By the time Dr. Aminta H. Breaux was named president of Bowie State University in July 2017, a contentious, federal lawsuit to remedy longstanding racial disparities and funding inequities at four historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in Maryland was already in its 11th year.
Today, Breaux wonders if and when closure, for the case that began in 2006, will ever come.
“When I joined Bowie State University, I didn’t have high hopes that I would see closure during my time as president,” she said. What Breaux observed was how “far apart parties were” as they sought a settlement, and how efforts to secure a remedy “had slowed.” That was in 2018, when the court stayed all proceedings in the case.
Now, the long-awaited closure and settlement of the 13-year-old legal battle brought by a coalition of advocates and alumni from the HBCUs – Bowie State University, Morgan State University, Coppin State University and U of Maryland Eastern Shore – is in limbo.
Last month, Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed a bill that would have delivered more than half a billion dollars in funding over 10 years to his state’s Black colleges and universities. Hogan cited the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the state for his decision.
“The economic fallout from this pandemic simply makes it impossible to fund any new programs, impose any new tax hikes, nor adopt any legislation having any significant fiscal impact, regardless of the merits of the legislation,” Hogan wrote in a veto letter.
The funds for the state’s HBCUs would have also ended the long-standing lawsuit in which U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake ruled that Maryland had maintained a dual and segregated education system and had underfunded HBCUs for decades.
