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Wisconsinite voters will see three questions on their ballots in November. They ask whether the state constitution should be amended to restrict the governor's partial veto powers, prevent church closures during future pandemics and prohibit equity-based funding for government programs. Voters will be asked to vote yes or no on these questions.
Question 3, in particular, has generated significant opposition, despite being passed along party lines in January 2026, 18-15 in the Senate and by a wide majority, 54-24 in the Assembly.
This proposed amendment, which has come to be known by its supporters as the “equality amendment” and by its opponents as the “anti-equity amendment” reads as follows:
Governmental entity discrimination prohibited. 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?”
On the surface the language of the bill sounds reasonable, but government entities are already constrained by federal and state law from discriminating based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.
What does ‘preferential treatment’ mean?
What is new is the addition of the term “preferential treatment.”
“Using immutable characteristics like race, sex, color, ethnicity, national origin, and the like to discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group is wrong no matter who it targets or what the reason,” Sen Stephen Nass (R-Whitewater) one of the co-sponsors of the bill wrote in his testimony in support of the bill: The bill’s supporters contend that equity-based programs that take into consideration race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin are discriminatory. “It creates distrust and injustice, division and resentments that divide people, instead of uniting them, Nass said. Further, he contended that such programs undermine a merit-based system and that “past discrimination, however wrong, cannot be corrected with more discrimination. Old wounds cannot be healed by inflicting new ones.”
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Illustration of equality vs. equity
Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), disagrees. She said “by defining ‘preferential treatment’ broadly, Republicans intend to undermine any program that supports specific communities facing disproportionate challenges in our state, regardless of data-driven evidence. If enacted, this amendment would further embolden their legal justification to prohibit and eliminate programs that combat discrimination and address disparities.”
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Recently, 14 leading Wisconsin non-profits, including Chippewa Valley Votes, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, Wisconsin Interfaith Voter Engagement Campaign (WIVEC) and the Wisconsin Public Education Network issued a joint statement urging voters to vote no on Question 3.
They argue that “most Wisconsinites believe that no matter our background, race, or whether we live in a rural village or big city, we all deserve an equal shot,” noting that “some politicians are trying to stir up disinformation and division. Instead of passing policies that help Wisconsin families.”
Additional opponents to the amendment, include the ACLU of Wisconsin; The Democratic Party of Wisconsin and its County Affiliates; Grassroots North Shore; the Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin; The Milwaukee Courier; the National Association of Minority Contractors Wisconsin; the National Association of Social Workers Wisconsin Chapter; and the Waukesha NAACP.
In a press release, the National Association of Social Workers Wisconsin Chapter noted that the amendment “would ban state and local governments from considering race, gender, or similar identity factors when making decisions related to hiring, education, contracting, and public programs—even when those considerations are used to address documented inequities or expand access to opportunity … While framed as promoting fairness and neutrality, AJR 102 [the bill proposing the constitutional amendment] would reduce Wisconsin’s capacity to intentionally address longstanding disparities and would strip public systems of tools essential for promoting inclusion, representation, and equitable access.”
Similarly, the ACLU of Wisconsin said that if the amendment were enacted it “would eliminate identity-conscious initiatives that address longstanding inequalities in access to public education, employment, contracting, and administration in an attempt to advance the ongoing crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion …The resolution language mischaracterizes these programs as discriminatory when in reality, they simply acknowledge and seek to redress the fact that marginalized Wisconsinites have historically and still face deep-seated, structural barriers to opportunity due to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and other differences.”
The Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin based its opposition in the social teachings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), writing that “the proposed constitutional amendment would prohibit public entities from using equity and inclusion programs such as affirmative action to help remedy the injustices and serious harm that longstanding discrimination has caused for many people and communities in our society, including Native American and Black communities. … The ELCA’s social teaching emphasizes that ‘any use of power, whether in law, policy, or action’ should extend God’s power for all people and groups. This is ‘especially important with respect to those who have been denied power historically or marginalized by social systems.’ (Faith & Civic Life, p. 35). When considering proposed laws, one important question is: ‘Does it effectively rectify failures of the past, especially failures to include the marginalized?’ (Faith & Civic Life, p. 43)”
The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin published an anti-equity constitutional amendment educational toolkit. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign published a Vote No toolkit.
Co-sponsors of AJR102, Sen. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville) and Rep. Stephen Nass (R-Whitewater), both retiring in 2026, testified in favor of the amendment in November 2025, citing equal protection and merit-based decisions. Murphy quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have Dream” speech in which King expressed a vision that one day individuals would be judged by the content of their character, rather than their skin color. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) testified in support of the amendment citing legal and moral reasons.
Why enshrine it in the constitution?
Voters may also wonder about what is so urgent or important about this proposed amendment that would require it to be written into the Wisconsin constitution.
Like most of the nine constitutional amendments that have been put before voters in the recent past, its language may confuse voters who do not know anything about the referendum’s history.
On the surface, it is difficult to understand what the implications of the amendment would be if it is passed.
Opponents like Sen. Drake argue that passage of the amendment would eliminate funding for equity-based programming that is designed to give underserved and marginalized individuals and communities access to helpful, and in some cases, lifesaving programming. If passed, funding for education, scholarships, equity-based health care initiatives, supplier contracting, and workforce initiatives.
Real-Life Consequences
All Wisconsin Democrat legislative representatives voted against the bill.
“The Republican Anti-Equity Constitutional Amendment on the November ballot aims to dismantle historic guardrails and programs designed to create a fair Wisconsin for all,” Sen Drake said.
Drake also said Wisconsin has some of the worst racial disparities in the nation to overcome, including infant mortality, child poverty, out-of-school suspensions, bachelor’s degrees, incarceration, unemployment, and home ownership.
“Now, as the balance of power is potentially shifting in Madison, Republicans are trying to bar remedies via this amendment to the Constitution,” Drake said.
About 20% of the bill’s Republican supporters, which included six Republican senators and nine Republican Representatives, are not seeking re-election in 2026, including the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. Nass (R-Whitewater) and Rep. Murphy (R-Greenville). With new maps in place, some believe that control of the senate will go to the Democrats, Democrats remain hopeful about flipping the more Republican Assembly, according to a recent article in Wisconsin Watch.
Drake listed various programs that could be eliminated if this referendum passes, including the Department of Administration’s Minority Business Certifications & Supplier Diversity Programs; UW System Minority and Disadvantaged Programs, including additional financial aid; Wisconsin Technical College System Minority Student Participation and Retention Grants; The Higher Educational Aids Board’s Minority Teacher Loan Program; Department of Children and Families (DCF) Domestic Abuse Grants; Department of Tourism and Arts Board Grants; and grants from the Department of Health Services (DHS): Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA) Intervention Grants; Health Disparity Reduction Grants, African American Resource Center in Milwaukee, HIV Prevention Grants, and Women’s Health Block Grants.
“This referendum has real-life consequences for everyone in our state. Not only will it remove programs like these … but it will cripple our ability as elected leaders to make decisions based on the data,” Drake said.
“Our job is to help all Wisconsinites regardless of their background and ensure that we have a fair and equal society across the board. If this passes, it will make it that much harder to do our jobs. I voted no for this ballot measure in the Senate, and I will be voting no again in November.”
How Ballot Question #3 Ended Up on the November Ballot: A brief history of the anti-DEI initiative in Wisconsin
Understanding a bit of the history of the bill makes it clear that the impetus among its supporters of this amendment in the Wisconsin legislature was to undermine long-standing equity-based programs, in particular Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, designed to level the playing field and uplift people of color and women. The amendment fulfills long-standing policy goals of the conservative movement.
For starters, the amendment’s language closely mirrors and borrows language from Section 4 and 5 of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) model for a new Civil Rights Act, initially drafted in 1996 and reapproved in 2013 and 2017. ALEC is a Conservative non-profit organization that drafts and shares model legislation for state governments to use.
What the Wisconsin amendment doesn’t do is include the explicit language of Section 2 of the ALEC model, which reads:
“(A) The civil rights achievements of the 1960’s were designed to ensure that all citizens are treated in a race- and gender-neutral fashion.
(B) Since it is important to end all discrimination in society, preferences and quotas that result in more discrimination need to be eliminated.”
This language puts a spotlight on the intention of ALEC’s model language. It is worth noting that though the authors of Wisconsin’s proposed amendment borrowed wholesale from ALEC, they did not include these sections, which would have made clear the amendment’s purpose.
Create hard targets for woke culture warriors
In the 900-page Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (commonly known as “Project 2025”), published in 2023 by The Heritage Foundation, outlined a policy mandate for the next conservative president. In the first few pages of the foreword, the authors state that “the next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors.”
The report provides a lengthy and inclusive list of words that it advocates striking from federal rules, regulations and legislation because it claims that the terms themselves deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights:
“This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists,” the authors wrote.
Wisconsin rides the anti-woke bandwagon
The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action in college admissions ushered in an era of renewed conservative opposition to equity-based programming and DEI initiatives. In 2023, Wisconsin legislators, with Republican majorities in both the Senate and Assembly jumped on the anti-woke bandwagon. The constitutional amendment’s Republican supporters knew that an ordinary bill would likely face a veto from Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. Putting forward a bill to get a veto-proof constitutional amendment on the ballot seemed an efficient way to advance policy. First passed in the 2023-2024 legislative session, it passed for second time in January 2026. Proposed constitutional amendments must pass in two consecutive legislative sessions.
Supporters of the amendment gained momentum in 2025, on the heels of Donald Trump’s presidential election during the heady days of DOGE when the chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk decried waste, fraud and abuse, and President Trump signed a flurry of Executive Orders targeting federal DEI programs in the very first days of President Trump’s second term.
Just four days into his second term in 2025, an analysis by Time magazine reported that two-thirds of Trump’s executive orders aligned with the Project 2025 agenda. In addition, 32 of the 40 named authors in Project 2025 had ties to the Trump administration according to Factchck.org. In 2024, the New York Times reported that at least 144 of the 267 additional contributors” to Project 2025 also worked in Trump’s first administration, on his campaign or on transition teams.
In February 2025, Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers), vice chair of Wisconsin’s Government Operations, Accountability and Transparency Committee (GOAT), sent out information requests to 72 counties, and the 50 largest municipalities and school districts, requesting information regarding their DEI expenditures programming. On January 8, 2026.Sortwell released a report based upon the responses and made the following recommendations to the GOAT committee.
“It is recommended that the GOAT Committee undertakes legislation that does the following:1) Remove DEI strings and language from state grants to maintain local control so that they can best serve their communities; 2) Prohibit all levels of government from contracting with vendors within a discriminatory DEI lens; 3) Remove the term “health equity” from all state law and administrative code; 4) Prohibit policies and practices in all levels of government that utilize equity instead of equality; 5) Prohibit all levels of government from using taxpayer resources to fund discriminatory DEI trainings, requiring employee participation in these trainings, and having employees partake in these trainings during work hours; 6) Prohibit the hiring of DEI staff and use of DEI terminology in job responsibilities for all levels of government; 7) Prohibit DPI from requiring school districts to adhere to discriminatory and race-based policies and practices, including spending local tax dollars to fund such.”
It seems likely that the ballot initiative approved on January 21, 2026 by the Legislature answered Sortwell’s GOAT Report recommendations, along with realizing long-standing conservative policy objectives. The bill passed along party lines, and it was thus approved for inclusion on the November 2026 ballot.
WILL, a conservatively aligned Wisconsin organization, recently released the results of a survey conducted in mid-August by Verasight, which found that the amendment has the support of 61.1% of all registered voters in Wisconsin, including 65.7% of Republicans, 63.0% of independents, and 54.2% of Democrats, with 23.7% remaining undecided.
Despite the opposition of anti-DEI advocates allied with conservative groups such as ALEC, The Heritage Foundation and WILL, Americans show strong support for DEI programs, according to a recently released Bentley University-Gallup Business in Society Survey “Seventy-one percent of Americans say it is somewhat or completely true that businesses with diverse workforces are more profitable, up from 61% in . Another 75% say businesses with diverse workforces make more innovative products, up from 64%.” The views of ordinary Americans and the anti-DEI policies of advocacy groups and some in the federal and state governments do not align.
