Alabama HBCUs To Get Financial Windfall From Desegregation Lawsuit Settlement
By Reginald Stuart
When Chemeria Smith, a senior at Greene County High School in Eutaw, Ala., seeks financial aid for college next fall, she may find some of it coming from an unlikely source — her own state of Alabama, which dedicates just 1 percent of its college funding to need-based aid.
Smith, who hopes to attend Alabama A&M University this fall, is preparing for college as state higher education officials decide how to disburse $10 million in new money from its need-based college assistance fund, which typically only has $1.7 million.
“I want to expand my learning experience and come back to help those in the community who helped me,” says Smith.
The financial windfall is part of the state’s surprisingly large surplus for fiscal year 2005. The unexpected surplus of more than $200 million helped end a 26-year-old federal lawsuit, Knight v. James, that
sought to end racial discrimination in the state’s billion-dollar public higher education system.
Black plaintiffs who had sued the state and all of the individual four-year, traditionally White public colleges, filed 10 separate settlement agreements this month with Judge Harold L. Murphy of the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The plaintiffs agreed, separately and jointly, to end the litigation under terms that may dramatically change the state’s higher education landscape.
As the lawsuit worked its way through several court orders and implementation plans, it brought about significant changes for Alabama A&M University and Alabama State University, both historically Black schools. The physical plants at both schools underwent improvements, as did their academic offerings. Alabama A&M’s operations were also consolidated with those of traditionally White Auburn University, equalizing salaries and providing shared oversight to both schools. Traditionally White schools also were ordered to create diversity plans to attract more minority faculty to their campuses. The state also dramatically expanded need-based financial aid to Alabama students, regardless of race.
According to the Alabama Higher Education Commission, about 74,000 Alabama college students qualified for need-based aid in 2005, based on their Pell Grant applications. Only 1,400 actually got aid, and each award averaged only $383. The average tuition at a four-year, public college in Alabama for the current school year is $4,700.
