In its decision in the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases, the Supreme Court ruled against racial discrimination in college admissions. Nevertheless, the government continues to run programs that are discriminatory. It needs to stop.

In today’s Martin Center article, Wenyuan Wu points to the continuing existence of federal “minority-serving” programs that ladle money into colleges and universities that are designated as such.

For example, she writes,

In 2024, the federal government appropriated $228.89 million for HSIs alone, of which $28 million went to fund “49 highly ranked applicants,” including schools in the Riverside Community College District, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, and the University of California. Cerritos College in California received $595,991 to develop a program called “Mentoring, Access, Data, and Equity.” In a press release, the college boasted about using the grant to “enhance Hispanic/Latinx student enrollment and success” by “providing critical resources to reach the college’s equity goals.”

Such programs not only violate the Constitution but also waste money. They usually revolve around clichés such as “increasing sense of belonging” that merely create make-work for administrators.

Wu continues,

Not only does the race or ethnicity requirement (i.e., having a student body that is at least 25-percent Hispanic) fail the longstanding constitutional doctrine of strict scrutiny, but MSI requirements are not narrowly tailored to correct historical wrongs. Furthermore, many institutions’ politically fashionable bundling of minority, low-income, and first-generation students in their quest for MSI status is preposterous.

The American Civil Rights Project is pushing for an end to this new sort of discrimination, which is no better than the old sort. Congress should act.