Staff Editorial: Maryland HBCUs versus PWIs: Separate and Unequal

In the spirit of the Supreme Court's monumental 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education, students from four Maryland HBCUs are claiming that the lack of funding at their schools is helping to perpetuate educational disparities similar to those present during the era of segregation.

Students and graduates of Morgan State University, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Coppin State, and Bowie State have filed a lawsuit asking that the state of Maryland provide more funding to HBCUs in order to help them be better equipped to compete with their white counterparts.

The lawsuit also aims to end the trend of predominantly white institutions replicating popular HBCU programs in order to attract more black students to their universities.

While the state of Maryland feels that it has been generous to HBCUs in terms of funding, it also argues that minority students currently have more options and opportunities to attend universities other than HBCUs than in the past.

The representatives of these Maryland HBCUs should be commended for their willingness to challenge the disparities in funding between HBCUs and predominantly white institutions. These differences affect the educational experiences and opportunities of students from the classes that they can take, whether or not a university is able to afford the faculty and facilities necessary to teach them, to the amount of debt with which students will graduate, due to the amount of scholarship and grants available for a student's financial aid package, as opposed to loans.

With this information in mind, other, if not all, HBCUs should follow the Maryland HBCUs' lead. It does not even take a walk around Cambridge to know that Harvard's approximately $32 billion endowment is significantly larger than Howard's which is approximately $ 400 million.

At the same time, as people of color, no one should understand the importance of self-sufficiency more than us. There is no better way to demonstrate the importance of HBCUs than to display the accomplishments, capabilities, and spirit of HBCU students and alumni by supporting our institutions ourselves. Thus, for every dollar for which HBCUs lobby the government, alumni should contribute twice as much.

Maryland's argument about minority students having more opportunities to attend other schools does not negate or lessen the need for increased funding for HBCUs. Rather, it is reminiscent of the philosophy that questions the continued relevance of HBCUs.

Therefore, while advocating the need for more funding, it is also important that government and education officials alike understand the unique advantages and experiences that HBCUs have to offer and begin to see them not as antiquated options for minority students who are not allowed to, are unable to, or cannot afford to go elsewhere, but rather as valuable and legitimate institutions in and of themselves.

Our View: The Maryland lawsuit is an important step toward preserving, improving, and defending its historically black colleges that could possibly benefit students at all HBCUs.