Against
Supporters argue the case is simple: government shouldn’t sort people by race or sex, full stop, whether the sorting is meant to help or hurt. Nass and Murphy have both invoked a version of the line that “old wounds cannot be healed by inflicting new ones,” the idea that answering historical discrimination with new, officially sanctioned discrimination in the other direction perpetuates the problem instead of solving it. They frame the amendment as restoring merit as the standard for who gets hired, admitted, or awarded a public contract.
Opponents counter that Wisconsin already has laws against discrimination on the books, and that the amendment actually targets remedial programs meant to address real, measurable disparities — in health outcomes, access to capital for minority-owned businesses, and university enrollment. Sen. Drake has argued the amendment’s authors did little homework on the state programs it would unwind before drafting it. The ACLU and Embolden WI both point to Michigan’s post-2006 experience as a preview of what a “colorblind” mandate does to diversity numbers in practice, even if it doesn’t touch the letter of anyone’s civil rights on paper.
Where This Leaves Voters
Strip away the framing on both sides and the amendment asks a pretty direct question: should Wisconsin’s constitution allow government to treat people differently based on race or sex, even when the goal is a good one? For readers who take the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection guarantee seriously, the honest answer is no. A right that bends based on which group gets preferential treatment this decade isn’t really a right; it’s a policy preference dressed up as one.
The state’s own Supreme Court, hardly a rubber stamp for conservative causes, has already signaled real discomfort with race-based carve-outs in a unanimous ruling this year. The Equality Amendment doesn’t ban Wisconsin from caring about disparities; it bans the state from picking winners and losers by a person’s characteristics while it does. That’s a guardrail worth putting in the constitution, not just leaving to whichever party controls the statehouse next.
