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| Michael Lomax |
The United Negro College Fund, which represents many of the private, smaller, historically black colleges last week, released a white paper detailing its grievances with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, which is the primary accrediting body of many of the nation's HBCUs, including FAMU.
The paper is just the latest salvo from the UNCF, and its president Michael Lomax, aimed at SACS. In March, Lomax complained in a speech before Congress that SACS’ practices were discriminatory against HBCUs and asked for legislators to look in the practices of accrediting bodies.
Lomax’s words, then, drew a sharp rebuttal from SACS President Belle Wheelan (who is black). Wheelan noted that the vast majority of HBCUs maintain compliance with SACS standards and that in the last 30 years, her organization had dropped the accreditation of 30 institutions, of which 13 were HBCUs.
UNCF argues that there is too much uncertainty in the SACS peer-review process, the process lacks transparency, the accreditor has failed to evaluate its own standards and that its standards do not reflect the diversity or mission of colleges.