New Administration represents “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to reduce the size and scope of government for good 

The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has launched a comprehensive effort to eliminate “diversity, equity & inclusion” programs in all levels of the federal government ahead of the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump. The effort in total represents at least $124 billion in federal spending and mirrors the Trump administration’s stated goals of eliminating DEI – and all race-based programs – because they are unconstitutional and unlawful, distort the free market through unnecessary regulations, and otherwise waste taxpayer money. 

WILL’s newest efforts include new complaints that will be filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and the U.S. Department of Education against John Hopkins University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, respectively. WILL’s latest action comes on the heels of several other lawsuits, such as WILL’s pending lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Transportation’s $37 billion affirmative action program and the U.S. Department of Education’s DEI program for graduate students. WILL has a long and successful track record of dismantling multi-billion-dollar federal DEI programs.  

We also created a comprehensive roadmap, outlining ways to bring true equality to the federal government while also increasing efficiency and eliminating wasteful spending.   

WILL’s Roadmap to Equality: In the past four years, President Biden installed a whole-of-government Equity Agenda that infected every corner of the federal bureaucracy with race discrimination. The Equity Agenda wastes billions in tax dollars and discriminates every day against hardworking American taxpayers. In its new Roadmap to Equality, WILL identifies these racially discriminatory programs, policies, and regulations, which are currently on the books at federal agencies. The Roadmap to Equality provides a one-stop resource to the Trump Administration, allowing them to easily target these programs, policies, and regulations, and then terminate, settle, or investigate them.  

New Federal Complaint Against John Hopkins School of Medicine: Pursuant to the Affordable Care Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, WILL, on behalf of Do No Harm, filed a new federal complaint with HHS this week against John Hopkins University for its discriminatory practices against medical students. The University boasts of a top-ranking medical school in which third- and fourth-year medical students have opportunities to complete required “clinical rotations” to gain hands-on patient care experiences across various medical specialties. However, Johns Hopkins does not treat all students equally in providing these crucial training experiences and relies on taxpayer funds to impose race- and sex-based eligibility criteria across various clinical clerkships and scholarship programming—including, for example, clinical experiences in the specialties of dermatology, orthopedics, pediatrics, plastic surgery, and general medicine. Because these programs derive from Johns Hopkins’ broader mission to prioritize race and racial politics in an effort to “increase diverse representation,” there can be little question that other programing at the University is similarly infected with racial discrimination, and WILL and Do No Harm asked the new HHS administration to open a formal investigation into the University’s use of race in education and training. 

New Federal Complaint Against UW-Madison: On behalf of Young America’s Foundation (“YAF”) and Young Americans for Freedom at UW-Madison (“YAF UW-Madison”), WILL filed a Title VI complaint against the University of Wisconsin-Madison for offering, awarding and promoting at least 60 race-based scholarships. For most of these scholarships, UW-Madison indicates that race is an eligibility factor with various phrases such as “URSOC must contain Y.” The acronym URSOC means “Underrepresented Student of Color.” Other scholarship criteria have more explicit statements such as “Ethnicity must contain BLACK” or “Ethnicity must contain WHITE.” Many others simply list the racial groups that are eligible. Our new Title VI complaint asks the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to open an investigation and direct UW-Madison to stop offering, awarding, and promoting scholarship programs that use race as a factor. 

The Quotes: WILL Deputy Counsel, Dan Lennington, stated, “This year is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address race discrimination by the federal government. The Biden Administration supercharged divisive DEI and affirmative action in federal agencies, wasting billions in tax dollars and impacting millions of Americans. In November, the voters spoke loud and clear: this discrimination must end.” 

WILL Associate Counsel, Cara Tolliver, stated, “America’s hospitals and medical training institutions face a reckoning. The healthcare system cannot function effectively when healthcare education opportunities and experiences are reserved for certain individuals based on race and factors other than merit. Healthcare organizations that continue to ignore long-established anti-discrimination laws may soon find the new Trump-Vance Administration taking a firm stance.” 

WILL Associate Counsel, Nathalie Burmeister, stated, “Under Title VI, federally funded universities like UW-Madison cannot restrict scholarship awards and other financial aid to students based on race, but that’s exactly the current practice. In 2025, WILL plans to find, pursue, and eliminate these activities.”  

Pending Title VI Complaint’s Soon to Be Reviewed by Trump Administration filed by WILL previously: 

• WILL Files Federal Civil Rights Complaint Against Cleveland Clinic’s Racially Discriminatory Patient Programming 

• WILL Seeks to Hold Top-Ranking Cincinnati, Ohio Hospital Accountable for Discriminatory Medical Education and Training Programs 

More about WILL’s Equality Under the Law Project can be found here: DefendEquality.org.