*It appears that #45 has duped black folks and naysayers into believing he’s going to “save” HBCU’s.
According to reports, Donald Trump may have signed the HBCU executive order, but it doesn’t address their top concern: federal funding.
In essence, many are saying his time with dozens of HBCU presidents boils down to being just a photo opp.
The event went down on Monday when the White House invited the HBCU presidents to the Oval Office for a meeting about the future of the historically black colleges and universities. No doubt you’ve seen video showing everyone in the room seemingly excited that their president is about taking HBCUs to the next step, but the hype died after folks learned what was actually in the executive order.
As it turns out, #45’s HBCU executive order is basically the same order as former President Barack Obama’s. The only exception — the objectives will now be reported directly to the White House rather than the Department of Education.
Dillard University president Walter M. Kimbrough also noted on how they were treated while meeting with Trump. #45 cut their time to speak and was hardly listening when they did get the chance to talk. Additionally, the specifics of the order were not discussed during the signing, per theybf.com.
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In Trump’s remarks he said “with this executive order, we will make HBCUs a priority in the White House, an absolute priority.”
You believe that?
Trump’s order differs from what the HBCUs themselves were hoping for in terms of support. In December, HBCU presidents laid out a 10-point plan outlining their needs and some of those points included: Convening a White House summit on HBCUs; including HBCUs in a national infrastructure program; a plan to rejuvenate and boost the effectiveness of Pell Grants; and improving and simplifying the student aid process, among other items, per ebony.com.
Here’s another perspective of the White House event from Morehouse College President Dr. John S. Wilson, who worked during the Obama administration as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This week, Dr. Wilson issued an open letter regarding the meeting and his concerns over President Trump’s commitment to HBCUs. Here is a portion:
“I spent the last two days in meetings at the White House and on Capitol Hill. As some of you may know, all HBCU presidents were invited to a dialogue with President Trump and his new administration about support for HBCUs. Most of the 104 HBCU presidents attended, including all presidents from the Georgia-based HBCUs.
“Many had high hopes about this meeting. There was much advance chatter about it being “historic,” and there were many signals from key Trump administration officials that they would surprise HBCUs with favorable treatment. Given my experience in the Obama administration, I knew this would require an extraordinary announcement. Why? Because I knew that President Obama had invested $3 billion more in HBCUs in his first six years than President Bush invested in his final six years. Therefore, since President Trump pledged to “do more for HBCUs than any other president has done before,” we could have reasonably expected him to get started by announcing at least an additional $500 million to HBCUs…this year! And beside the expectation of new funding, there was advance talk of changes like an aspirational goal of 5 to 10 percent for federal agency funding to HBCUs, a special HBCU innovation fund, large boosts in Pell Grant and Title III funding, and extra tax breaks for those in the private sector who contribute to HBCUs. But, instead of the long-awaited executive order containing or signaling any of those outcomes, the key change is a symbolic shift of the White House HBCU Initiative from the Department of Education to the White House. It is not possible to measure the impact of this gesture anytime soon, if ever.”
You can read the rest of the letter from Morehouse College President Dr. John S. Wilson at Rolling Out.
Meanwhile, former Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities Ivory Toldson, who was appointed under the Obama Administration, wants you to consider the following:
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