HOUSTON
As Texas Southern University
celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, university
administrators are hoping a financial bail-out
and accountability plan will help the
historically Black college survive at least
another fifty years.
In exchange for something between $8
million and $12 million from the often
tight-fisted Texas legislature, TSU officials
have agreed to maintain a schedule to fix the
financial aid problems of the 7,700student
university. About half of that money is
supposed to keep the institution, from which
75 percent of its students receive financial aid.
out of the red this fiscal year. The agreement
is an attempt by administrators to stave off
outright state control of the school, once
known as Texas State University for Negroes,
whose historic role in educating Houston’s
Black community has ignited impassioned
loyalties.
“It was through TSU that Houston
Blacks developed a middle class,” says
Zoia Jones, a 1960 graduate and president of
the Houston Chapter of the TSU Alumni
Association.
The financial plight of the college has
drawn statewide interest, especially among
African Americans, because Texas Southern
remains the only independent public Black
university in Texas. It boasts a who’s who of
powerful alumni, including the late U.S.
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, and claims
to have graduated more minority lawyers than
any school in the state. In a show of support,
March 21 was designated TSU Day by the
Texas Black Legislative Caucus.
In his inaugural speech, TSU President
James M. Douglas, a Houston native and law
school alumnus, offered an upbeat vision of
the institution’s future: “Texas Southern
University will survive because its founders
and those who followed built our university
on a rock. With your help we will continue to
build upon a rock.”
Douglas and his legislative supporters
have a lot riding on their shoulders in the next
few months.
For about a year, The University That
Sweatt Built, a bittersweet reference to the
1947 Sweatt v. Painter anti-segregation court
case that resulted in TSU’s state
funding, has been buried under a mudslide of
fiscal woes linked to financial aid
mismanagement. The U.S. Department of
Education, claiming that the university owes it
as much as $13 million in misspent financial
aid dollars over several years, has placed it on
a reimbursement system. That system
requires Texas Southern to pay students
financial aid, then file for reimbursement
showing proof that students qualify. The
cumbersome and time-consuming procedure
has left the university cash poor.
