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Education Department Pulls $350 Million in Grants for Minority-Serving Programs, Citing Unconstitutional Quotas

The agency points to a Justice Department finding and an active lawsuit to argue that eligibility based on racial or ethnic enrollment thresholds violates equal-protection principles.

FILE - Pedestrians cross University Ave on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., July 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
UC Merced is among 615 “Hispanic Serving Institutions” in the U.S. — 171 of them in California — that will lose millions of dollars in federal HSI funding as the Trump administration cancels the 30-year-old national program. 
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Overview

  • The move halts discretionary awards for seven programs, with the largest impact on Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and also affects grants for Predominantly Black, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander, Native American nontribal, and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian–serving institutions.
  • About $132 million in mandatory MSI funding will still be disbursed, though the department says it is reviewing the legal issues tied to those statutory payments.
  • Officials say the withheld funds will be reprogrammed to initiatives that do not use racial or ethnic quotas, but they have not specified where the money will go.
  • Higher-education leaders report immediate fallout for campus services and student support, with California’s roughly 171 HSIs and systems like CSU warning of significant program disruptions.
  • The decision follows a July determination by Solicitor General D. John Sauer that HSI grant criteria are unconstitutional and coincides with a lawsuit from Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions; an administration official said HBCUs are not affected.