In Georgia, the budget crunch has prompted one state senator to propose closing some public colleges, but not the ones you think.
Seth Harp speaks with a distinctive Georgia drawl that authenticates his Deep South roots, but also hints at a former life as a captain in the United States Marine Corps.
Despite such bona fides, Harp is a far cry from the stereotypical White, racist Republican that he’s being painted as in some media circles. To the contrary, at least at first glance, Harp appears to be more of a contradiction in terms.
Case in point: Harp calls himself “a conservative Republican who happens to be progressive.” And he sees nothing wrong with that.
Last month, as the Georgia Senate chairman of the Higher Education Committee, Harp caused a bit of a firestorm when he suggested merging two of Georgia’s historically Black universities with nearby majority White campuses.
But this son of the South doesn’t want to shut down the Black colleges; he’s going after the White ones. He calls it, “eliminating the competition.”
