Florida: Why Not Us?

Systemic racism and its role in the financial strangulation of HBCUs isn’t new, it is just finally been exposed as a prominent thorn of injustice in America’s higher education system. 
 
Mississippi
First Mississippi, which settled its landmark 1975 Ayers case in 2002, in which Jake Ayers Jr. and other students, accused the state of Mississippi of operating an unequal system of higher education resulting in the state agreeing to spend $500 million to improve the state’s three HBCUs ---Jackson State University, Alcorn State University and Mississippi Valley State University and speed their integration.
 
The Mississippi Higher Education Commission also agreed to fund $70 million in public endowments for the three schools.
 
Maryland
Just last year, the state of Maryland settled a 15-year old lawsuit brought on by alums of Maryland’s four HBCUs that sued the state over the inequality of its public higher education system.  
 
The suit argued that the state underfunded the HBCUs --- Morgan State, Bowie State, University of Maryland Eastern Shores, and Coppin State --- and permitted traditionally whites institutions to replicate programs pioneered and offered by them.
 
After a series of legal fits and starts, including a stall in negotiations with the state, Maryland agreed to a $577 million settlement to resolve the issue. 
 
The money will be paid out over a decade and used to support scholarships, faculty recruitment and expand academic programs and marketing.
 
Tennessee
Then late last year, a study by a bipartisan group of Tennessee legislators determined that overtime, the state routinely underfunded its only publicly funded Historically Black College – Tennessee State University—to the tune of $544 million dollars.

Additionally, a report by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission produced a report from last year that showed over $337 million of deferred maintenance is needed on the campus.
 
The deferred maintenance has severely hampered Tennessee State’s ability to recruit and retain high achieving students and faculty who regularly pass over the school for school with more modern facilities.
 
Florida
Florida has suffered from long-standing inequities and discriminatory funding practices, and for a long time operated under a consent decree with the US Department of Education for its long standing mistreatment of its only public HBCU. 
 
As federal administrations changed, the US Department of Education enforcement of that    consent decree tends to have wained and in recent years the disparities in Florida have again become more pronounced.
 
Since 1960, Florida created seven new state universities – FAU, FIU, UCF, UNF, UWF, NCF, and FPT.  These institutions along with USF, founded in 1956, have shifted resources and programs away from FAMU. 
 
Many of these schools have left FAMU far behind in securing state resources.  

FAMU deferred maintenance  

For example, FAMU, the state's third oldest public university,  identified nearly $90 million in new campus-wide deferred maintenance issues to the Board of Governors in October 2021, over and above the deferred maintenance issues it identified to the Executive Office of the Governor in August 2021.   

By a conservative estimate, FAMU's needs over $212 million to address deferred maintenance issues.  For example, the Dyson Building is in such a state of disrepair that it is slated for demolition, the old FAMU High complex sits idle a deteriorating awaiting maintenance and repair, then there is Benjamin Banneker Complex at FAMU that has long been need of critical repair, and the SBI Building which has long been showing is age.

The Florida Board of Governors (BOG), recent budget request of $150 million to improve the national rankings of UF, FSU, and USF underscores this states historic treatment and neglect of FAMU.  Doesn't FAMU also need additional funds for better faculty, scholarships to support high-quality students, and better facilities, particularly research facilities to attract federal grants? 

DeSantis’ big lie
While in 2020, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis touted his signing of a major funding initiative for “Florida’s HBCUs”  that sent $30 million to Bethune Cookman, Florida Memorial, and Edward Waters, a quick fact check of DeSantis’ press release will show that he claimed to provide FAMU with $92.8 million in funding, however that funding was only FAMU’s base-operational budget.  Not new recurring money.
 
And, while we don’t want to begrudge BCU, FMU, and EWU for getting new state dollars, we will point out that FAMU annually graduates more students than state’s three private HBCUs combined.
 
Why HBCUs exist in the first place

Unfortunately, our teaching of history and the creation of HBCUs has been incomplete, and that’s generous.  Wether its reconstruction or glossed over, much like the history of the Tulsa massacre or Ax Handle Sunday in Jacksonville had been, before we start telling our own stories.

HBCUs were created to provide Black Americans with access to education as they were shunned from white institutions. Civil servants, pioneers in STEM fields, authors, celebrities, civil rights activists, and philanthropists are just a few of examples of HBCU alumni that have greatly impacted society.  HBCUs have also educated a large portion of the teachers, lawyers, engineers, and other professionals who obtained the social and economic mobility that established the Black middle and upper classes in the United States. This legacy continues. For example, the U.S. Department of Education confirms that 75% of all Black students who are recipients of doctoral degrees received an undergraduate education at an HBCU.

 
HBCUs also enroll a disproportionate amount of low-income, first-generation college students when compared with PWIs.  Individuals from all demographics attend HBCUs, but it is estimated that 75% of HBCU students come from low-income circumstances. 
 
PWIs tend to cherry pick Black students
Many other colleges and universities are grappling with how to increase equity in enrollment but still benefit from the privileges that more wealthy students are able to maintain. Promising equity may also require sacrificing some popular metrics of student success, such as retention or the average time it takes for degree completion.
 
Said another way, PWIs tend to enroll more Black who are more well prepared, and can afford to pay, than HBCUs.  The exception here, of course, is if you are an athlete.
 
Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity is another cornerstone of HBCUs.  HBCUs welcome students and staff from any racial or ethnic group and employ more faculty members of color than PWIs by a large margin.  In 2019, 24% of HBCU enrollment consisted of non-Black students, and this number continues to rise. Over half (56%) of faculty at HBCUs identify as African American compared with only 5% at PWIs. It is clear that other PWIs would covet the opportunity to showcase more representation on campus as millions of dollars have been spent on diversity plans, including attempts to recruit and retain faculty members of color. There’s unfortunately a long way to go: 69% of faculty at PWIs are still white. 

While, surely, some White folks to this day will lament the fact that HBCUs exist, but somehow forget the circumstances around how we got here or why we exist in the first place.

The racists and “progressives” had a field day earlier this month, as Jackson State, and their Coach Deion Sanders, were able to sign one of the nation’s top football prospects on national signing day.  The racists  were unable to conceal their prejudice — as the fear of “what will we do if all the Black players start going to Black schools” began to seep into their psyche.

Well end with the quote from one of Maya Angelou's poems --Still I Rise:

"You may shoot me with your words, 

You may cut me with your eyes, 

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise."