Two cabinet secretaries from the Biden administration have sent letters to 16 U.S. governors, informing them that, over the past three decades or more, their states have drastically underfunded Historically Black Colleges and Universities that receive land grants.
The letters were sent on Monday by Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
Only two states that had land-grant HBCUs — Delaware and Ohio — provided an equitable distribution of funding.
Citing data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics, the department secretaries said that a funding gap for these states’ land-grant HBCUs “could have supported infrastructure and student services” and would have “better positioned” HBCUs “to compete for research grants” that were otherwise more accessible to other institutions.
In a press release announcing the letters from Cardona and Vilsack, the secretaries said that states that had chosen “to open a second land-grant university to serve Black students were required to provide an equitable distribution of state funds” — but that standard clearly hasn’t been reached in the past few decades, they added.
In total, the funding gap for land-grant HBCUs was around $13 billion — meaning that, while other land-grant institutions were given the proper amount of funding, HBCUs were not. In five of the states mentioned in the letters (Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas and North Carolina), the gap in funding for land-grant institutions (between HBCUs and other universities) ranged from $1 billion to $2 billion.
According to the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities, a land-grant institution is one “that has been designated by its state legislature or Congress to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862, 1890, and 1994.” Land-grant institutions were formed to “teach agriculture, military tactics, and the mechanic arts as well as classical studies so members of the working classes could obtain a liberal, practical education.”
By not allocating sufficient funds to land-grant HBCUs, these states have done a grave disservice to students of these institutions, the Biden administration secretaries said.
Within the letters, Cardona said the following:
Unacceptable funding inequities have forced many of our nation’s distinguished Historically Black Colleges and Universities to operate with inadequate resources and delay critical investments in everything from campus infrastructure to research and development to student support services. … These institutions and the talented, diverse students they serve must have equitable funding in order to reach their full potential and continue driving innovation.
Vilsack reiterated that assessment in strong terms, and demanded that states take immediate action to rectify the differences in funding:
The documented discrepancies are a clarion call for governors to act without delay to provide significant support for the 1890 land-grant institutions in their respective states. Failing to do so will have severe and lasting consequences to the agriculture and food industry at a time when it must remain resilient and competitive.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $86,000 in one-time donations and to add 1260 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy