Stirring a longstanding local and national controversy, a series of UW System race-based grants has recently provoked both criticism and adulation.
“We believe the law is clear: that it is illegal to have programs for which skin color is an absolute [qualification]; that is, programs where you are not even considered if you have the wrong ethnicity,” said Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative Virginia-based group that monitors state and federal race-exclusive programs.