Kansas Sides With DOJ Against State Tuition Equity Law

The U.S. Department of Justice and Kansas officials swiftly reached an agreement to quash the state’s law allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates, just hours after the DOJ sued over the policy. The proposed consent decree still needs approval from the court to end the state law.

“Kansas’s unconstitutional and un-American laws should never have been passed in the first place and are prohibited by federal law,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said in a news release.

U.S. Attorney Ryan Kriegshauser for the District of Kansas said in the release that the agreement shows the “quality of partnership” between the state and the DOJ, “ensuring that federal tax dollars are not used to discriminate against Kansas’s lawful citizens.”

The move comes after Kansas state lawmakers already tried to ban in-state tuition for undocumented students, but Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed the bill this spring.

This marks the 10th lawsuit the DOJ has brought against states with in-state tuition policies for noncitizens, often called tuition-equity laws. Like Kansas, multiple other states chose not to defend their laws and sided with the federal government, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Nebraska. California, Illinois, New Jersey and Virginia are defending their laws, and Minnesota fought and won its case.