Straws in the Wind - Part 18

From Inside Higher Ed: Two years after its Supreme Court victory against Harvard and UNC Chapel Hill, Students for Fair Admissions has a new target in its sights: Hispanic-serving institutions. [Last] Wednesday, the advocacy group joined the state of Tennessee in suing the U.S. Department of Education, arguing that the criteria to become an HSI are unconstitutional and discriminatory. The move is distressing HSI advocates, who hoped to see the institutions left out of the political fray.

To qualify as an HSI, a college or university needs to have a student body comprised of at least 25 percent Hispanic students and enroll at least 50 percent low-income students, or more than other comparable institutions, among other criteria. No Tennessee institutions operated by the state meet the threshold and are thus prohibited from applying for HSI-specific grants—even though they serve Hispanic and low-income students, according to the Tennessee attorney general and SFFA. As a result, the federal designation criteria amounts to discrimination, and Tennessee universities and students suffer as a result, the plaintiffs argue...

“The HSI program is particularly egregious in terms of how it treats students based on immutable characteristics,” Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti, who’s representing the state in the suit, told Inside Higher Ed. “It is just manifestly unfair that a needy student in Tennessee does not have access to this pool of funds because they go to a school that doesn’t have the right ethnic makeup.” ...

Skrmetti told Inside Higher Ed that “from Tennessee’s perspective, this is not part of a broader strategy to influence education policy. This is about discrimination against Tennessee schools because of the ethnic makeup of their student bodies.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/06/13/tenn-lawsuit-puts-hispanic-servings-fate-line.

Note:

UC Campuses with HSI Designation:

UC Irvine: Designated HSI.

UC Merced: Designated HSI.

UC Riverside: Designated HSI.

UC Santa Barbara: Designated HSI.

UC Santa Cruz: Designated HSI.

UC Davis: Emerging HSI.

UC San Diego: Emerging HSI.