In early April, the U.S. Department of Education issued a straightforward request: all state education agencies must certify compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. Its reach has recently been clarified by the U.S. Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard, emphasizing that schools may not use race as a “negative” or a “stereotype” — effectively barring discriminatory DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives that target students based on race, or engage in “racial balancing,” such as closing schools or programs to manipulate racial demographics.
Instead of simply affirming that Wisconsin follows existing federal law — a condition for receiving critical federal education dollars — Superintendent Jill Underly and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) have refused. Underly announced that DPI would “not sign or submit” the certification requested by the Department of Education, claiming the process circumvents formal rulemaking procedures and infringes on local control. DPI even threatened potential litigation against the federal government and attempted to substitute district-level assurances in place of the required form.
This standoff has put more than half a billion dollars in federal funding at risk for Wisconsin schools — funding that supports Title I programs for low-income students, services for students with disabilities, English language learner initiatives, and more. In many districts, federal funds account for more than 15% of total school budgets.
The potential fallout could be catastrophic. Without federal support, school districts could be forced to cut staff, eliminate reading and math intervention programs, reduce support services for vulnerable populations, and slash extracurricular activities. Districts would likely turn to local taxpayers for help, leading to a wave of school referenda seeking higher property taxes to cover the shortfalls.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a public interest law firm, has warned DPI that its refusal could trigger this funding loss — and the consequences would fall hardest on students and families who rely most on public schools. WILL is now advising school boards across Wisconsin to act independently by certifying their own compliance with Title VI and working directly with the U.S. Department of Education to preserve their funding streams.
The urgency is not hypothetical. WILL has documented real-world instances where Wisconsin school districts violated Title VI standards. In Green Bay, a student with dyslexia was denied intervention services because he was white — a clear case of race-based discrimination. In Wauwatosa, the district proposed closing a successful STEM school because it was deemed “too white,” illustrating illegal racial balancing.
These examples highlight why federal oversight matters — and why DPI’s political stance threatens tangible harm to Wisconsin’s education system. Compliance with civil rights laws should be non-negotiable. Yet DPI’s refusal to sign the certification risks destabilizing school budgets, disrupting student services, and saddling taxpayers with higher costs — all to avoid a simple affirmation that Wisconsin schools will treat every student equally under the law.
As the deadline passes, the future of hundreds of millions of dollars — and the stability of Wisconsin’s public education system — now hangs in the balance.