The Maryland Senate on Sunday unanimously passed legislation that would allot $577 million to the state’s four historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) over 10 years.
The Maryland House of Delegates, in a near-unanimous vote, passed the bill last week. It now goes to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan for consideration. The legislation was sponsored by House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County), the first African American and the first woman in that position.
The hope is the legislation will end a 2006 lawsuit brought by the Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education, which alleges that state policies perpetuate segregated higher education by underfunding the state’s HBCUs and by allowing traditionally White state universities to create new programs that duplicate those at historically Black institutions.
Dr. David Kwabena Wilson, president of Morgan State University, one of the four Maryland HBCUs, told Diverse he felt confident the bill would pass the Senate, once it passed the House.
“I wasn’t sure about the House. … I was very optimistic when it passed the House overwhelmingly and I knew based om information from senators that they had votes in the Senate,” said Wilson, who testified in front of a House subcommittee as well as a Senate subcommittee. “All the legislators felt overwhelmingly that it’s time to solve the lawsuit and provide additional support for the HBCUs to continue on the path to competitiveness and comparability with all institutions in the state.”
On the long-running lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake in 2013 ruled in the coalition’s favor finding that majority state institutions in Maryland illegally duplicated state HBCU programs.
The Maryland HBCU plaintiffs “have prevailed in establishing current policies and practices of unnecessary program duplication that continue to have segregative effects as to which the State has not established sound educational justification,” said the court.
