By: HAYDEN KOBZA
Contributors: CHLOE SMITH, ALLISON GRUNDY
Southern Adventist University lost its $3 million Developing Hispanic-Serving Institution (DHSI) grant, following a Sept. 10 decision by the U.S. Department of Education to end discretionary funding for Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) programs.
The federal government’s decision to end the grant—the largest in the university’s history—comes after months of debate over programs that allocate funds based on ethnicity. In July, the U.S. Solicitor General argued that programs such as DHSI “violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause” and also stated that the Department of Justice would not defend the grant in court. Following his determination, the Department of Education announced it would halt more than $350 million in MSI discretionary funding beginning in 2025.
“Discrimination based upon race or ethnicity has no place in the United States,” said U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon. “To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the Department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas.”
Southern was the only university in Tennessee to qualify for the DHSI grant, having met the requirement that at least 25% of its student body be Hispanic. According to a previous Accent article, 28% of the student body is Hispanic for the 2025-2026 school year. The university first received the grant in 2023, which was intended to strengthen academic programs and expand resources for underserved populations, according to the same article.
Departmental updates
Departments across campus had begun plans supported by DHSI funds. Due to the loss of funding, projects may be delayed or cancelled.
Brent Hamstra, chair of the Chemistry Department, stated in an email to the Accent that his department planned to utilize some of the funds this school year.
“The university has authorized us to spend up to $120,000 from the remaining DHSI grant budget for the current year to purchase a benchtop NMR spectrometer, for which we are very grateful,” he stated. “We believe we’ve found an instrument that will significantly improve our ability to provide hands-on experience to our Organic Chemistry students and help our undergraduate research program.”
The Chemistry Department will not receive $275,000 of the grant planned for the department, which was intended to be used for lab equipment and an outreach program for local high school students to promote stem education.
“With the strength of our department in preparing students for careers in science and medical fields, we have a lot to offer the Chattanooga region, and the loss of this grant will make it more difficult for us to serve our community,” Hamstra stated.
According to Southern Adventist University President Ken Shaw, the university is not dependent on the grant money.
“The overall operations of the institution are not jeopardized when the grant funds end,” Shaw stated in an email to the Accent. “In our case, the promised funds that we were to receive over five years were cut short, so the impact is that we now cannot accomplish all that the grant desired us to do.”
DHSI employees at Southern
According to Robert Young, senior vice president for Academic Administration in an email to the Accent, the loss of the DHSI grant also affects two Southern employees: Kimberly Crider, DHSI project manager, and Maryoum Sandoval, DHSI Retention & Resilience coordinator, both of whom have been working full-time on the grant.
Crider is working with the grant oversight committee to develop recommendations for how the university can continue grant goals that will benefit all students, according to Marketing and University Relations Editorial Manager Becky Brooks.
“Both DHSI employees, including Kimberly Crider, will be employed at the university through the end of December 2025,” stated Robert Young, senior vice president for Academic Administration.
According to Brooks, Southern has recently been awarded the TRIO Student Support Services grant, which the university applied for over a year ago. The TRIO grant is intended to support low-income, first-generation and disabled students.
According to Young, the DHSI employees may have an opportunity to work on this new project.
“We are working with both DHSI grant employees to see if they are willing to transfer to a new 1.36 million TRIO grant, which needs two full-time positions — a project director and an academic advisor,” Young stated.
Lawsuit
According to a previous Accent article, the State of Tennessee, along with Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), filed a complaint in federal court in June, suing the U.S. Department of Education for its DHSI grant program. The U.S. Justice Department declined to defend the federal program, calling it unconstitutional.
According to the plaintiffs, The Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965—a federal law that governs student financial aid, institutional support and education policy—is using discriminatory practices to allocate funds for colleges and universities that have an ethnic threshold of 25% Hispanic.
“The State of Tennessee operates many colleges and universities,” the complaint states. “Every one of them serves Hispanic students. Every one of them serves low-income students. But not one of them qualifies to receive grants under the DHSI program. Why? Because they don’t have the right mix of ethnicities on campus.”
Critics of the lawsuit argued that DHSI programs do not favor certain racial or ethnic preferences when admitting students, but instead, allocate funds to schools with large numbers of underserved students.
At Southern, Shaw offered words of encouragement to those disappointed by the loss of the DHSI grant, which amounted to $3 million over a five-year period.
“The university remains committed to every student at Southern, regardless of their background,” he stated. “Our goal is to provide a quality Christian education for each student.”
