The lawsuit was brought against the U.S. Department of Education by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, the advocacy group whose lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action in college admissions. The lawsuit claims the federal designation for HSIs, which requires 25 percent Latino enrollment, is discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.
HACU, an association representing HSIs, argued in its motion that it should become a party to the lawsuit to stand up for the constitutionality of the HSI program. The organization suggested the Education Department is unlikely to vigorously defend the federal designation while it’s in the process of dismantling itself.
Antonio R. Flores, president and CEO of HACU, said the lawsuit “directly undermines years of advocacy by our founding members that led the federal government to formally recognize HSIs in 1992.”
“The HSI program is a vital engine of educational excellence, workforce readiness and opportunity for all students attending these exemplary learning communities,” Flores said in a statement. “HACU joins in defending the policies and resources HSIs need to educate and serve 5.6 million students from all backgrounds nationwide.”
Hillsdale College—a small, private Christian liberal arts institution in Michigan—has increasingly turned to digital advertising, including Microsoft’s MSN platform, to extend its reach and solicit donations. Known for its conservative ideology and its refusal to accept any federal or state funding, Hillsdale is relying more than ever on mass digital engagement to sustain its growing national influence.
Hillsdale sponsors content across digital news aggregators like MSN using native advertising platforms such as Taboola. These sponsored links promote Hillsdale’s free online courses in subjects like the U.S. Constitution and Western political philosophy. Readers who click are typically prompted to provide an email address, after which they are placed into a recurring stream of newsletters and donation appeals. Hillsdale’s marketing strategy combines educational branding with ideological and political themes designed to deepen audience loyalty and increase donor conversion.
The school’s strategy is informed by its unique financial model. Unlike most colleges, Hillsdale accepts no Title IV federal funds and avoids other forms of government support. While this independence allows Hillsdale to circumvent Department of Education oversight, it also necessitates a highly developed fundraising operation. Hillsdale reportedly raises between $100 million and $200 million annually through private donations, which support its growing campus, online educational infrastructure, Imprimis publication, and a national network of affiliated classical charter schools.
Hillsdale’s digital fundraising and brand-building efforts align closely with its broader ideological mission. On February 19, 2025, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk delivered a keynote lecture at Hillsdale’s National Leadership Seminar in Phoenix. Titled “Hitting the Ground Running: The Trump Transition and Early Priorities,” the event illustrated how Hillsdale fuses academic outreach with conservative political messaging. The speech was promoted on Hillsdale’s social media platforms and streamed via its Freedom Library website.
[Charlie Kirk speaks at Hillsdale College in February 2025.]
Hillsdale’s collaboration with platforms like MSN reflects a wider shift in how politically-aligned institutions use digital media ecosystems to bypass traditional gatekeepers. Because MSN blends sponsored content into its main news feed using algorithmic curation, promotional material from ideological institutions can appear alongside conventional journalism—without the benefit of editorial transparency or disclaimers. For Hillsdale, this means access to millions of readers, many of whom may not realize they’re engaging with sponsored political content masked as civic education.
This convergence of ideology, education, and marketing raises critical questions about the future of higher education outreach and the role of big tech platforms in shaping political narratives. Hillsdale’s success in these spaces underscores how easily lines between education, influence, and revenue can blur in the digital age.
North Carolina’s Democratic governor has vetoed two bills the Republican-led General Assembly passed targeting what lawmakers dubbed “diversity, equity and inclusion”; “discriminatory practices”; and “divisive concepts” in public higher education.
Senate Bill 558 would have banned institutions from having offices “promoting discriminatory practices or divisive concepts” or focused on DEI. The bill defined “discriminatory practices” as “treating an individual differently [based on their protected federal law classification] solely to advantage or disadvantage that individual as compared to other individuals or groups.”
SB 558’s list of restricted divisive concepts mirrored the lists that Republicans have inserted into laws in other states, including the idea that “a meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist” or that “the rule of law does not exist.” The legislation would have prohibited colleges and universities from endorsing these concepts.
The bill would have also banned institutions from establishing processes “for reporting or investigating offensive or unwanted speech that is protected by the First Amendment, including satire or speech labeled as microaggression.”
In his veto message Thursday, Gov. Josh Stein wrote, “Diversity is our strength. We should not whitewash history, police dorm room conversations, or ban books. Rather than fearing differing viewpoints and cracking down on free speech, we should ensure our students learn from diverse perspectives and form their own opinions.”
Stein also vetoed House Bill 171, which would have broadly banned DEI from state government. It defined DEI in multiple ways, including the promotion of “differential treatment of or providing special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, nationality, country of origin, or sexual orientation.”
“House Bill 171 is riddled with vague definitions yet imposes extreme penalties for unknowable violations,” Stein wrote in his HB 171 veto message. NC Newsline reported that lawmakers might still override the vetoes.
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Dive Brief:
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs at colleges and other “influential institutions of American society,” escalating the Republican-led crusade against DEI.
The executive order declares that DEI policies and programs adopted by colleges and others can violate federal civil rights laws and directs federal agencies to “combat illegal private sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, and activities.”
Trump’s order also directs each federal agency to identify up to nine corporations or associations, large foundations, or colleges with endowments over $1 billion as potential targets for “civil compliance investigations.”
Dive Insight:
Republicans have railed against diversity and inclusion programming on college campuses for years, with state lawmakers enacting 14 pieces of legislation that restrict or bar DEI since 2023, according to a tally from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Federal lawmakers have likewise targeted DEI programs at colleges in hearings and proposed bills. With Trump’s flurry of recent executive orders, however, the newly sworn-in president has made clear that his administration will ramp up the fight against DEI at the federal level.
“Institutions of higher education have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’” the order states.
Jeremy Young, director of state and higher education policy at PEN America, a free expression organization, voiced concerns about the executive order.
“It launches a series of investigations into universities for merely having a DEI office or promoting DEI, diversity work on their campus,” Young said. “That, to us, is a pretty straightforward violation of the intellectual freedom of a university to promote ideas of all kinds on its campus.”
At minimum, government investigations could amount to a nuisance, but at maximum, they could lead to lawsuits and actions against colleges, Young added.
Young also said the order is designed to sow division in the higher education sector by targeting colleges with endowments worth $1 billion or more.
“My hope is that higher education institutions will see this attack on a subset of their members as an attack on everyone,” Young said.
Trump’s new order also lacks a clear definition of what it deems as DEI programs or policies, Young said, raising concerns about unconstitutionally vague language.
State bills banning DEI similarly don’t have clear definitions, Young said.
“They become effectively a license to censor,” Young said. “Any government agency looking at them can claim that something is DEI because there is no actual definition in the order.”
Trump’s order directs the nation’s attorney general, in consultation with federal agencies, to propose potential litigation against the private sector to enforce civil rights laws. It also orders agencies to identify “potential regulatory action and sub-regulatory guidance.”
Trump also directed the U.S. education secretary to work with the nation’s attorney general to issue guidance to federally funded colleges within the next 120 days regarding how they can comply with the landmark 2023 Supreme Court decision that struck down race-conscious admissions. Trump’s nominee for education secretary, former World Wrestling Entertainment president and CEO Linda McMahon, is awaiting Senate confirmation hearings for the post.
Tuesday’s executive order comes after he signed several other directives on the first day of his presidency meant to dismantle DEI efforts within the federal workforce.
Tim Walberg, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Committee on Education and Workforce, lauded the executive actions against DEI.
“DEI has bloated education budgets while telling students what to think instead of how to think,” Walberg said in a Wednesday statement. “I commend the Trump administration for dismantling DEI.”
Tuesday’s executive order clarifies that instructors at colleges that get federal aid are not prohibited from “advocating for, endorsing, or promoting the unlawful employment or contracting practices prohibited by this order” in their academic courses.
But Young said he hasn’t seen any legislation or executive order claiming to restrict DEI that doesn’t also restrict faculty instruction or roles in some way. “We have come to the conclusion that it may be impossible to do that,” Young said.
Trump’s order also says it does not prevent colleges from engaging in speech protected by the First Amendment.
Young, however, said language like this amounts to a meaningless statement, as the First Amendment supersedes an executive order.
“The problem is that the language plainly does violate the First Amendment, and therefore it’s going to be years before the courts adjudicate it and, meanwhile, people have to live under these executive orders,” Young said.
