Will Historic Inequities Ever Be Remedied?

Before leaving office, Democrats and the Office of Civil Rights settled all but one desegregation case.
Will Black colleges flounder in the postelection dust?

By LYDIA LUM

Picture this: A public school that was king of Black college football for many years, and also sports a marching band historically renowned. It draws nearly half of its 6,700 students from out of state and
enjoys an enviable nursing and teacher certification passage rate.
Suddenly, accreditation officials refuse to give its blessing to Grambling State University in Louisiana, normally a rubber stamp-like process each decade for any university. Instead, accreditation officials ship out press releases about
financial problems at the school amid the
December holidays. Then days later, the college president quits.
Remedying Inequities
Is it an isolated problem? Or, is it a symptom of a spreading illness? Is there a plague that could sweep states where dual, unequal systems of education once were revered? Granted, much progress has occurred. Before leaving office, Democrats settled all but one desegregation case between the federal Office of Civil Rights and various Southern and border states.
But now Republicans have assumed control of the White House. They control a slender margin in Congress. Could historically Black colleges flounder in the postelection dust? Are they going to continue being the unwanted stepchildren to predominantly White colleges? What are the Black schools actually getting from their states under the terms of these settlements?
The consequences are crucial. Nearly 80 percent of students attending historically Black colleges go to public institutions. However, several education observers say it's perhaps too early to guess, depending on who is tapped to fill key jobs such as the assistant attorney general for civil rights. But some say the Beltway influence still has its limitations.
"On a day-to-day basis, these schools are not run from Washington," says Ted Shaw, associate director/counsel for the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. "And the truth is, both Democrats and Republicans have expressed a lot of rhetorical support for Black colleges. What I really wonder is, what standards this federal government is going to require these states to meet from now on?"
Indeed, those "standards" are the next chapter in a saga stretching several decades. Nineteen states were asked by the federal government in the 1970s and 1980s to craft plans erasing discrimination against their historically Black colleges and Black citizens. The chief components of the plans were to substantially integrate the student body, faculty and staffs of all campuses while strengthening the infrastructure and academic programs at the Black colleges. 
This was part of federal officials' enforcement of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination in federally subsidized schools. So in those states, the federal Office of Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Education monitored the progress in meeting these objectives. The Legal Defense Fund originally represented the plaintiffs, but later lost its standing to participate in the case, thus leaving a vacancy in the vital third party watchdog role for this type of litigation.
But by 1993, four of those 19 states — Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee — were in court over exactly what was to be done to carry out this mandate. And OCR officials determined that seven other states either were not complying with state desegregation plans or not complying with federal standards. Those states were Ohio, Maryland, Florida, Texas, Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
By the end of 2000, only Virginia still had unresolved issues with the OCR. Court orders dictated how Alabama and Tennessee should desegregate. Mississippi was still in court but is currently seeking an acceptable settlement with U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Attorney Alvin Chambliss Jr., who has represented the plaintiffs in the case from its earliest days. Louisiana and the other six states had signed consent decrees with the OCR. Each of those agreements called for the OCR to monitor various plans that are supposed to level the proverbial playing field between predominantly White colleges and their historically Black counterparts.
"That is the hope," says Raymond Pierce, who until late last year was deputy assistant secretary for the OCR for eight years. "I wouldn't have signed off on these plans if there wasn't a good chance of compliance."
In one of the higher-profile cases, the Ayers lawsuit in Mississippi, an offer has been made by the state that would, among other things, call for major capital improvements at Alcorn State, Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State universities. Other aspects include establishing new public and private endowments, strengthening academic programs and providing financial assistance for the summer developmental education programs. A spokesman for Rep. Thompson said a decision has not been made and "the offer remains on the table."
It is not known how many dollars the states had collectively committed to public Black colleges under the settlements. And like a nasty divorce, some terms remain to be hashed out, such as exact numbers of new courses and additional professors. Others will simply play out, such as whether recruiting more White students to the new rigorous academic programs at Black colleges actually will convince them to enroll. Nonetheless, the agreements are "hard and fast," Pierce says, despite the outcome of President George W. Bush's proposed budget cuts.
"The states are obligated to comply," Pierce says. "If the states have problems, they will need to go to the Education Department to get help complying."
Last month elected officials and education observers were reeling from a reorganization of education subcommittees in the U.S. House of Representatives that was close to derailing bipartisan cooperation. Under the reorganization, HBCU issues would be separate from most other higher education services. A new subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness was to oversee nearly all Higher Education Act programs, except for financial aid to historically Black colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions. The latter would be lumped with juvenile justice, child abuse and runaway youth programs in a Select Education subcommittee. Capitol Hill supporters said the new plan gave higher visibility to the minority schools, but opponents said it segregated them from higher education priorities.
However, on March 15, Democrats and Republicans ended their dispute over the jurisdiction of minority-serving institutions and agreed to move legislative jurisdiction over the minority school programs into the Competitiveness subcommittee, and keep general oversight of the programs in the Select Education subcommittee  (see story, page 8).
Pierce said that before leaving Washington for his native Cleveland, where he is campaigning for mayor, he briefed Black lawmakers in various states about terms of the consent decrees.
"They can be the watchdogs," says Pierce, who also negotiated many of the consent decrees. "They can identify the bills that might be adverse to the consent decrees. After all, the states may see the opportunity to push back on fulfilling their federal civil rights obligations."
How effective that will be, remains to be seen. But in Texas, where state lawmakers are now convening, prospects of redistricting have consumed much of the hallway gossip. Even among higher education priorities, state budget writers there are focused on repeated requests by the University of Houston for money to hire more star faculty so they can better compete with flagships like the University of Texas and Texas A&M universities. UH has arguably the most ethnically diverse student enrollment in the region and still educates many first-generation college students. UT and Texas A&M are still predominantly White. Meanwhile, lobbyists for the historically Black Prairie View and Texas Southern universities jockey for attention amid the myriad other issues competing for lawmakers' attention before they recess in about two months until 2003.
Under Bush's six years as governor, Texas' spending per student at Prairie View and TSU increased. But whether that is tied to the OCR-brokered consent decree signed with Texas last year is anyone's guess. No one knows how long Pierce and others had been in serious negotiation with Texas officials, or whether the rapidly approaching end to former President Clinton's administration sped up negotiations with Texas and other states.