The Justice Department declined to defend a lawsuit challenging a federal grant program for colleges with large Latino populations on Aug. 22. In siding with the plaintiff, the Trump Administration affirms that they believe the decades-old program to be unconstitutional.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) in June, calls for an end to the Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) program. The plaintiffs claim the program is discriminatory and unconstitutional, writing that federal funds “should help needy students regardless of the immutable traits, and the denial of those funds harms students of all races.”
HSI provides $350 million in federal grants for colleges and universities where at least 25% of the student body is of Hispanic descent. HSI was created by Congress in 1998 as an addition to the 1965 Higher Education Act, when they observed that Latino students were attending and graduating from higher education at far lower rates in comparison to their white counterparts. Approximately 600 institutions across the nation receive funding through this program.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer notified Louisiana House Speaker Mike Johnson that the Justice Department would not be defending HSI in the case against Tennessee and SFFA in a letter released by the Justice Department on Aug. 22. The department has yet to file an official response to the lawsuit in court.
“The Department of Justice has determined that those provisions violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The Supreme Court has explained that ‘[o]utright racial balancing’ is ‘patently unconstitutional,’” Sauer stated in the letter.
On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court deemed affirmative action in university admission programs to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, putting an end to the practice of race-conscious admissions. This decision was reached because of two lawsuits filed by SFFA against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina for discriminatory admission decisions.
California contains 167 HSI campuses — over a quarter of all HSI establishments nationwide. Qualifying institutions include a majority of the states’ community colleges, five of the University of California campuses — including the University of California Irvine — and 21 of the California State schools. Since the beginning of the HSI program, California colleges and universities have received a cumulative total of over $600 million in federal grants.
This lawsuit could set precedent regarding other programs that provide federal funding for colleges with high amounts of minority students — including Black Institutions, Asian American, Native American and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions.
These programs are similar initiatives that receive financial support from the government based on the demographics of their student body. Schools such as Tribal Colleges and Historically Black Universities and Colleges receive subsidization based on mission and intent, differing them from programs such as HSI.
Without intervention from the Justice Department, Tennessee v. The Department of Education can potentially be thrown out from the Supreme Court. This would leave the grant program running, as the Department of Education cannot end the program without a decision from the court or Congress.
Lauren Durham is a News Staff Writer. She can be reached at durhaml@uci.edu.
Edited by Annabelle Aguirre