EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: School said it would ask a third-party database to correct racially discriminatory listing, but never actually did
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.
Earlier this week, Vicki Johnson, the founder of the database, reached out to The Fix in response to questions for another article about racially discriminatory programs at a different school.
“Also, we have never been contacted by Jennie Broecker for an update to the Hastie program fellowship listing,” Johnson told a College Fix reporter. “But I went ahead and updated their listing using their current website language, so that’s now done.”
Johnson in her email noted that every listing includes contact information for anyone who sees an error.
Broecker did not directly answer questions from The Fix about who and when specifically she reached out for corrections.
“Thanks for reaching out,” she wrote on June 17. “UW Law is pleased that ProFellow has updated the Hastie Fellowship listing.”
She did not respond to a subsequent email asking for actual answers to the questions.
UW-Madison officials, however, have had problems in the past following through on promises.
As reported earlier this year, the school has never hired a “conservative political thought” professor as it promised it would try to do as part of a deal with the legislature to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.
“UW–Madison continues to actively work on the creation of an endowed chair in conservative political thought,” spokesman John Lucas told The Fix in the spring. He said university officials “don’t have other updates to share at this time,” repeating what he told The Fix in February 2025.
The lesson is this: when someone at UW-Madison makes a promise, be wary until you see proof.
