September 17, 1999

U. of Wisconsin Loses Case Over Race-Based Hiring

By ALISON SCHNEIDER

A federal judge has ruled that the University of Wisconsin's affirmative-action plan did not justify its use of race as a determining factor in a faculty-hiring decision.

In 1997, John Ready, who is white, filed a race-discrimination suit against the university's Board of Regents, charging he had been passed over in favor of an Asian man for a tenure-track job teaching sculpture on the La Crosse campus.

Sandra Flake, dean of the College of Liberal