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Abstract
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) face the same financial pressures as traditionally white institutions, and face unique challenges that stem from historical racial disparities in funding, their historical missions and student bodies. HBCUs have served diverse democratic functions over time, but today critics on the right and left question their continued relevance. Here we review the changing democratic functions of HBCUs and argue that in an era of retreat from affirmative action HBCUs remain important to the educational opportunities of African Americans and others. We suggest some additional democratic functions that HBCUs might play in the twenty-first century.
Notes
1 Many community colleges serve large black student majorities but were formed after 1964.
2 Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby, “The Whitest Historically Black College in America,” Morning Edition, (October 18, 2013). < http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/10/18/236345546/the-whitest-historically-black-college-in-america.>
3 “Black Student College Graduation Rates Remain Low, but Modest Progress Begins to Show,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (2006), < http://www.jbhe.com/features/50_blackstudent_gradrates.html>.
4 During the 2000s, faculty salaries were essentially flat, although faculty benefits increased. But one study argued that additional administrative costs were the main driver of the increase in university expenses. See Scott Carlson, “Administrator Hiring Drives 28% Boom in Higher-Ed Workforce,” Chronicle of Higher Education, (February 5, 2014).
5 Gary King and Maya Sen, “The Troubled Future of Colleges and Universities,” PS: Political Science and Politics 46:1 (2013), pp. 83–89; Nannerl O. Keohane, “Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Innovation, Adaptation, Preservation,” PS: Political Science and Politics 46:1 (2013), pp. 102–105.
6 King and Sen, “Troubled Future.”
7 Ibid.
8 Henry E. Brady, “Let's Not Railroad American Higher Education!,” PS: Political Science and Politics 46:1 (2013), pp. 94–101.
9 John Mark Hansen, “Paying the Piper: Higher Education Financing and Academic Freedom,” PS: Political Science and Politics 46:1 (2013), pp. 110–113.
10 Charlayne Hunter Gault, “Hard Times at Howard U,” The New York Times, February 4, 2014.
11 Ibid.; Tyler Kingkade, “HBCUs may sue Obama Administration Over New Student Loan Rules,” Huffington Post, March 13, 2013, < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/13/hbcus-obama-administration-black-colleges-lawsuit_n_2869216.html>.
12 Ibid.
13 Gene Demby, “Are HBCUs in Trouble? An Evergreen Question,” NPR, June 26, 2013, < http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/06/25/195666060/are-hbcus-in-trouble-an-evergreen-question>.
14 Demby reports that Howard increased its rate of alumni giving from 4 to 16% between 2008 and 2012.
15 Ibid.
16 Gregory N. Price, William Spriggs, and Omari H. Swinton, “The Relative Returns to Graduating from a Historically Black College/University: Propensity Score Matching Estimates from the National Survey of Black Americans,” Review of Black Political Economy 38:2 (2011), pp. 103–130.
17 Roland G. Fryer and Michael Greenstone, “The Causes and Consequences of Attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2:1 (2010).
18 Garian Clark, “U.S. v. Fordice: The Irony of Integration and the Elusive Goal of Equality,” Yahoo Voices, 2009, < http://voices.yahoo.com/us-v-fordice-irony-integration-elusive-2532231.html>.
19 Alcorn University, Hampton Institute, and Claffin University were the first HBCUs to be designated as land grant institutions.
20 Kingkade, “HBCUs may sue.”
21 Fryer and Greenstone, “Causes and Consequences.”
22 Gil Kujovich, “Equal Opportunity in Higher Education and the Black Public College: The Era of Separate but Equal,” Minnesota Law Review 72:23 (1987), pp. 29–43.
23 John Hope Franklin and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Black Americans (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010).
24 After the ruling Gaines had disappeared, so the actual judgment was dismissed, but the precedent was crucial to later cases including Brown.
25 H. “Rap” Brown was expelled from Southern University.
26 Sellers chose not to have his conviction expunged from the official record, deeming it a badge of honor.
27 DuBois claimed that “If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans, but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only if we shall make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and the relation of men to it—this curriculum that Higher Education which must underlie true life” (cited in Franklin and Higginbotham, From Slavery to Freedom). But the ability of students of technically oriented HBCUs to act as men (and women) of conscience suggests a broader sense of community. See: Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000).
28 Robert T. Palmer, Ryan J. Davis, and Marybeth Gasman, “A Matter of Diversity, Equity, and Necessity: The Tension Between Maryland's Higher Education System and its Historically Black Colleges and Universities over the Office of Civil Rights Agreement,” Journal of Negro Education 80:2 (2011), pp. 121–133.
29 HBCUs have a somewhat higher graduation rate. If past rates hold then this twelve percent of students will earn fifteen percent or more of degrees. The graduation rate differential is well documented but not universally reported, but see Milkyong Munsun Kim and Clifton F. Conrad, “The Impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities on the Academic Success of African-American Students,” Research in Higher Education 47:4 (2006), pp. 399–427.
30 Association of American Medical Colleges, “Table 30: Total Graduates by U.S. Medical School and Race and Ethnicity,” 2009, < https://www.aamc.org/download/321538/data/2012factstable30.pdf>.
31 Fryer and Greenstone, “Causes and Consequences”; Price et al., “Relative Returns to Graduating.”
32 Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Resegregation in the American South: Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, the schools in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, show how separate and unequal education is coming back,” The Atlantic, April 16, 2014, < http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/04/segregation-now/359813/>.
33 Quoted in Demby, “Are HBCUs in trouble?”
34 < http://www.spelman.edu/about-us> and < http://www.spelman.edu/about-us > (accessed April 12, 2014).
35 Mark E. Warren, Democracy and Association (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
36 Young, Inclusion and Democracy.
37 In later iterations the Borg were given a Queen, thus transforming a more frightening soulless collective into a hive mind.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Clyde Wilcox
Clyde Wilcox is professor of government at Georgetown University, and will teach at the Qatar campus in 2014–2016. He has published many books and articles in the areas of religion and politics, gender politics, political mobilization, interest groups, social movements, and science fiction and politics. He teaches new US diplomats at the Foreign Service Institute and has provided diplomatic training for other countries. He regularly travels and lectures across the world, and consults as an expert witness.
JoVita Wells
JoVita Wells received her BA from Howard University and her JD from Howard University School of Law. She serves as Director of Sponsored Programs and Program Manager of the Live to Give Charitable Trust, Initiative on Civic Engagement Equity at the University of the District of Columbia. She was a founding member of the National Sponsored Programs Administrators Alliance of HBCUs and served as its president in 2000. She was a Vanderbilt University (Peabody College) fellowship awardee where she studied educational leadership. Wells is a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship recipient to develop improved fundraising capabilities at HBCUs. Wells is a recognized expert in the development of non-profit organizations and university research and development programs.
Georges Haddad
Georges Haddad attended the American University of Beirut. He is currently a tenured professor of physiology at Howard University School of Medicine. He is nationally and internationally known for his work on the effects of alcohol on cardiomyocytes and excitation-contraction coupling. He is highly skilled in single cell patch clamp recordings and intracellular calcium determinations. He has been recognized for his outstanding mentoring of PhD students at Howard University.
Judith K. Wilcox
Judith Wilcox (formerly Judith Gwathmey) was professor of medicine and physiology at Harvard Medical School and is now professor at Boston University School of Medicine, and currently holds adjunct appointments in the Morehouse School of Medicine and Rutgers School of Medicine. She is currently a charter member of the National Institutes of Health, Vascular Cell and Molecular Biology study section. She was founder, CEO and CSO of Gwathmey, Inc., a pre-clinical research biotechnology company. She is known internationally for her research on calcium channeling and heart failure. Wilcox is also a highly sought after motivational speaker and mentor. She is the recipient of the Presidential Mentoring Award in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, the Daniel D. Savage Award from the Association of Black Cardiologists, and the Small Business Administration Tibbetts Award for Excellence in Research.