A new legal battle has erupted in the federal courts of Tennessee, where the state’s top legal officer has filed suit against the U.S. Department of Education, challenging a decades-old federal grant program aimed at supporting Hispanic-serving colleges.
At the heart of the dispute is the Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program—federal funding under Titles III and V of the Higher Education Act that flows to universities where Hispanic students make up at least 25% of enrollment. According to the lawsuit, this program unfairly doles out taxpayer dollars based on ethnicity, a move Tennessee’s attorney general claims violates the U.S. Constitution.
“The government cannot pick financial winners and losers based on race,” the complaint asserts. Backed by Students for Fair Admissions—the same group that successfully helped dismantle affirmative action in college admissions—the suit argues that the grant conditions amount to racial discrimination masquerading as equity.
In the 2024 fiscal year alone, nearly $229 million was allocated to a sub-program under this initiative. That money, according to the complaint, funds everything from STEM tutoring to lab upgrades at qualifying institutions—benefits Tennessee schools aren’t eligible to access, not for lack of Hispanic students, but because the demographic doesn’t reach the program’s numerical threshold.
The legal team behind the challenge includes veterans of the anti-affirmative action fight, signaling a continued effort to uproot race-conscious policies across federal and academic institutions.
The case, now on the docket as State of Tennessee v. U.S. Department of Education, builds on the momentum from the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision against Harvard and UNC, where a 6-3 majority ruled that race-based admissions policies are unconstitutional. That decision, also spurred by Students for Fair Admissions, has since emboldened conservative legal strategists to target similar frameworks in other government sectors.
The Department of Education has yet to issue a formal response.
