The state of Tennessee and the group that Harvard has successfully sued to stop racing conscious admission to the college, challenges a federal program that offers tens of millions of dollars a year to colleges that serve Spanish students.
The lawsuit, submitted by students for fair recordings, focuses on a program to support so -called Spanish serving institutions, including schools that contain a threshold of 25 percent Spanish registration. The complaint says that the program violates the national and federal anti-discrimination laws and the Constitution, because it offers an advantage-sextra federal financing to those schools.
All public institutions for higher education in Tennessee serve students of Spanish and low incomes, says the lawsuit, but none of them are eligible for these subsidies because their Spanish registration is less than 25 percent.
“The HSI program does not pursue the general well -being,” says the complaint, which was submitted to the Federal Court for the Eastern district of Tennessee. “The pursuit of the well -being of one ethnic group at the expense of everyone else, including other Spanish students whose schools miss a random ethnic closure.”
The lawsuit is part of a volley of challenges against schools and programs in recent years, including fairs and internships, which use racial or ethnic criteria. Conservative activists have brought several lawsuits since the Supreme Court in 2023 effectively brought down the admission to the positive action of College College, in a lawsuit set by students for fair admission. The goals of lawsuits often close the program instead of spending the substantial resources needed to defend it before the court.
A group called the American Alliance for Equal Rights has at least submitted 10 Lawsuits claiming discrimination in various public and private programs, including the non -profit, risk capital and legal arenas.
The Hispanic service institutions program is intended to support Spanish and other students with a low income, according to the court case, and can be spent on needs such as laboratory equipment, libraries, guidance and counseling.
In 2024, the federal government assigned According to the Ministry of Education. Of these, $ 28 million went to 49 applicants, including Riverside Community College in California and Nassau Community College in New York.
The program was set up for concern that Latino -students were concentrated in colleges and universities who did not receive much of government financing, and where the results were not good, according to a report from 2021 by the Postsecundary National Policy Institute, a higher education policy group.
“These institutions ideally register large numbers of low incomes, regardless of the race, and they are insufficient resources,” said Emmanual Guillory, the senior director of government relationships at the American Council on Education.
“This is a program that has been supported in the past by Republicans and Democrats,” he said. “And this is a program that is not proposed to be eliminated by the Trump government.”
In a statement, Jonathan Skrmetti, the attorney general of Tennessee, said that “a federal subsidy system that openly discriminates against students based on ethnicity is not only wrong and non-American, it is unconstitutional.”
The lawsuit mentions the American educational department and the Minister of Education, Linda McMahon, as defendants. It is unclear whether the federal government would try to fight it before the court, because the Trump government is ideologically tailored to the principle of the court case.
The Trump government, for example, has cited the decision of the Supreme Court that prohibits confirmatory action as a justification for some of its policy efforts to limit diversity and stock programs-a priority, both in higher education and in K-12 schools.
However, states with a large number of Spanish institutions, such as California, New York and Illinois, can try to keep the program.
The educational department did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The lawsuit has no consequences for historic black colleges and universities, because every special financing for those schools is bound by their historical status, not the number of black students that they are currently registering, according to Edward Blum, the conservative activist behind students for fair admission.
“The HSI program does not connect financing with history,” said Mr. Blum, “but with the number of Spanish students currently on campus.”
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