This National Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Week should have been a time of celebration — honoring the more than 600 colleges and universities that educate two-thirds of all Hispanic undergraduates and drive America’s workforce forward. Instead, the week, which coincides with National Hispanic Heritage Month and is recognized by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), has turned into a call for action fighting for the very existence of the federal HSI designation due to a recent lawsuit.
Dr. Mordecai I Brownlee
This past June, the State of Tennessee and the group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed a suit against the U.S. Department of Education, claiming that HSI programs are discriminatory due to the status enrollment threshold. According to the Higher Education Act, HSIs are not-for-profit colleges and universities where at least 25% of the full-time equivalent (FTE) undergraduate enrollment is Hispanic. Following the filing, last month, the Department of Defense announced that it would not defend against the lawsuit. Interestingly, according to the HACU 2023-2024 Emerging HSI Report, which provides an account of nonprofit, degree-granting institutions with full-time equivalent (FTE) undergraduate Hispanic student enrollment of at least 15% but less than 25%, Tennessee had six institutions recognized at an emerging HSI status, ranging from 15.8% to 22.5%.
What’s at Stake: America’s Workforce and Economic Future
Instead of prompting a discussion regarding the threshold or advocating for a more encompassing metric, SFFA, the group that ended race-conscious admissions (along with the State of Tennessee), believes it is better to seek to end federal Title V funding altogether for over 5.6 million students at 615 colleges and universities. At a time when the United States faces high risks of labor shortages and various environmental disruptions due to demographic shifts, technology, economic, and geopolitical realities, why would it be in the best interest of our country to strip away funding for its minority serving institutions — the very engines that daily prepare first-generation and low socioeconomic learners to drive America’s workforce?
Even more concerning is why, at a time when the U.S. Departments of Labor, Commerce, and Education collaborated on a milestone report outlining President Trump’s America First economic agenda, which details efforts to “take innovative actions to empower more Americans to access good-paying jobs, build pipelines of skilled talent for critical industries, prepare the workforce system for an AI-driven economy, and position the U.S. as the dominant global economic leader” would America become distracted and start attacking our own community colleges and universities — the very institutions producing that talent?
The False Narrative of Race-Only-Based Funding
