Department Of Education Eliminates $350M In Funding For Minority Serving Institutions

The seven grant programs, per the DOE, were aimed at increasing minority enrollment in science and engineering programs as well as serving those institutions classified as minority-serving institutions.

On Sept. 10, Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that the DOE would be suspending $350 million in funds that had previously been earmarked for minority serving institutions, using the prevailing logic of the Trump administration that anything that primarily serves historically disadvantaged students is inherently racist.

“Stereotyping an individual based on immutable characteristics diminishes the full picture of that person’s life and contributions, including their character, resiliency and merit,” McMahon said before saying that she wanted to “re-envision” the grant programs to continue supporting “underprepared or under-resourced students.”

According to The New York Times, this announcement was met with swift criticism, led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, who pointed out that McMahon and the Trump administration appear to be “putting politics ahead of students simply looking to get ahead, and is sowing chaos in our nation’s schools.”

She continued, “These are longstanding programs that Congress has authorized and provided funding for on an annual basis that the Trump administration — empowered by the yearlong slush fund spending bill passed in March — is unilaterally deciding to eliminate funding for at the end of the year. This is another important reminder of why Congress needs to pass funding bills, like the one the Senate marked up this summer, that ensure Congress — not Donald Trump or Linda McMahon — decides how limited taxpayer dollars are spent.”

It is, however, unclear exactly how many institutions would be affected by the elimination of the funding, as there are hundreds of two- and four-year institutions that serve Black, Latinx, or Alaskan Native or Hawaiian Native populations, all of which could be affected.

The Department of Justice previously declined to protect institutions that primarily serve Latinx students from a lawsuit that claimed, in part, that those institutions are unconstitutional because of a 25% Latinx enrollment threshold.

Furthermore, U.S. Solicitor General John D. Sauer indicated in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) that he believed it “violates the Constitution,” so the DOJ was bowing out.

As Amanda Fuchs Miller, the former deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs under the Biden administration and now president of the higher ed consultancy Seventh Street Strategies, told Inside Higher Ed, the Education Department’s plan is actually unconstitutional itself.

The DOE’s plan “violates the statute and violates Congress’s power of purse to appropriate funds and that the department has to spend them the way Congress appropriates,” Miller said, before noting that the “executive branch can’t just declare these programs unconstitutional…That would be the role of the courts.”

Roxanne Garza, the director of higher ed policy at the Education Trust, noted that this development portends darker days for higher education and the education system in general.

“It’s unclear what else they could suddenly decide to not fund, or to move funding from one program to the other,” Garza said. “It just continues to set up a dangerous and very unpredictable environment for our schools, our universities, the grantees that essentially depend on this funding.”

https://twitter.com/ArevaMartin/status/1966272368755826721?s=19

Areva Martin, a leading civil rights attorney and a Legal Analyst for CNN, noted in a post to her X account that Donald Trump and his administration’s legacy is one of destruction, not progress.

“Calling fairness ‘racist’ is nothing but gaslighting. These programs open doors that history slammed shut. And now—under Trump’s America, where racism thrives—multiple HBCUs were forced into lockdown after receiving threats: Alabama State, Virginia State, Hampton, Southern University, and Clark Atlanta. Spelman College also sheltered in place out of precaution,” Martin wrote.

She concluded, “By cutting funding and emboldening racist rhetoric, Trump’s administration is targeting HBCUs and Black students directly. Stripping resources, fueling racism—Trump’s legacy is destruction, not progress.”