TN Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. filed a significant anti-discrimination lawsuit against the United States Department of Education and its discriminatory Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) program. By law, the HSI grant program is solely available to institutions of higher education that have “an enrollment of undergraduate full-time equivalent students that is at least 25 percent Hispanic students at the end of the award year immediately preceding the date of application.” This rule leaves many needy students out in the cold. The University of Memphis, for example, is ineligible for the grant despite its 61% minority enrollment because its student body is insufficiently diverse according to the federal government’s arbitrary requirement. “A federal grant system that openly discriminates against students based on ethnicity isn’t just wrong and un-American—it’s unconstitutional. In SFFA v. Harvard, the Supreme Court ruled that racially discriminatory admissions standards violate the law, and the HSI program’s discriminatory grant standards are just as illegal.  Treating people differently because of their skin color and ancestry drags our country backwards. The HSI program perversely deprives even needy Hispanic students of the benefits of this funding if they attend institutions that don’t meet the government’s arbitrary quota.” – AG Skrmetti