Beloit School District rescinds scholarship’s racial eligibility criterion following WILL’s legal threat

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The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has been notified by the School District of Beloit that it will reconfigure its “Grow Your Own Multicultural Teacher Scholarship Program” (GYO) to remove the racial eligibility criterion. The District has promised that it will not accept new applications or award any further GYO scholarships until the program has been accordingly revised and published, according to WILL.

According to WILL, “this ends the need for further legal action at this time and WILL is celebrating another victory for true equality under the law.”

“We will continue to seek out and litigate discriminatory programs that undermine human dignity and violate the Constitution. The District made the right decision in repealing the racial eligibility requirement for its GYO program—which was based on nothing more than a constitutionally-forbidden desire to match and balance students and staff according to their skin pigmentation. We hope to see the District’s new GYO program open soon and serving as many students and staff as possible,” WILL Associate Counsel, Cara Tolliver, stated.

Under the previous GYO program, the District awarded race-based scholarships of up to $20,000 to certain minority students and staff aspiring to be teachers. According to numerous documents and materials available on the District’s website, the District also solicited funding from its employees and Board members through direct payroll deductions and other available options and offered incentives for paid-time-off to staff members who donate to the GYO fund. Race-based programs, like the District’s previous GYO program, are plagued with numerous constitutional and legal infirmities and have been repudiated by the United States Supreme Court, according to WILL.

“WILL encourages the Beloit community to keep an eye out for the new changes coming to the District’s GYO teacher scholarship program. The District has vowed to pause both scholarship applications and awards until the race-based eligibility criterion is removed, and the program changes are complete.

The Wisconsin Law Journal reached out to Beloit School District Superintendent Willie Garrison on Thursday. No response was received prior to publication on Tuesday.