Hispanic colleges targeted by lawsuit push back in court
This week, the association, better known as HACU, filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit that seeks to dismantle the Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) program — which provides federal grants to universities and colleges with a student body that is over 25% Latino.
The program created by Congress provides grants to universities already educating the majority of the nation's Hispanic college students to expand their ability to help 'Hispanic students and other low-income individuals complete postsecondary degrees.'
HACU is now part of the effort started last month by the Students for Fair Admissions — the same group behind the legal challenges that resulted in the Supreme Court striking down college affirmative action programs in 2023 — and the state of Tennessee to sue the Department of Education over the HSI program. They allege it ' discriminates based on ethnicity ' and are calling on the federal court to deem it unconstitutional.
The association representing Hispanic universities also alleges that the lawsuit unfairly characterizes the HSI program, since the added resources from the grants benefit the entire student body of the institution.
"We want our side of the story to be heard by the court before they decide on the case," Dr. Antonio R. Flores, president and chief executive officer of HACU, told NBC News on Friday.
Flores said HSI-designated schools don't automatically get grants based on the number of Hispanic students on their campus. They must 'compete among themselves' to access the money and must prove that the majority of their students are low-income and that they 'spend less money per student than their peer institutions.'
"This is not about preferential treatment. It is about equitable resource allocation for institutions,' Flores said.
In court filings Thursday, Students for Fair Admissions and the state of Tennessee did not oppose HACU's motion to join the case as a defendant.
The Department of Education has not yet responded to the complaint in court. It also did not respond to an email from NBC News seeking comment on Friday.
To identify which colleges and universities serve the majority of the nation's Hispanic students, Congress defined Hispanic-Serving Institutions as those that have at least 25% of its full-time student population be of Hispanic or Latino descent.
The HSI designation is based on geography and demographics, Fran Fajana, an attorney at LatinoJustice representing HACU in this case, told NBC News. 'It's not because the institution went out of its way to recruit a lot of Latino students.'
The percentage of Latinos with a college degree still lags far behind white students. In 2022, about 21% of Latino adults over 25 had a bachelor's degree, compared to 42% for non-Hispanic whites, according to census figures.
Students for Fair Admissions, which is led by conservative activist Ed Blum, referred to the 25% requirement as an ' arbitrary ethnic threshold" when it published a news release about the lawsuit on June 11.
"This lawsuit challenges a federal policy that conditions the receipt of taxpayer-funded grants on the racial composition of a student body," Blum said in a statement last month.
The Office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in another statement from that the "rule leaves many needy students out in the cold."
"The HSI program's discriminatory grant standards are just as illegal," Skrmetti said in the statement.
Their lawsuit is part of a series of legal challenges brought forward in recent years — following the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action — against schools, scholarships, internships and other educational programs that mention race or ethnicity in their criteria.
Once an institution is competitively awarded a grant, there is no requirement in the HSI program limiting how those resources are distributed across the school, Fajana said.
"Whether they've gotten the resources to expand their science program laboratories [or]capacity building," she said, "those resources are not limited to Latino students."
A 2023 study from the Urban Institute found that the investments made by HSI-designated institutions increased the number of students of all races and ethnicities who completed college and obtained bachelor's degrees.
"What is at stake?" Flores said, "Success in advancement of, not just the Latino community, but all of the students who go to HSIs and benefit from the funding."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
42 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
East Chicago honors Hispanic political pioneers Jesse and Rosemarie Gomez
The 3800 block of Grand Boulevard in East Chicago now honors Jesse and Rosemarie Gomez, both Hispanic pioneers in politics. Jesse was the first Hispanic elected official in Indiana, Councilman Robert Garcia said. Rosemarie became the first Hispanic woman to serve on the East Chicago City Council after her husband died in 1979. Garcia represents the district that the Gomezes once did. The City Council approved the resolution last year, but getting everyone together for Friday's dedication of the new sign for Jesse & Rosemarie Gomez Way took time. 'We stand on the back of those elected officials,' Garcia said. 'I stand on the shoulders of their leadership and their legacy.' Their son, also named Jesse Gomez but with a different middle name, followed in his parents' footsteps, serving on both the city council and now on the school board. Gomez told his parents' story. 'My father's family arrived here in East Chicago from Mexico as trailblazers in 1916, and he was born here on April 14, 1920,' Gomez said. At age 12, Gomez's father and his family returned to Zacatecas, Mexico, later attending the University of Mexico, where he focused on political science. With the impending start of World War II, he returned to East Chicago to register for the draft and work at Inland Steel. After he left the mill, he worked as an insurance agent, an editorial writer for two Spanish-language newspapers, a radio announcer for WJOB's Spanish-language 'Hora Mexicana' program, and as a health inspector for the city. In 1963, he was elected 6th District councilman, the first Hispanic elected to political office in the state's history. He was re-elected to three additional consecutive terms, Gomez said, eventually becoming the 5th District councilman. 'Time with an elected official is interesting,' Gomez said. 'As a youngster, I remember that we often had a table set for eight at dinner – two for my parents, four for the children and one for the live-in family friend, Joe. The eighth seat was reserved for someone else, usually an immigrant who was first making their way here to East Chicago from Mexico, Puerto Rico or somewhere across the Atlantic.' 'My father was a good dancer, a great sketch artist, a fantastic chess player, a horrible joke teller and, in his mind, the greatest soccer player in the world,' Gomez said. Gomez rattled off a long list of achievements during his father's career, including serving as a Spanish language volunteer for the Pan-American Games and project coordinator for the East Chicago Vietnam Veterans Memorial, not to mention service twice as City Council president. 'That's a lot for one person to do in a lifetime. My father achieved that during his short time here on Earth,' Gomez said. The elder Jesse died Aug. 31, 1979, at age 59. Rosemarie was born Jan. 14, 1926, in Saltillo, Mexico. While she was young, her family moved back and forth between the United States and Mexico. She attended East Chicago public schools but left early to work at Inland Steel to help her family financially, Gomez said. She later returned to school and graduated from Washington High School. In 1939, Rosemarie portrayed the Statue of Liberty during the Mexican Independence Day Parade. The next year, she served as queen of that parade. Rosemarie, 99, has her own long list of accomplishments and involvement in the community. 'My mother was a great cook, a fantastic gardener, and she is one of the most loving, kind and considerate people that you ever will meet,' Gomez said. One day, Gomez said, his father told Rosemarie she needed to become an American citizen, which she did. 'My mother later found out that the reason he asked her to do that was so that years later she could vote for him when he first ran for the City Council, a race he won,' Gomez said. 'Together, my parents were trailblazers, in similar fashion to the way their parents were,' Gomez said. 'They were kind of the Hispanic version of John and Jackie Kennedy.'
The Hill
42 minutes ago
- The Hill
Graham says there will be ‘a change in tactics' by Israeli military in Gaza
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Sunday that there will be a 'change in tactics' by the Israeli military in its war in Gaza. 'I think Israel's come to conclude that they can't achieve a goal of ending the war with Hamas that would be satisfactory to the safety of Israel and that they're going to do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin, take the place by force then start over again, presenting a better future for the Palestinians, hopefully having the Arabs take over the West Bank and Gaza,' Graham told NBC News's Kristen Welker on 'Meet the Press.' 'But I think going forward, Kristen, you're going to see a change in tactics, a full military effort by Israel to take Gaza down, like we did in Tokyo and Berlin,' he added. Israel has started a 'tactical pause' in fighting in Gaza amid mass starvation concerns, according to the military. 'In accordance with directives from the political echelon, and as part of the IDF's ongoing effort, led by COGAT, to increase the scale of humanitarian aid entering Gaza, a local tactical pause in military activity will take place for humanitarian purposes from 10:00 to 20:00, starting today (Sunday),' the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a post on the social platform X Sunday. According to The Associated Press, there have been warnings in recent months from food experts about Gaza facing famine, with aid being limited by the Israelis. 'People in #Gaza are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance – food, clean water, and other essential lifelines,' the World Food Programme said in a post on X last week. 'A ceasefire is long overdue and humanitarians should be able to reach all those in need, wherever they are.' The fighting has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants, and injured more than 130,000. The Israeli government said 895 soldiers have been killed over the course of the war, which began after a Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that left around 1,200 Israelis dead, with nearly 250 taken hostage.
CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
Vought won't rule out more rescissions funding cuts before September
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said his office is considering more options to claw back funding approved by Congress and isn't ruling out sending more bills to lawmakers with further cuts before September. Vought confirmed on CBS News' "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" Sunday that "we are looking to do [a] rescissions package" to take back some funding from the Education Department. A rescissions bill is the president's request to rescind funding already appropriated by Congress. Last week, President Trump signed a bill clawing back foreign aid, NPR and PBS funding, becoming the first president in decades to receive approval for such a measure. "We're thrilled that we had the first rescissions package in decades, and we've got the process moving again," Vought said of the $10 billion clawback. Asked to confirm there'd be no rescissions package before September, as Congress attempts to fund the government and head off a shutdown, Vought responded, "Not here to say that. We're looking at all of our options, we will look at it and assess where the Hill is, what are the particular funding opportunities that we have?" Asked about National Institutes of Health funding for research into heart disease and cancer that has yet to be released, Vought replied, "We're going through the same process with the NIH that we did with the education." He alleged NIH had wasted funds, claiming "$2 million for injecting dogs with cocaine that the NIH spent money on, $75,000 for Harvard to study blowing lizards off of trees with leaf blowers." He vowed to go "line by line to make sure the NIH is funded properly" and said funding would be released "when we are done with that review." Vought's use of rescissions measures to amend government spending is seen by Democrats and some Republicans as a backdoor method of infringing on Congress' constitutional power of the purse. "Rescissions is just a Washington name for double cross," Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, also on "Face the Nation," said after Vought's interview on the program. "They support one thing one day — the president even signs off — and then they come back and say they change their mind." But the OMB director argued, "We have the ability and the executive tools to fund less than what Congress appropriated" under the Impoundment Control Act, which enables the president to delay spending funds appropriated by Congress, and he didn't rule out a legal battle over the executive branch's authority to revise lawmakers' spending downward, if it "could find waste" by an agency. Vought has also caused GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune some headaches with a comment he made Thursday suggesting the appropriations process must be "less bipartisan." But this put Thune in a bind as he oversees negotiations to avoid a government shutdown in October, since Republicans hold a slim majority of 53 - 47 in the Senate, and most legislation must reach a 60-vote threshold. "It's going to take 60 to fund the government," Thune said in response to Vought's remark, and he added, "we plan to move [appropriations] bills that will have cooperation from the Democrats." Van Hollen said it was ironic that Vought is "calling for these deep cuts to education, NIH, when he has asked for an increase for his OMB budget." And referring to reduction-in-force — or RIF — staff cuts the administration wants across the government, Van Hollen added, "He asked for a 13% increase for his OMB budget. He's asked for more people to join the OMB staff while he's talking about RIF-ing people at other departments." The Maryland senator said that Democratic senators, as they negotiate funding government operations, are "asking for four Republican senators just to publicly declare that when they say they're gonna fund the Veterans Affairs Department, that they actually mean it."
