Lincoln University students and alumni filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state of Missouri on Wednesday, alleging decades of unequal funding between it and the University of Missouri.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. It is the first case brought by the 1890 Project challenging a state allegedly failing to appropriately fund an 1890 land-grant university, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

The 1890 Project monitors promises made in the federal government’s second Morrill Act in 1890, which aimed to ensure historically Black universities were equitably funded as certain white universities had been through the original 1862 Morrill Act.

These land-grant institutions were supposed to be provided funding for programs to strengthen research, extension and teaching, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The New York Times reported that between 1987 and 2020, federal officials found Missouri appropriated $361.6 million less to Lincoln on a per-student basis than to the University of Missouri.

The students and alumni are seeking a court-ordered remedy to combat the alleged disparity and permanently require that Missouri fully match Lincoln’s federal land-grant funding.

They also allege that the funding disparity stems from the University of Missouri being founded in 1839 for white students and Lincoln University being separately designated as a land-grant institution in 1890 for Black students.

The University of Missouri is an 1862 land-grant university, established under different legislation than the 1890 land-grant universities.

Lincoln students and alumni, as well as their lawyers, spoke about the lawsuit at a news conference at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Missouri State Capitol Rotunda.

The 1890 Project wrote that in September 2023, the U.S. secretaries of agriculture and education documented more than $12 billion in funding shortfalls across 16 states.

These were measured between 1987 and 2020 and compared to each state’s 1862 land-grant university.

The lawsuit’s defendants include the Coordinating Board for Higher Education, Gov. Mike Kehoe, Commissioner of Higher Education and Workforce Development Bennett Boggs and UM System President Mun Choi.

The plaintiffs include one alumni, a former student and four currently enrolled Lincoln University students, according to court documents.

Lincoln University had no comment on this case as of Wednesday morning.