Public historically Black colleges and universities have served the under-represented well in the years since Adams v. Richardson, but states can no longer continue to underfund HBCUs if these schools are to become "comparable and competitive" with traditionally White institutions, a panel of former and current HBCU leaders concluded Thursday at a conference at Morgan State University.

"The magnitude of disparity between public HBCUs and historically White institutions remains particularly great," said Lezli Baskerville, president and chief executive officer of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the facilitator of the Presidential Round Table panel entitled "The Unfinished Business of Parity in the Adams States: The Promise and the Perils."

The problem is, "public higher education is disengaging from educating the growing populations in their states," she said, referring to African American, Latino and Asian American populations.

In the nearly 40 years since the Adams case, which required federal education officials to monitor the desegregation of public colleges in states with separate higher education systems for Blacks and Whites, little has been done to make HBCUs truly competitive. Inequitable public funding, program duplication at nearby schools, and a reluctance to fully integrate the student bodies are among the problems holding back HBCUs, the panel said.

A lack of funding has been an acute problem, said the panelists - Julius L. Chambers, former chancellor of North Carolina Central University; John J. Oliver, former chair of the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC); and Dr. Mary Sias, president of Kentucky State University - with each giving examples from their own struggles.

Chambers said he watched money go to schools like the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with its impressive and profitable athletic program, as NCCU struggled to make ends meet. Trying to divert funding for his school, especially when he suggested it come from athletics, was nearly impossible.