Historically black colleges and universities with a religious affiliation will no longer be restricted from accessing federal funding for capital projects, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
Trump said federal law had restricted more than 40 faith-based HBCUs and seminaries from fully tapping a program that provides federal loan guarantees for their construction projects.
Trump announced that a recent Justice Department legal opinion declared such “discriminatory restrictions” to be unconstitutional.
“From now on, faith-based HBCUs will enjoy equal access to federal support,” he said.
Under a capital financing program for historically black colleges and universities, the Education Department guarantees loans for capital improvements, but funding was restricted for those HBCUs in which a “substantial portion of its function is subsumed in a religious mission.”