Members of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus have moved to ensure that the state’s lone land-grant Historically Black University --the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore-- is fully funded every year going forward. The move comes after the Biden Administration found that 19 public land grant HBCUs were underfunded for three decades by their respective states to the tune of $12.6-billion. Maryland-Eastern Shore is one of those schools.
Land-grant colleges and universities have a specific focus on agriculture and engineering, fields that leaders wanted more graduates of following the Industrial Revolution. The 1862 Morrill Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, set aside federal land for such states to start such schools. The second Morrill Act, passed in 1890, mandated state’s create land-grant schools specifically for Black students if they refused to integrate the original ones.
Maryland’s original land-grant school, the University of Maryland-College Park, did not integrate until 1951. In the meantime, Maryland-Eastern Shore became Maryland’s lone land-grant HBCU. Others across the country include Florida A&M, Prairie View A&M and North Carolina A&T. Like the other 18 schools, delegate Stephanie Smith says Maryland-Eastern Shore saw lower funding that the Biden Administration discovered, UMES is owed approximately $320-million by the state.
“In Maryland, because we only have one institution, over the past three decades that’s approximately $320-million,” Smith said at a press conference on January 18th. She went on to say Governor Wes Moore’s budget proposal for next fiscal year includes $5-million in catch up money for Maryland-Eastern Shore to begin to repay the lost funding.
The Legislative Black Caucus included equity funding for the school as part of its legislative priorities for the 2024 session of the Maryland General Assembly.
Last week, a federal judge in Tallahassee rejected a potential class-action lawsuit filed by six FAMU students that alleged the state has discriminated against FAMU by intentionally underfunding the university and withholding programs.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle wrote that the plaintiffs did not meet a key legal test of showing that disparities among state universities were rooted in what is known as “de jure” segregation — segregation sanctioned by law.
Late last year, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack sent a letter to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urging the state to make the nearly $2 billion dollars in underfunding it has shortchanged FAMU.
Incidentally, Maryland is facing a projected budget deficit of over $700 million this year, while Florida is expected to have a surplus of over $1.5 billion.