TOP Down? - The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Racially Discriminatory Faculty Hiring

We believe this cohort approach is essential for both recruitment and retention of scholars of color.” – TOP Proposal, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison * * * On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark 6-3 decision concluding that the admissions systems used by Harvard College and the University of North Carolina violated the Equal Protection. [...] 2 to more general contexts, such as a desire “to remedy the effects of societal discrimination”; (2) “avoiding imminent and serious risks to human safety in prisons, such as a race riot”; and (3) in the context of university admissions.3 Under the third exception, the one claimed by Harvard and UNC in defense of admissions policies that allowed staff to consider the race of student applicants, the. [...] in race for race’s sake.”8 Third, and finally, the Court observed that neither admissions program contained a “logical end point”— a time when racial discrimination to achieve the desired educational goals would no longer be necessary.9 In particular, the Court rejected the schools’ attempt to tie the necessity of their programs to the percentage share in each class of certain underrepresented min. [...] 3 The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Target of Opportunity Program UW describes its TOP program as “enabl[ing] academic departments to hire exceptional faculty members who would greatly enhance the quality and diversity of the department.”12 The program “is designed to specifically support the recruitment of outstanding faculty members among historically underrepresented groups, with a particul. [...] Departments requesting TOP approval frequently discussed a desire to increase minority groups or particular minority groups simply for the sake of having more of that race present, often citing to general numbers like the percentage of members of the race in the community.