The Nashville Student Organizing Committee and a group of nine students from Fisk University and Tennessee State University, both historically black colleges, filed a lawsuit in early March against the state, alleging that excluding student IDs from the acceptable voter ID list violates the 26th Amendment, which enshrines the right to vote to qualified citizens 18 years of age and older, as well as the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. They also say the state does not allow voters to present out-of-state ID cards, which are widely held by college students living in Tennessee, therefore discriminating against out-of-state students.
“At every step of the voter ID law’s evolution, Tennessee state legislators have purposely fenced out college and university students, especially targeting out-of-state students, rejecting multiple bills that would have added student ID cards to the voter ID list,” the complaint said.