Kelly Joins Colleagues in Demanding Department of Education Reverse its Decision to End Federal Funding for Minority-Serving Institutions
Senators blast DOJ for baseless legal reasoning behind determination to deem MSIs unconstitutional and cut off federal funding
Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) joined Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and 22 of their Senate colleagues in urging Education Secretary Linda McMahon to immediately reverse the harmful decision to unilaterally halt federal funding for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). The senators warned that the administration’s flawed reliance on a DOJ determination threatens discretionary and mandatory funding and puts the education of millions of students at risk.
There are currently 21 Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in Arizona and six emerging HSIs, which serve nearly 90,000 Hispanic students, almost half of all Hispanic undergraduates in the state. These institutions rely on MSI federal funding to provide vital supports and services for students to help them complete their degrees. Historically, these programs have been authorized on a bipartisan basis in law. The Trump Administration’s decision to end funding for MSIs threatens the institutions’ ability to adequately serve the students they enroll of all backgrounds.
“This decision is yet another example of this Administration attempting to circumvent Congress and its obligations to follow the law,” wrote the senators. “Unilaterally deciding that long-standing programs are unconstitutional, absent a ruling from the judiciary, sets a dangerous precedent and disrupts needed support that colleges and students rely on.”
“We urge you to allocate Title III and V discretionary and mandatory funds as Congress intended so that these institutions, which educate millions of working-class Americans, can continue to successfully serve every student they enroll and continue to be economic engines for the communities they serve across this nation,” continued the senators.
The Senators blasted DOJ’s legal justification for declaring that both discretionary and mandatory MSI grant funding is unconstitutional, citing DOJ’s reliance on a Supreme Court decision that discusses race-based admissions policies, not race-based funding allocations: “Those factors are unrelated to the determination of whether a school should be considered an MSI, and relying on that precedent—when there has been no specific court determination that MSIs are unconstitutional—is an inappropriate subversion of duly-enacted federal law. MSIs are not directed nor required to employ race-conscious admissions policies for their enrollment; they are evaluated based on the population of students they already serve at the time they are applying for funding.”
There are over 800 federally recognized MSIs, including Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions (NASNTIs), and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions (ANNHSIs). MSIs enroll over 5 million students, many of whom are first-generation college students.
Read the full letter here.
