There are 19 universities that are classified as 1890 land grant universities. Florida A&M University, where Scott earned his bachelor’s degree in 1967, is one of them. Each university would receive $1M per year for five years under the proposal by Scott.
Scott blasted the U.S. House of Representatives for cutting the money out of the Farm Bill in May.
“Mr. Chairman, let me make it very clear from the very beginning that this is a racist farm bill. Make no mistake about it,” he said.
“These 1890 colleges have never gotten the financial support to even come close to the white 1860's that were there,” Scott added. “So, we tried to make amends in this Farm Bill to come up with a very noble idea with the shortage of younger people not going into agriculture, not going into science and technology and research to feed the future. We established scholarships to go to the 1890's. But you know what? When they took our bill and put it in the Farm Bill, they took the money out, just like they did back in the 1890's. Black people in this country have suffered too long and we need to put a stop to it.”
Scott ended by saying that he would ask the U.S. Senate to place the funding in its version of the Farm Bill. He succeeded in getting U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, to sponsor an amendment to that did that.
The Farm Bill is now heading to a House-Senate conference committee. Scott has been appointed the committee and has promised to fight for the $95M scholarship program to be part of the final version of the bill.