Two leading Democratic Black lawmakers on Monday slammed President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to walk back his previous comments questioning the constitutionality of a program that helps support HBCUs.
U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, (D-Louisiana), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr., (D-Michigan), ranking member of the House judiciary committee, called Trump’s later declaration of his “unwavering support” for HBCUs insincere.
“Based on President Trump’s record on HBCUs, we think it’s safe to say that he meant what he said on Friday and that last night’s statement, much like the HBCU executive order, meeting, and photo, are just PR (public relations),” the two House members said Monday in a joint statement.
The Friday statement the two lawmakers referenced is one in which Trump questioned the constitutionality of several programs that the White House stated “allocate benefits on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender,” including the Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program Account, which provides low-cost loans to HBCUs. HBCUs, in fact, do not discriminate on the basis of race and are open to all students regardless of race or ethnicity.
President Trump issued a follow-up statement Sunday night that stated his intention to spend funds appropriated through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017 in a manner consistent with the constitution “does not affect my unwavering support for HBCUs and their critical educational missions.”
In their critique of that second Trump statement, Richmond and Conyers also took aim at a February meeting that Trump held with HBCU presidents in the Oval Office — a meeting derisively referred to as a photo-op by some critics — and an executive order in which President Trump extolled the “extraordinary contributions” that HBCUs make to the general welfare and prosperity of the nation.
Richmond and Conyers said the executive order “moves the HBCU initiative into the White House but does little else.” They also criticized Trump’s pending budget proposal to “give HBCUs the same amount of funding they received last year, even though their operational costs are increasing.”
