Black Media Leading Attack on Historically Black Colleges

It’s beginning to be more annoying than frightening, the growing sentiment of elected leaders and media officials joining the fray on why HBCUs should be merged, or cease to exist. The reasoning is simple; why fund or operate a school historically and presently committed to the education of a particular ethnic sect? Why clamor support and finances for a financially unstable operation in higher education?

In a world devoid of du jure systems of higher education and generational vestiges of “separate but equal” still viciously present in the academic culture of the United States, this would be a legitimate argument. But where students still are born and raised with cultural and social roadblocks to educations, and just a few institutions are in place to educate students who otherwise may not be admitted to a college, the argument to expand the du jure system with mergers or closures is, at best, self-hating.

Bill Maxwell of the St. Petersburg Times is the latest to advocate for a sweeping reductions in HBCU education.

HBCU supporters will have to use more than emotion and allusions to a glorious past to stave off change.

He follows in the footsteps of Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, who columnized a laughable proposition of HBCUs perpetuating de facto segregation.

Many black educators continue to insist that historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) provide a nurturing environment that some black students desperately need. However, de facto segregation isn’t required to give those students remedial studies, small class sizes and attentive teachers, all of which are also available at many diverse two-year colleges.

And there have been others, either too smart to see the error of their logic, or too dismayed in their own culture to see that HBCUs have been, are and will be the centers of sustainability for African-American communities.

The question is not of desegregation, as HBCUs have never legally blocked student admission or enrollment based on race. The question is not of necessity, because we see that the overwhelming majority of African-Americans receiving degrees in the United States today are receiving them from historically black colleges and universities. The question is one of support, both within and outside the gates of HBCUs across the country. The fickle impression that media coverage and marketing have left with communities invested in higher education has created lasting impact on HBCUs, impact that has now festered in the minds of black media as a warning sign for these institutions to suffer the indignity of stripped autonomy.

Rarely, if at all, has the assessment been done on how states have neglected HBCUs; not only in financial support, but in academic programs offered, facilities constructed, and research capability. If you are a parent, and your local HBCU hasn’t had a dorm built in 20 years or renovations done to an academic building in 40 years, why would you send your child to a substandard learning environment?

If your state institution offers degrees in 50 undergraduate programs and 30 graduate programs, what would be the incentive to attend the HBCU that offers 20 and six, respectively?

Everyone looks at the disadvantages of HBCUs, but no one ever asks the only logical question. Why isn’t this HBCU as nice looking, as academically rich, and as well-marketed as this non-HBCU institution? What is the benefit for the state to publicly fund an institution that no one who could afford to do otherwise, would choose not to attend?

With all things being considered equal, even in desperate economic times, why have traditionally white institutions received more state support than historically black colleges and universities?

Quite literally, it is the $10 million dollar question. With an answer you may not expect.

Along with the states’ unlawful negligence, alumni have bought into the notion that HBCUs aren’t worth their individual investment. Sure, you have loyalists born and bred of segregation and Black Power that cheerfully support alma mater, but try to find a graduate after 1990 that takes the same great pride and the same great care of their school that a donor 20 years their senior would. You’ll find some, but not nearly enough.

And what creates the disharmony of solving the problem is the constant clash of the “The White Man Did It” Chorus and the “Negroes Need to Get Over It” Orchestra. For so long as these dueling perspectives meet over the airwaves, in newspapers, and in the halls of state legislature, the growing sentiment that HBCUs aren’t necessary will find believers – even among those who would not have the logic to form an opinion were it not for an HBCU education.

Some HBCUs are immune from this kind of twisted culture clash. They’ve either yielded enough influential graduates over the years to affect policy, or they’ve put down strong enough roots that their financial and cultural economy leverage their existence with the surrounding region. But all HBCUs don’t enjoy this kind of positioning, and those that don’t face unnecessary threats for being the dark-skinned stepchildren of American racism.

The solution is simple. Instead of lauding the larger, whiter state institutions for humbly admitting 3-7 percent minority students, instead of cheering on their televised and profitized sports programs, instead of assuming that the larger schools that once turned us away are the best and only alternative, consider the possibilities for HBCUs receiving the same kind of financing and exposure.

Instead of alumni lamenting the shoddy or crooked management of their colleges and universities, consider leveraging your influence through gifts and fundraising. Mobilize the alumni network to do more than cultivate Facebook and AlumniRoundup unions; encourage them to be catalysts for campus development, academic enrichment, and professional networking.

There is room for imagination. If adequate staffing, renowned faculty and alluring facilities were the hallmark of HBCUs as they are for TWIs, would they still be looked at by students as a back-up school? If HBCUs had appropriate policing, would they still only find the front pages of news stories for a campus shooting or rape?

If HBCUs could be marketed to be more than reservoirs of tradition and feeders for Black History Month features, would the media think and write the same way? Would consumers read them and their missions the same way?

I think not. And unfortunately, some members of the black media don’t have the decency or cultural allegiance to think about it at all.

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