The only remedy for government discrimination is to make it stop discriminating

Patrick McIlheran:

Wisconsin amendment would bar unjust preferences, defeating agencies’ so-sue-me attitude

One of the best sales pitches for a constitutional amendment on Wisconsin’s November ballot comes inadvertently from the proposal’s critics.

It goes like this: Racial discrimination is already illegal, so whatever you do, Wisconsin, don’t shut down the government’s ability to go on racially discriminating.

The text of the amendment puts it in the embroidered language of law, but the question posed to voters is straightforward: Should Wisconsin’s constitution “prohibit governmental entities in the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, public contracting, or public administration?”

Since racial discrimination polls about as well as influenza, you’d figure a yes vote is a done deal. Still, critics are trying.

A leading one, the head of the League of Women Voters Wisconsin, Debra Cronmiller, gave it a try in an interviewwith WisPolitics, saying that voting against racial discrimination would be meaningless — and meaningfully bad.