UW-Madison Disavowed ‘Candidates of Color’ Fellowship, but Then Never Had It Removed

The University of Wisconsin-Madison law school made misleading statements to The College Fix about its plans to remove a racially discriminatory fellowship description.

As previously reported, a third-party database advertised a law school faculty fellowship as targeted for “candidates of color.” After being pressed for answers, Associate Director of Communications Jennie Broecker told The Fix on May 15 she would ask ProFellow to update the listing.

The free database described the Hastie Fellowship as this: “The two-year law school Fellowship reflects a commitment to diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and especially encourages applications from candidates of color and other underrepresented communities in the legal academy.”

That differed from the latest version of the Hastie Fellowship, which did not include the explicit racial language (though past versions were clearly about prioritizing non-white applicants).

The ProFellow description appears to have been based on an older version. Broecker told The Fix: “The listing from ProFellow does not accurately list the criteria for the program,” Broecker said in mid-May. “We are requesting that ProFellow remove or correct the information on their website.”

The problem? Broecker never did follow up with ProFellow.

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