Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) contending its Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) grant program is unconstitutional and discriminatory.
The suit argues the program’s requirement for colleges to have at least 25% Hispanic enrollment to qualify for federal funds unfairly excludes some Tennessee academic institutions. Skrmetti asserts that schools like the University of Memphis, with a 61% minority enrollment, are ineligible solely because they fail to meet the 25% Hispanic student requirement.
“A federal grant system that openly discriminates against students based on ethnicity isn’t just wrong and un-American – it’s unconstitutional,” stated Skrmetti in a press release.
“In SFFA v. Harvard, the Supreme Court ruled that racially discriminatory admissions standards violate the law, and the HSI program’s discriminatory grant standards are just as illegal. Treating people differently because of their skin color and ancestry drags our country backwards.”
Skrmetti also noted that some low-income Hispanic students in Tennessee may fall through the cracks if they attend colleges that “don’t meet the government’s arbitrary quota.”
Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, which filed the lawsuit as a co-plaintiff alongside the state, echoed Skrmetti’s sentiments. Blum noted the HSI program’s criteria may pressure colleges to admit more Hispanic students to qualify for funds, potentially conflicting with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on race-based admissions.
“This lawsuit challenges a federal policy that conditions the receipt of taxpayer-funded grants on the racial composition of a student body,” Blum stated. “No student or institution should be denied opportunity because they fall on the wrong side of an ethnic quota.”
The HSI program, established under Titles III and V of the Higher Education Act, allocates federal funding to qualifying colleges. In fiscal year 2024, for example, Congress appropriated nearly $229 million to support initiatives like lab equipment and STEM tutoring for low-income students through the program.
Tennessee’s lawsuit seeks a ruling that declares the HSI program’s ethnicity-based student requirements unconstitutional and requests a permanent injunction preventing DOE from enforcing these criteria.
The lawsuit comes amid significant shifts in federal education policy under the Trump administration. President Donald Trump says he wants to dismantle DOE entirely, appointing Secretary Linda McMahon to scale back “tens of billions of dollars of waste on progressive social experiments and obsolete programs.”
