MILWAUKEE (CN) — An attorney represented by a conservative law firm in Wisconsin has sued in federal court to toss the state bar association’s diversity program, which places first-year law school students in paid legal clerkships.
It's the latest shoe to drop in state conservatives’ resistance to state-funded diversity, equity and inclusion resources.
Filing a complaint Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, lead plaintiff Daniel Suhr and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty say the State Bar of Wisconsin’s diversity clerkship program is unconstitutionally discriminatory on the basis of race, in part because it requires dues-paying members to fund a program they say prejudices white applicants.
The 10-week paid summer employment program for students at the Marquette University and University of Wisconsin law schools looks to match “students with backgrounds that have been historically excluded from the legal field who are in good standing” with work at private law firms, corporate legal departments and governmental agencies, according to the state bar’s website.
Suhr, an attorney who lives and works in Ozaukee County, says the bar association using his mandatory dues to fund the diversity program violates his rights to free speech and free association. The plaintiff is a “constitutional conservative” who “believes in equality under the law for all,” his complaint says.
The lawsuit names seven officials with the State Bar of Wisconsin as defendants. A media spokesperson for the bar could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
The plaintiff says the state bar started the diversity clerkship program in 1993 to “diversify the legal profession, racially and otherwise,” but starting in the fall of 2023 the bar adopted the stance that the program is for law students “with backgrounds that have been historically excluded from the legal field.”
Students are selected for the program based on an assessment of protected traits, Suhr says, adding that a recent bar presentation to law students said a student could demonstrate the necessary background to participate in the program “by citing an immutable characteristic, such as ‘race.’”
“By race, the bar means not white,” Suhr says.
According to the plaintiff, applicants to the program must also submit a personal statement reflecting, among other things, how a student “contributed to the diversification of spaces that lack diversity” or “hopes to contribute to diversity in the future.” A selection of these personal statements from several students “make exceedingly clear that these students believed their protected traits — including race, national origin, gender identity, and sexual orientation — were relevant considerations.”
Aside from objecting to the diversity clerkship program, which Suhr says has a $40,000 budget for fiscal year 2024, the plaintiff takes issue with his dues funding other “non-germane” bar activities, such as using resources to endorse Black Lives Matter.
The bar’s dues-collecting program essentially forces Suhr to associate with the bar while it engages in these activities, which are not germane to regulating or improving the legal profession, Suhr says.
The “germane” language in the lawsuit comes from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Keller v. State Bar of California, in which the court said the California bar could not compel an objecting member to fund activities that have nothing to do with “a constitutionally permissible justification for mandatory membership.”
Suhr’s lawsuit also cites the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision gutting affirmative action as giving legal heft to his arguments. A press release from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty regarding the lawsuit also name-checks Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, saying the decision “has created new opportunities to challenge Wisconsin State Bar practices in violation of the 14th and First Amendments.”
Suhr is represented by Skylar Croy, an attorney with the conservative firm. The lawsuit is currently in the court of Magistrate Judge Stephen Dries at the Milwaukee federal court.
Diversity, equity and inclusion practices in state government and state-funded agencies are also in the crosshairs of other Wisconsin conservatives, namely Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican from Rochester.
Vos led a charge by Republican lawmakers this year to block pay raises for UW employees and the release of $32 million in aid passed in the state budget as leverage to get UW leaders to agree to cut DEI programs and positions.
The UW Board of Regents at first rejected Vos’ deal, but the board reversed course last week and approved it in response to further pressure. The deal, passed Tuesday by a legislative committee, in part requires freezing DEI positions through the end of 2026; requires one-third of UW’s 43 jobs in DEI positions to be transferred or eliminated; and scraps a program at UW-Madison for recruiting diverse faculty.
Liberals, including Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, decried the deal Vos and others forced on the UW system, but Vos has intimated that Republicans “are not done yet” when it comes to targeting DEI efforts in state government.
“Stay tuned," Vos said, "this was just the first step, and hopefully a lot more to come.”
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