Grant program with large Hispanic student populations in jeopardy

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The Trump administration is pulling back from a program that provides $350 million in grant money to colleges that support large Hispanic student populations, according to the Washington Post.  

The announcement comes as the latest chapter in a lawsuit levied by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, which claims that the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program is both unconstitutional and discriminatory. 

A response has not been filed in the case, according to the Washington Post, and the Justice Department has said it doesn’t plan to. 

“The Supreme Court has explained that outright racial balancing is patently unconstitutional,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, according to the Post. “Its precedents make clear that the government lacks any legitimate interest in differentiating among universities based on whether a specified number of seats in each class are occupied by individuals from the preferred ethnic groups.”

The Tennessee Attorney General’s office did not respond to the Post’s request for comment, and Students for Fair Admissions declined to comment. 

In July, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities filed a motion to intervene in the case, which the court has not yet ruled on. They, too, did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.

According to the Post, the case could be discarded if there is no intervention, leaving the program’s future uncertain. 

“The HSI designation is in statute and the executive branch can’t just declare it unconstitutional,” Amanda Fuchs Miller, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs at the U.S Department of Education, told the Post.