When Leonard Haynes III came to Washington in 1989 as an assistant secretary of education, the Southern University-trained historian found a national government marked by bipartisanship, collaboration and cooperation on a wide range of topics of importance to people of color in higher education.
For sure, institutions focused on serving people of color were not getting all the funds or programs they wanted from the federal government. Still, there was some desire for diverse perspectives to be heard when decisions were being made about how to distribute federal funds to the nation’s higher education community.
Today, the landscape and environment are “more partisan and less collaborative and cooperative,” says Haynes, who at 65, is marking 15 years of continuous service in Washington as an inside advocate for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other institutions with histories of serving students of color.
More Washingtonians are asking questions about federal aid policies, once thought to be nearly sacred. The inquiry reflects the emergence of a new generation of lawmakers with no or few roots in HBCUs and other higher institutions that focus on serving students of color.
The lingering tough economy that produced less and less money for the federal government has impacted the thinking of those — in various administrations and on Capitol Hill — who decide how to spend it, Haynes says. Meanwhile, growing rifts between political parties have sharpened the rhetoric and debate over the age-old question of the role of the federal government in society.
“It’s a learning curve,” says Haynes, adding that today’s political climate has created new challenges for those, like him, whose advocacy is rooted in the nation’s history.
Signs abound, he says, “If you look around the landscape to [the fact that] the number of staunch advocates with a lineage has not expanded.” Haynes, senior director for institutional service in the Office of Post Secondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education, senses the impact of the changes every day.
