Nonprofit opens scholarship for Hispanic students to applicants of all races

By MADALEINE RUBIN

A nonprofit that provides scholarships for Hispanic students will open them to applicants of all races and ethnicities, the group said earlier this week. The move is part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit claiming that the awards were discriminatory.

The organization, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, has for years offered scholarships only to students who identify as being of Hispanic heritage. Starting in January, it will not consider an applicant’s race or ethnicity, but will instead offer the scholarships to students who “demonstrate a commitment” to the success of Hispanics in the United States, the group said.

The move settles the lawsuit that was filed against the nonprofit last year by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, a group dedicated to challenging race-based distinctions and diversity programs. The alliance said the Hispanic Scholarship Fund had discriminated against people of other races and ethnicities.

The lawsuit came amid a broader attack on diversity programs across various institutions led by the Trump administration and conservative activists.

But the Hispanic Scholarship Fund had been contemplating the change to its program for several years, since 2023, the year the Supreme Court banned race-based college admissions, said Fidel Vargas, president and chief executive of the group.

The change will ensure that “allies from more communities” support Hispanic Americans, Vargas said. “We’re interested in making our world a better place and making our country stronger and strengthening the Hispanic community.”

“That requires everyone, not just Hispanics, to be aligned on what we’re doing,” he added.

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which supports Hispanic American students pursuing higher education through scholarship and mentorship programs, provides financial aid — $500 to $5,000 — to students, along with mentorship opportunities.

In December, the American Alliance for Equal Rights sued the group in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of a white student and an Asian student who claimed to have met many of the scholarship’s eligibility requirements but who did not have Hispanic heritage. It argued that the program had violated the Civil Rights Act and several other laws by restricting eligibility for the program.

The alliance is among several groups that have filed lawsuits seeking to dismantle diversity programs in recent years. It was founded by Edward Blum, who also founded the group that successfully argued before the Supreme Court to ban race-based college admissions.

Initially, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund did not amend its program because it “did not want to be bullied into making this decision by the alliance or any other conservative organizations bringing these sorts of suits,” said Edward Williams, a lawyer who represented the organization.

“They really wanted to vindicate an organization’s right to give out these types of scholarships,” he added.

But after a federal judge concluded in September that some of the claims against the organization were invalid, and that others were better left to state courts, the organization agreed to change its scholarship program and moved to settle the lawsuit.

In the years since the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling, the demographics of some of the country’s elite institutions have drastically shifted.

At Harvard University, the percentage of incoming Black students has declined by nearly 50% since the Supreme Court decision. The number of incoming Hispanic or Latino students fell from 16% of all incoming freshmen two years ago to about 11% this year.

Other highly selective universities have seen similar shifts, while at some, including Princeton University and Amherst College, slightly more Black students enrolled this year, according to the schools’ data.

Those shifts come amid an expansive campaign by the Trump administration to end diversity programs at universities across the country and within private companies and the federal government.