The Big Unknown
Some Louisiana higher education officials are beginning to voice concerns that Baton Rouge's much-publicized woes will hurt the college's booming enrollment this fall. But Bonaparte says if students shun the college, it won't be his fault.
"The drop in enrollment will be due to the calamitous lie that I abuse White women — they put it out there intentionally to harm the college," Bonaparte says, an apparent reference to the fact the college was created because of Louisiana's segregationist past.
The college was born as part of the 1994 settlement in the long-running federal lawsuit over the desegregation of the state's public colleges and universities. It was meant to serve as a racial mixing pot in a city with two universities — one predominately White, the other mostly Black.
The federal judge that oversaw the agreement arranged to have the college initially placed under the control of those two institutions — predominately White Louisiana State University and historically Black Southern University.
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