State of Tennessee, Students for Fair Admissions argue federal money tied to racial discrimination
A group instrumental in overturning affirmative action at the Supreme Court has teamed up with Tennessee’s attorney general — who just successfully defended his state’s child gender reassignment ban at the high court — to take on a new challenge.
Students for Fair Admissions joined Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti this month in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education arguing the agency’s Hispanic-Serving Institutions grant program is unconstitutional.
Under the program, the department awards millions of dollars in federal grants annually to colleges and universities if they enroll a certain number of Hispanic students.
“But the HSI program excludes colleges and universities that fall below its arbitrary ethnic threshold of 25% Hispanic,” the lawsuit states. “…There is no valid reason to make federal funds turn on race or ethnicity.”
The lawsuit was filed three months after the American Civil Rights Project sent a letter to Congress calling Minority-Serving Institution programs “patently unconstitutional.” ACRP first brought the possibility of such a lawsuit to the attention of Skrmetti.
“Just imagine what would happen if the federal government decided it would give money only to institutions that are at least 25% white,” Gail Heriot, a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego and chair of the American Civil Rights Project, told The College Fix.
“The race or ethnicity of an institution’s students should have nothing to do with whether it receives this federal funding,” she said via email.
The lawsuit cites a line from the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”
The Tennessee lawsuit argues that federal funds “should help needy students regardless of their immutable traits, and the denial of those funds harms students of all races.”
Currently the grants are used to improve scientific or lab equipment, construction or renovation projects, faculty development, academic tutoring, counseling programs, and student support services, among other endeavors, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Skrmetti recently defended his state’s ban on child transgender medical treatments at the Supreme Court, and is no stranger to federal court battles over controversial topics.
“A federal grant system that openly discriminates against students based on ethnicity isn’t just wrong and un-American—it’s unconstitutional,” he said in a news release.
His office did not respond to a request from The College Fix seeking comment.
According to the complaint, although there are many colleges and universities across Tennessee that enroll Hispanic students, none of them are eligible for the HSI grant, as the program requires that 25 percent or more of the recipient’s student body be Hispanic to qualify.
“This program isn’t about encouraging diversity,” Heriot told The Fix. “A college’s student body could be 100% Hispanics and it would still be eligible for the funding.”
What’s more, the 25 percent threshold “leaves many needy students out in the cold,” Skrmetti stated in the news release.
“The University of Memphis, for example, is ineligible for the grant despite its 61% minority enrollment because its student body is insufficiently diverse according to the federal government’s arbitrary requirement.”
Data from the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities shows there are more than 600 HSIs across the nation, and that number has grown every year for the last decade. They are primarily in California, Texas, Puerto Rico, New York, Florida, New Mexico and New Jersey.
In 2024, Congress awarded about $28 million to Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
The Center for Equal Opportunity, a nonpartisan organization in favor of a colorblind society, agrees the program violates the Constitution.
“Hispanic students who just happen to live in regions with relatively lower Hispanic populations are shut out from the benefits of the program,” said Shawna Bray, the group’s general counsel, in an interview with The College Fix. “These kinds of incentives benefit no one, and could possibly end up perversely incentivizing segregation.”
The American Civil Rights Project has proposed alternative legislation that would redirect MSI funds toward need-based financial aid, specifically by enhancing the Pell Grant program.
The lawsuit also does not affect Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
“The HSI program is very different from the Historically Black Colleges and Universities program,” Heriot told The Fix. “HBCUs are on an entirely different and firmer constitutional footing. They are not required to have or maintain a particular racial composition of its student body.”
“These days HBCUs are majority white. To be eligible as an HBCU, a college or university must have been discriminated against in the past in the way it was funded.”
MORE: Top conservative civil rights advocates seek repeal of Minority-Serving Institutions programs
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A picture of a lawsuit paper / Ulf Wittrock, Shutterstock
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