Historically Black Colleges Tell Congress of Problems With Budgets, Civil Rights
By PAUL BASKEN

3-14-08, Chronicle of Higher Education

Historically Black Colleges Tell Congress of Problems With Budgets, Civil Rights

Washington


Representatives of historically black colleges and universities complained to Congress on Wednesday about their treatment by federal and state policy makers, citing failures both in budgeting and in civil-rights enforcement.

More than 50 years after the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of American schools, several states still pursue practices that bring competitive harm to traditionally black colleges, the leaders of several such institutions said during a hearing held by the House education committee.

In some instances, the gaps are as straightforward as persistently giving the colleges lower rates of public support, Earl S. Richardson, president of Morgan State University in Baltimore, told lawmakers at the hearing.

In other cases, he said, the problem involves state-government actions that dilute a minority-serving institution's ability to compete for students, such as Maryland's decision in 2005 to allow two predominantly white state universities to set up a graduate business program that duplicated one at Morgan State.

Mr. Richardson urged Congress to give colleges the right to take legal action to fight such actions by states. The current legal authority of colleges in such instances is "extremely limited and, in some instances, nonexistent without the enactment of legislation authorizing the pursuit of judicial review," he said.


Lack of Protection Cited

Another witness at Thursday's hearing, Raymond C. Pierce, dean at North Carolina Central University's Law School, said that about 14 states—mostly in the South—are finding greater freedom to adopt policies that have a discriminatory effect on minority-serving institutions because of a lack of attention from the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, which is responsible for enforcement.

Mr. Pierce, who served as deputy assistant secretary in charge of the department's civil rights enforcement under President Clinton, said both Republican and Democratic administrations of the recent past had worked to win cooperation from states in complying with laws designed to prevent discrimination in higher education.

"However, it didn't take long, when we left, for states to begin to retreat," he said, blaming a lack of attention from the Bush administration.

Even Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court justice who had served as the department's assistant secretary for civil rights under President Reagan, had found the need during his time in the department to take enforcement actions against three states for their treatment of historically black colleges, Mr. Pierce said.

"If Clarence Thomas can see that, anybody should be able to see that," Mr. Pierce said, drawing laughs from an audience in the congressional hearing room dominated by attendees from this week's annual conference of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.

The Education Department, in response to the hearing, provided a written statement to The Chronicle saying it recognizes that some problems still exist and that it is "committed to the vigorous enforcement of the civil-rights laws."

The Office for Civil Rights "has had plans in place to make further and faster progress" in completing reviews of states' higher-education-desegregation plans for compliance with federal civil-rights laws, the department said in its statement, provided by a spokeswoman, Samara Yudof.

"As some of the testimony in this week's hearing serves to indicate, these cases are legally, factually, and remedially complex ones," the statement said. It added that the assistant secretary for civil rights had pledged to make those cases "a top priority" and that the Office for Civil Rights would conduct those reviews by the end of this year.

"If additional measures are deemed necessary to secure Title VI compliance, supplemental remedial agreements will be negotiated and put in place," the statement said. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits racial discrimination by educational institutions that receive federal funds.


Touting Colleges' Contributions

The National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, as part of its conference, issued a report, "The State of America's Black Colleges 2008," touting the achievements of historically black colleges and their contributions in areas of economic competitiveness that increasingly attract the focus of policy makers.

Historically black colleges represent only 3 percent of American colleges, yet produce 40 percent of black students receiving a degree in science fields and 50 percent of black teachers.

"Despite these successes, in 2008, HBCU's will realize only modest increases in federal funding," the association said in its report. "In addition, black colleges continue to receive significantly less funding for research, facilities and programs than their historically white counterparts."

The education committee's chairman, Rep. George Miller, Democrat of California, accused President Bush of proposing "to gut their funding, which would be a huge step in the wrong direction."

Mr. Bush's budget for the 2009 fiscal year would cut funds for historically black colleges and other minority-serving institutions by $85-million, or 35 percent, as compared to this year's levels. That would put federal spending for historically black colleges at the same level as in 2007, according to an Education Department summary.

"We have to make tough budget decisions and priorities in discretionary funding, and our budget reflects that," Ms. Yudof said.

Mr. Miller also promised to ask the Office for Civil Rights for an explanation of its enforcement of antidiscrimination laws in individual states. "He hopes to get more answers from OCR on these efforts and plans to exercise the committee's oversight" authority, said a committee spokeswoman, Rachel Racusen.

The committee heard testimony from the historically black colleges one day before it plans another hearing with the education secretary, Margaret Spellings, focused primarily on potential problems with the availability of student loans.

More than a dozen loan companies have announced that they are withdrawing from or scaling back their participation in the federal guaranteed student-loan program, citing cost pressures from the subsidy cuts approved last September by Congress and an overall tightening of credit.


Worries About Access to Loans

Ms. Spellings has repeatedly assured colleges that she sees no imminent threat to the ability of students to obtain federally subsidized loans. But Mr. Miller and other lawmakers are seeking assurances of contingency plans should conditions worsen.

The heads of the historically black colleges told committee members that they have not yet seen students unable to find federally guaranteed loans. Such problems, however, are just one among many for such students, who must overcome a series of severe financial constraints to remain in college, said Mary E. Sias, president of Kentucky State University.

About 58 percent of Kentucky State's students are eligible for Pell Grants, the federal government's main subsidy for low-income students, and about 84 percent of its students receive some form of financial aid, Ms. Sias said in an interview.

"Our students are coming in needier in the last few years," she said. About 30 percent of those who would have qualified in the past for private loans—those given by banks without a federal subsidy—no longer qualify because of the tighter credit standards, Ms. Sias said.

Nearly 10 percent of student tuition bills go unpaid at Kentucky State, and about 1,000 students must leave every year because they can no longer afford the costs, she said. One such student had a 3.6 grade-point average, she said.

The university gives its students jobs in its bid to help them stay in school, Ms. Sias said. Many students try to cut costs by living or eating off campus, she said. Many work two jobs, and some even have to try to subsidize siblings back home with too little to eat, she said.

And even those who graduate might not appear much better off, Ms. Sias said. About 86 percent of the university's graduates have debts, an average of $26,000 after four years and $33,000 after five years, she said. Business majors with a starting salary of $45,000 will likely struggle under that debt load, but they're better off than graduating teachers who find jobs paying $25,000 to $28,000 a year, she said.

"Every semester I have kids lined up outside my office because they don't have any money," Ms. Sias said. "And when they can't get an answer anyplace else, what do they do? They call the president and say, 'Can you help us?'"