The Hispanic Scholarship Fund announced on Tuesday that its flagship HSF Scholar Program will be open to applicants of any ethnicity beginning in January 2027, removing the requirement that has defined the program for decades.
In place of the heritage test, the fund said, applicants will have to demonstrate a commitment to supporting, celebrating and advancing the success of Hispanics in the United States. The fund has awarded more than $825 million in scholarships over its history.
What the program required until now
Applicants to the HSF Scholar Program had to identify as being of Hispanic heritage, which the program defined as being at least one-quarter Hispanic or Latino. Beyond the scholarship money itself, the program offers mentoring, conferences and access to job and internship opportunities reserved for its scholars.
The lawsuit
The American Alliance for Equal Rights sued the fund on December 3, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint invoked 42 U.S.C. § 1981, a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that guarantees equal rights to make and enforce contracts, and argued that non-Hispanic applicants were denied that right purely on the basis of ethnicity.
Two members of the Alliance were named as plaintiffs: an Asian American high school senior with a 4.0 grade point average and a non-Hispanic white law student with a 3.63 average, both of whom said they were barred from applying solely because of their ethnicity. The Alliance asked the court to declare the program unlawful, to stop the fund from selecting winners while the case was pending, and to bar any future use of ethnicity, whether directly or through proxies.
"The Hispanic Scholarship Fund is free to support students of Hispanic heritage," Edward Blum, who leads the Alliance, said when the suit was filed, adding that students of other backgrounds "should have the same right to compete for scholarships based on their merit."
The fund's account
The fund does not present the change as a concession. It says it had been considering opening the program before the Alliance filed suit, and it points to a district court decision in September 2026 that it reads as favorable to its position — a ruling that, by its account, indicated scholarships aimed at racially disadvantaged communities do not violate federal civil rights law, while still requiring some changes to how the program operates. The fund says the change will end the litigation.
In its announcement the fund thanked the law firms E.H. Williams II Law & Strategy and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, for their support. It also quoted its founder, Ernest Robles, on the original aim of building "a coalition that would bring together diverse Hispanics to work on a clearly defined focus."
The substantive question the new rule raises is how a commitment to Hispanic advancement will be measured in practice, and whether a criterion written as conduct rather than identity survives the same legal objection. The fund's own description of the September ruling concedes that the court would have required operational changes either way.
Reporting from announcements by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the American Alliance for Equal Rights.
