An anti-affirmative-action group sued McDonald’s over its nationwide scholarships for Latino and Hispanic students on Sunday, about one week after the fast-food chain announced it would walk back its diversity, equity, and inclusion measures.

The American Alliance for Equal Rights, led by conservative legal activist Edward Blum, alleges that McDonald’s has been unlawfully discriminating against high school students from other ethnic groups through the decades-old scholarship program.

“So non-Hispanics — including non-Hispanic students with severe financial need and racial minorities like blacks, Arabs, and Native Americans — are flatly barred based on their ethnic heritage,” reads the lawsuit filed in Nashville, where the International Scholarship and Tuition Services is operating the program. “This kind of discrimination was never lawful.”

The McDonald’s HACER National Scholarship provides between $5,000 and $100,000 to 30 winners, but only if they have at least one parent of Hispanic or Latino heritage. Established in 1985, the program has awarded over $33 million to more than 17,000 Hispanic and Latino students.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of an Arkansas high school senior, who was barred from applying solely because she’s white, despite having a 3.8 GPA.

Blum successfully led the charge in the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that banned colleges and universities from using affirmative action in the admissions process. Taking the fight against DEI beyond higher education, his organization has been litigating corporate America’s controversial commitment to “diversity.”

“It is our hope that McDonald’s immediately pauses this scholarship program so it can be opened to all under-resourced high school students regardless of their ethnic heritage,” Blum said.

The suit requests a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that bars McDonald’s from closing the application window or selecting this year’s winners. The deadline for scholarship applications is February 6, the filing notes, and the winners will be chosen in June pending the Tennessee court’s action.

In response, McDonald’s said it is reviewing the lawsuit and evaluating its programs that critics argue unconstitutionally discriminate against some people based on ethnicity.

“McDonald’s announced its evolution on our inclusion work last week, and part of that process will be reviewing programs, in partnership with our franchisees as applicable, to ensure these programs align with our vision moving forward,” the company said.

The statement refers to the burger chain’s decision to ditch some of its DEI programs as part of a new effort, McDonald’s says, to treat “everyone with dignity, fairness, and respect, always.”

The American Alliance for Equal Rights took issue with that statement in the suit, saying McDonald’s “didn’t mean everyone” and is not going far enough to treat everyone equally.

In last week’s announcement, McDonald’s cited a “shifting legal landscape” following the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action that prompted the corporation to conduct a civil rights audit. The change was made over four months after the report was published.

McDonald’s is just the latest company to scale back its DEI efforts; others include Walmart, Ford, Molson Coors, John Deere, and, perhaps most notably, Meta.

The corporate shift away from DEI policies comes before President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to target such policies, takes back the White House next week.