A focus on addressing inequities at HBCUs
With our long history of advocating for better postsecondary education opportunities for Black and low-income students, the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) is coordinating efforts to advance justice and equity for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the South and other states.
In 2021, after 15 years of litigation, the state of Maryland reached a settlement with its public HBCUs to direct $577 million to those institutions to rectify decades of underinvestment. SEF President and CEO Raymond Pierce was lead consultant in the early development of that case. Pierce negotiated the original settlement in 2000 while acting as deputy chief of the civil rights division at the U.S. Department of Education during the administration of President Bill Clinton.
In the years since, national attention to the historical and ongoing underfunding of HBCUs has grown. In 2023, the Biden administration took the significant step of writing to 16 Southern states and showed data demonstrating the states’ underfunding of their land-grant HBCUs (as compared to predominantly White land-grant institutions) and asking them to resolve this disparity.
The Biden administration followed their initial letter with an additional set of letters last week, renewing their calls for states to address inequities in HBCUs funding (see one of the letters below).
SEF is engaging with advocates, state legislators, and attorneys to address this issue.
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