Apart No More? Part II

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on historically black colleges and universities. Here is the first article. 

The nation’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have a remarkable legacy. They were the main vehicle for lifting the former slave population that had been deliberately kept in ignorance, both before and to a lesser extent after emancipation, into literacy and knowledge.

But sometimes success creates new conditions in which the old solutions are not applicable. Black students are no longer excluded from mainstream universities—they are instead actively and aggressively sought out. While African-Americans have not necessarily reached full numeric parity in mainstream academia as a percentage of the population, their presence there is increasing. For instance, in the eleven colleges in the University of North Carolina system that are not HBCUs, blacks represent more than 20 percent of the student population at two schools and less than five percent of the student body at only two others.

In fact, HBCUs only educate about 20 percent of all African-Americans today. (HBCU is an official designation given by the federal government in the Education Act of 1965, to all institutions of higher education existing at that time that had been created primarily to education African-Americans.)

Not only are blacks attending mainstream colleges, but more students of other races are attending HBCUs, particularly the public schools. As described in the first part of this article, the economic downturn and other trends are raising questions about HBCUs’ continued existence as institutions that specifically exist to serve black Americans.

So, as the era of segregation becomes more a part of the distant past, what then is the role of HBCUs? Are they merely an unnecessary vestige of a bygone era, or are there valid reasons why such schools should maintain their racial identity and culture?

Certainly many African-Americans have a strong emotional attachment to the HBCUs, and naturally wish that they retain their cultural identities. After all, they were started as (nearly) the only places blacks could get an education during the era of segregation, and they have become a great source of pride.

One reason commonly given for the continued existence of HBCUs is that black-majority campuses provide black students with a critical mass of black role models and mentors that does not exist on other campuses. According to this line of reasoning, black students, particularly those from low-income communities with few educated professionals, should see and know accomplished African-Americans in order to feel confident that they, too, can succeed academically.

Supporters of HBCUs also say that having a large black majority on campus permits them to concentrate on their studies without having to deal with vexing aspects of race. On predominantly white campuses, they say, black students are constantly made conscious of their differences and must deal with negative behavior by members of other races. This behavior can range from overt racism to what President George W. Bush called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” which includes such impediments to learning as condescending professors who hold them to lower standards because of their race.

But this reasoning raises the question the question whether, if it is beneficial for black students to learn in such an environment, is it better for all students to learn on segregated campuses where the emphasis is on their own specific sub-culture?

The evidence of HBCUs’ actual performance is conflicting. They seem to do a better job of educating African-Americans in the most demanding and in-demand majors. According to the United Negro College Fund, HBCUs graduate over 50 percent of African-American professionals, and one-third of black mathematicians. And a 1999 study by Harold Wenglinsky of the Educational Testing Service suggested that students at HBCUs are approximately 50 percent more likely to choose graduate majors in science than their non-HBCU peers.

Yet a 2009 Associated Press study revealed that only 37 percent of students at HBCUs graduate within six years. This is four points lower than the 41 percent rate for black students at non-HBCUs, and much lower than the national rate for all students of 56 percent.

In thinking about the future of HBCUs, another important issue arises: is it proper for the government to run racially focused schools? Should a state actively promote the idea that a public university exists primarily to serve a particular race? Private colleges, by virtue of the right to free association, can emphasize the culture of a specific group of people, whether it is based on ethnicity, religion, or gender. But there are no publicly funded institutions of higher education with a religious emphasis, and only two publicly funded degree-granting colleges with a stated emphasis on women are left. Today, both of those colleges are coeducational, and recently Mississippi governor Haley Barbour proposed merging one of them, the Mississippi University for Women, with the much larger Mississippi State University. (He also proposed merging the state’s three public HBCUs into one.)

The existing legal standard is in favor of states ending the separate status of public universities. In a series of landmark court decisions collectively known as Ayers v. Fordice and U.S. v. Fordice, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1992 and 1995 that Mississippi had failed to satisfy its obligation to dismantle its dual higher education system of five white colleges and three black schools under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The defense (the state) based its case on the claim that it had acted in good faith to eliminate race-based policies. Yet the Supreme Court differed, saying that the state had to not just eliminate policies based on race, but also had to remove “race-neutral” policies that continued to support the dual system. For instance, the court said that Mississippi’s historically white schools relied too much on standardized test scores for admissions, without taking into consideration high school grades. This policy served as a roadblock to many blacks, even without mentioning race, since the racial disparity for the tests was much greater than it was for grades.

Mississippi also contended that the continuation of a dual system was the result of individuals’ choices. Yet the court decided that Mississippi could do more to influence the decisions of prospective students to favor greater diversity in the university system.

One way to encourage more white students to choose HBCUs that has gained popularity throughout the country is to end the “unnecessary duplication” of “non-core or non-essential programs (this was included in Justice Byron White’s majority opinion).” This is accomplished by adding new programs that do not duplicate existing curricula. For example, in North Carolina, the high demand for a non-elite law school in the Triangle Region has attracted so many non-black students to the law program at N.C. Central University (an HBCU) that African-Americans are now a minority of students. The state has also initiated programs with broad appeal to the mainstream such as a flight school and graduate pharmacy program at another HBCU, Elizabeth City State University.

With public HBCUs moving toward the mainstream, perhaps it might be better to leave schools with a racial emphasis to the private realm. Some of the best-known private HBCUs are thriving, such as Fisk University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College.

Many others are not faring well, and some are in dire straits. They face severe financial pressures, declining enrollments and, in the worst cases, loss of accreditation. Morris Brown College in Atlanta nearly had to close its doors due to a $380,000 overdue water bill, and is down to 104 students after losing its accreditation in 2002. Barber-Scotia College in North Carolina has also lost its accreditation, and at the end of the last school year had only 20 students. Paul Quinn College in Dallas had its accreditation revoked this year, with enrollment down to 375 students in June 2009.

These private HBCUs tend to have very low endowments, which cause their revenues to be driven by enrollment. The fact that the highly state-subsidized public HBCUs (and state non-HBCUs) charge much less in tuition is almost certainly a contributing factor to the private schools’ woes.  Perhaps, if public universities eliminate their designations as official “black colleges,” some of the struggling private HBCUs will rebound, as they once again become the top choices of students who seek a college experience on a black-majority campus.

As the country’s segregationist past becomes more of a distant memory, the status of HBCUs will continue to change. This evolution will be particularly evident at the state-run schools, since the public universities are the ones affected by decisions such as Fordice, and they also have weaker claims to the right of free association by virtue of their public governance. If some of them become mainstream campuses, many African-Americans might be tempted to feel as if their legacy is being taken from them. Perhaps they should instead feel pride that their tiny colleges, which often started as two-year normal schools to educate “Negro” elementary school teachers and defied the odds for many years, have grown and developed into major universities for everyone.