The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents unanimously voted Friday to extend the "holistic" admissions policy already in place at the UW-Madison to other system schools.

However, state Rep. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, chair of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, claims the new admissions policy — which includes race as an explicit factor — violates two Wisconsin statutes.

The statutes in question are the following:

36.11 (3)(a): "No sectarian or partisan tests or any tests based upon race, religion, national origin of U.S. citizens or sex shall ever be allowed in the admission of students thereto."

36.12 (1): "No student may be denied admission to, participation in or the benefits of, or be discriminated against in any service, program, course or facility of the system or its institutions because of the student's race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, disability, ancestry, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marital status or parental status."

We believe Rep. Nass' objections have merit. It seems only a Clintonian interpretation of the meaning of "tests" and "discriminated against" would exempt an admissions policy that specifically asks an applicant to indicate his or her race.

Even Regent President David Walsh conceded the board "may be wrong in the long run" when commenting on the legality of the new policy.

Proponents of holistic admissions claim it is in line with U.S. Supreme Court precedent. In 2003, the court ruled in Grutter v. Bollinger that the narrowly tailored use of race in admissions does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

However, while the policy is consistent with the court's ruling in Grutter, other factors are at play here — namely, Wisconsin Statutes. Simply because the court ruled that race-based admissions are not unconstitutional does not prevent Wisconsin law from placing further restrictions on the use of race as a factor.

In past editorials, we have detailed our objections to admissions policies that consider race. However, those concerns aside, we look forward to legal review of the board's decision. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the regents, who decided to vote first and ask questions later.