Imagine a high school senior anywhere in America with a 4.0 GPA, rigorous coursework, and an extensive record of volunteering and community service. He plans to attend a four-year university but, like millions of families, worries about how to afford it. He discovers a prestigious national scholarship fund offering mentoring, leadership training, and up to $5,000 in financial aid.
He meets every requirement except one: He is not Hispanic.
A similar story belongs to a law student with a 3.63 GPA entering his final year. He too satisfies all academic and financial criteria but is barred because he does not “identify as being of Hispanic Heritage.”
These young students and thousands of other qualified blacks, Asians, and whites are excluded from the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s (HSF) flagship scholarship program because they are members of the wrong ethnicity.
This week, the American Alliance for Equal Rights filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging this race-exclusive policy under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits discrimination based on race. This program is not a simple charitable grant with no strings attached; it is, in legal terms, a contract, and race-based contracting has been illegal for more than 150 years.
Since 1975, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund has distributed more than $750 million to tens of thousands of students. Its mission to help Hispanic students succeed in higher education is laudable, but it is pursuing them unlawfully. HSF’s rules are unambiguous: The program is open only to those who “identify as being of Hispanic Heritage” and who are “at least one-quarter Hispanic/Latino.” Non-Hispanic applicants are categorically prohibited from even applying, regardless of their academic merit or financial need.
This discrimination was unlawful long before the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended racial classifications and preferences in college admissions. The justices emphasized that “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” That principle applies here. Private organizations cannot deny valuable contractual opportunities to entire racial or ethnic groups.
Some argue that groups historically discriminated against deserve race-based preferences indefinitely. But our nation’s civil rights laws reject that premise: A nation cannot remedy past discrimination by engaging in new discrimination. There are no perpetual racial or ethnic victims in the United States.
In our multiracial, multiethnic nation, Americans will always disagree about policy, politics, and priorities. But we should at least agree that no student should ever be told that his or her race or ethnicity is a permanent disqualification from competing for a scholarship.
Our plaintiffs seek only the chance to apply and be judged on their qualifications, just like any Hispanic applicant. In a nation committed to equal justice under law, that should be the minimum any scholarship program demands.
Edward Blum, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the president of the American Alliance for Equal Rights and the founder of Students for Fair Admissions.
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