Chris Rickert:

Conservative law firm calls on Sun Prairie to reject race-based ‘community conversation’ groups

A conservative, Milwaukee-based law firm on Wednesday called on the city of Sun Prairie and its school district to cancel plans to host race-based “affinity” groups as part of their effort to address issues of race, diversity and inclusion.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty says holding meetings specifically for Asian, white, Black and other racial groups runs counter to federal civil rights laws and American values.

“Some may claim that imposing racial distinctions, like affinity groups, is somehow necessary to address ‘systemic racism,'” the group says in a letter to the city and school district. “Discrimination to cure discrimination is antithetical to the principle of equality under the law.”

As part of the Sun Prairie effort, facilitators with the Las Vegas-based Courageous Conversation Global Foundation are to host six meetings over Zoom between Monday and June 30, with five meetings reserved for a specific racial category — East Indian, Asian, white, Black and Latino — and one intended to be multiracial.

An announcement of the meetings on the city’s website says they “are open to the public,” but “it is respectfully requested that individuals only sign up for the intraracial conversations for the race that they identify with.”

WILL deputy counsel Dan Lennington said the firm isn’t commenting on whether it intends to sue if the city and Sun Prairie School District don’t end plans for the race-based groups but would make a decision on what to do next by Monday.