Successfully appealing to the appeals of Tennessee and Harvard University to stop racially conscious college admissions challenge federal programs that offer tens of millions of dollars a year to universities that serve Hispanic students.
The lawsuit filed by students for fair admission targets programs that support so-called Hispanic serving institutions. The complaint says the program violates state and federal anti-discrimination laws and constitutional laws.
All public institutions in Tennessee in higher education serve Hispanic and low-income students, but they are not eligible for these grants as Hispanic enrollment is less than 25%.
“The HSI program does not pursue general welfare,” the complaint filed in federal court for the Eastern District of Tennessee states. “It pursues the welfare of one ethnic group at the expense of all others, including other Hispanic students whose schools missed out on arbitrary ethnic cutoffs.”
The lawsuit is part of recent challenges for schools and programs, including scholarships and internships that use racial or ethnic standards. Conservative activists have filed multiple lawsuits after the Supreme Court refused to admit a practically positive action university in a lawsuit filed in 2023 by students for fair admission. The goal of a litigation is often to close the program rather than devote the substantial resources needed to protect it in court.
The group, called the American Alliance for Equal Rights, has filed at least 10 lawsuits alleging discrimination in a variety of public and private programs, including non-profit, venture capital and legal fields.
The Hispanic-Serving Institutions program, which aims to help Hispanic and other low-income students, can be spent on needs such as laboratory equipment, libraries, personal instruction and counseling, according to the lawsuit.
In 2024, the federal government allocated approximately $229 million to Hispanic service agencies, according to the Department of Education. Of that, $28 million was sent to 49 applicants, including Riverside Community College in California and Nassau Community College in New York.
The program was created out of concern when Latino students are concentrated in universities that did not receive much funding from the government and the outcomes were poor, according to a 2021 report from the Higher National Institute of Policy Studies, a higher education policy group.
“These institutions would ideally enroll large numbers of low-income students, regardless of race, and lack resources,” said Emmanual Guilory, senior director of government relations at the American Council of Education.
“This is a program that has been supported by Republicans and Democrats in the past,” he said. “And this is a program that has not been proposed to be eliminated by the Trump administration.”
In a statement, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skulmetti said “a federal grant system that openly discriminates against students based on ethnicity is unconstitutional, not merely wrong and not Americans.”
The lawsuit names the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Linda McMahon as defendants. The Trump administration is ideologically consistent with the premise of the lawsuit, so it is unclear whether the federal government will try to fight it in court.
For example, the Trump administration cited the Supreme Court's decision to ban positive decisions as justifications to some of the policy efforts to limit diversity and equity programs, a prioritization of higher education and kindergarten to high school.
However, states with many Hispanic service agencies, such as California, New York and Illinois, have been able to intervene in an attempt to preserve the program.
The education department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to Edward Blum, a conservative activist behind students for fair admission, special funding for these schools is tied to their historical status, so it doesn't affect historically black universities and universities, rather than the number of black students currently registered.
“The HSI program connects funds, not history,” Blum said. “But the number of Hispanic students currently on campus.”
