The Wauwatosa STEM School is at the center of a civil rights complaint following its closure, which was allegedly linked to racial demographics rather than academic performance. This development was reported by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
According to the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), the Wauwatosa School Board decided to close WSTEM not due to underperformance or financial issues but because of its racially imbalanced student population. The school, a charter program within the district, was identified as part of the board’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy aimed at aligning racial demographics across all district schools. WILL filed a formal civil rights complaint in December 2024 with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Internal documents reviewed by WILL indicate that the Wauwatosa School District’s DEI Task Force explicitly cited WSTEM’s disproportionately white enrollment as an issue requiring attention. The task force concluded that the school did not reflect the racial composition of the district and declared that student demographics must be "more representative of the diversity of the WSD student population." Despite receiving 418 applications in 2023–24 and outperforming most elementary schools in Wisconsin, the board approved its closure effective June 2026.
Former Wauwatosa school board member Michael Meier, who served for 21 years, told WILL that racial proportions have increasingly influenced district decisions. He noted that other high-performing or advanced-track programs were similarly reduced or eliminated if their racial makeup diverged from the district’s overall demographics. Meier, now a witness in the Title VI complaint, described this as a shift away from student welfare toward ideological quotas: "If racial proportions aren’t what they want, they cut the program."
WSTEM, short for Wauwatosa School of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, is a charter elementary program operated within the Wauwatosa School District. It ranked fifth out of 1,200 elementary schools in Wisconsin and consistently attracted hundreds of applicants each year for limited spots. Despite its academic success, WSTEM’s racial composition became the rationale for its closure as part of the district’s broader DEI initiative.
