There are many reasons Trump would want to shut down historically Black colleges.
Here are a few:
- HBCUs generate $16.5 billion annually in economic impact and support over 136,000 jobs.
- Nearly 20% of all Black college graduates in the United States earn their degrees from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). That’s a striking figure, considering that HBCUs represent only about 3% of all U.S. colleges and universities and enroll roughly 10% of Black college students.
- This outsized impact is even more pronounced in certain professions:
- 40% of Black engineers
- 50% of Black teachers
- 70% of Black doctors
- 80% of Black judges are HBCU alums.
Two reasons stand out above these:
States owe Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) — specifically the land-grant HBCUs — an estimated $13 billion in underfunded support over the past 30 years.
And Black graduates disproportionately form America’s Black leaders, almost all of whom don’t support Trump's policies, because they actually know their history.
The push to end Black colleges didn’t begin with Donald Trump. A Mississippi State Senator recently introduced a bill requiring the state to shut down three of the state’s eight publicly funded colleges and universities. John Polk never used the word HBCU, but the focus immediately went to Alcorn State, Mississippi Valley State, and Jackson State Universities.
In 2009, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour proposed merging the three HBCUs into a single school based in Jackson, though campuses would still exist at the other two locations.
“This is obviously a slap at black colleges," said civil rights lawyer, Julius L. Chambers. "I think this would be another act of discriminating against black colleges.”
Georgia legislators proposed that two HBCUs should be absorbed into primarily white institutions (PWIs). The proposal failed, but people said the quiet part out loud. State Senator Seth Harp called HBCUs an “unconstitutional system of continuing segregation.”
“I’m a very strong believer that it’s time Georgia closed this chapter — not forget it, but we need to get out of the business of operating separate school systems," said Georgia senator Seth Harp. "We’ve put a lot of bad things in our history behind us. We took the Stars and Bars off our flag and put that away, and that was a huge step of reconciliation. It’s time now that we close the chapter in this process.”
Harp referred to the Geier v. Tennessee case as a precedent. The consent decree emerging from that case resulted in the merger of Tennessee State University, a HBCU, with UT-Nashville. I was a college student in Nashville at the time of the decision, and there was a great fear that Tennessee State would lose its identity. That didn’t happen, but the school has been continually underfunded. A recent federal government assessment estimates that TSU has been shorted $2.1 billion over the years.
The same assessment shows that 16 states have underfunded HBCUs by over $12 billion. Mississippi, Georgia, and others have mostly cited poor economic performance as the reason for closing or merging HBCUs. Cheating them of their funding might be the cause. It’s been suggested that attempts to close or merge HBCUs, like in Mississippi, are an attempt to avoid paying those schools what they are owed. When Tennessee State University board members started insisting on payment, they were replaced by Governor Bill Lee with his own people.
The argument of segregation vs. integration is not new, though there wasn’t always a choice. HBCUs only needed to exist in the first place because higher education was denied to Black students, as white colleges and universities would not admit them. While the A.M.E. church founded some HBCUs, most were founded by other religious groups like the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church, the American Baptist Church, and the American Missionary Association, with support from the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 established several state schools, but none were HBCUs. A Second Morrill Land Grant Act was passed in 1890, establishing 17 new HBCUs, including the largest state-owned ones still in existence. They include Florida A&M, Tennessee State, and Alabama A&M. The same bill produced Auburn University and the University of Florida. The Act called for “just distribution of funds,” but state legislators had minds of their own, hence the chronic underfunding of HBCUs.
In the 1930s, America was in the midst of the Great Depression. Segregation was still the law of the land, and America elected FDR based on his promise of the New Deal. To get support from Southern Senators, Roosevelt compromised on any programs benefiting Black people, including higher education. A debate raged between Black leaders of the NAACP, Walter White and W.E.B. DuBois. White saw complete integration as the only way to equality. DuBois published three articles in The Crisis magazine, which he edited, suggesting some benefits of segregation, where Black students could get more from being taught by Black teachers, who meant better for them than those with no inherent interest.
DuBois had just led a successful effort to remove the white school president at Fisk University, who used any means necessary to quell student protests, including using the all-white Nashville police department to storm the campus and arrest students. President Fayette McKenzie had raised over a million dollars for Fisk and was lauded by many. His fundraising efforts included bringing Black female students to all-white Nashville clubs to sing for money. DuBois went nationwide and even called for no Black parents to send their children to Fisk until McKenzie was gone.
McKenzie eventually resigned, but Fisk would not get its first Black president until 1946. Other HBCU students protested their treatment, following the example set by Fisk University. Howard University got its first Black president in 1926.
At the NAACP, Walter White made a play to take control of The Crisis, the organization's official organ that DuBois edited. White felt DuBois focused too much on general issues and not specifically on the NAACP’s work. White supremacists were using some of the words of DuBois to support their position on segregation, though DuBois meant them in an entirely different way. I’m reminded of present-day politicians citing Martin Luther King, Jr, though they despised him when he was alive. DuBois eventually resigned from the NAACP, not because he thought change wasn’t possible, but because he felt he could accomplish no more from within the organization.
The reason HBCUs will come under greater attack is the same reason their continued existence is essential. HBCUs disproportionately produce the most Black leaders and professionals. They are the pipeline for Black doctors, lawyers, and politicians. From their ranks came Thurgood Marshall, W.E.B. DuBois, Kamala Harris, John Lewis, Toni Morrison, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Don’t imagine there aren’t those who would like to nip that source of talent in the bud.

There is an apparent effort to eliminate all efforts at equality and diversity within America’s colleges and universities. Affirmative action, which itself was a reaction to discrimination and racism, is all but gone. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) have become dirty words, and DEI programs are being wiped out on college campuses. Attempts to promote Black success on primarily white campuses are under attack. How long until some politicians start focusing on the alleged greater good of eliminating HBCUs as a vestige of Jim Crow?
To be clear, HBCUs have never been segregated in the manner that white schools are. Students of any race have always been accepted at HBCUs. I attended Fisk University in the mid-1970s along with white kids. Upon returning to the campus, I saw that white students were still there. HBCUs aren’t an “unconstitutional system of continuing segregation” but a choice for students looking for an environment where they might thrive.
I started to include that HBCUs are a safer environment until I remembered police shootings of unarmed students at Jackson State, Southern University, and South Carolina State after peaceful protests. I thought about six months of HBCUs suffering bomb threats as recently as last year. In August of 2023, a white gunman appeared on the campus of Edward Waters University in Florida. Perhaps the sight of a security guard unnerved him, and he left, stopping a few blocks away and murdered three Black people at a store serving the Black community.
While danger and hate come and go, the love found at an HBCU is constant. I went to school on or near the University of Minnesota campus from seventh to twelfth grades. Those students had some commonalities, and large groups could get together to protest the Vietnam War, for example. There were open keg parties on the banks of the Mississippi River, but those students didn’t know each other in the same way students do at HBCUs. They don’t associate as alumni, and while they may form lifelong friendships with their besties, they don’t have the same ties with the students who weren’t their best friends. They don’t have the camaraderie with other students who attended other white colleges that HBCU alums have with each other.
HBCUs have a tradition of loving and caring instructors and coaches who not only educate but also inspire. Generations of Fisk students, for example, were bettered by their interaction with the late Dr. Leslie Morgan Collins.
I sincerely hope to be wrong, but the future of HBCUs is at risk. Like all colleges and universities, HBCUs are dependent on government funding. Even private institutions rely on Pell Grants for a significant portion of their revenue. What is given can also be taken away. Democratic and Republican administrations have spotty records relative to HBCUs. I believe President Obama, for example, was concerned about appearing to focus too much on Black issues. President Trump claimed to have saved HBCUs, but that wasn’t entirely true.
It’s only a matter of time before a politician wishes to eliminate segregation by eradicating HBCUs. Naming names would be a distraction, but several current-day politicians come to mind as possibilities. It might seem like it could never happen, but the Voting Rights Act was gutted, and Roe v. Wade was overturned. Very few things are forever; I hope HBCUs and their alumni are prepared for the upcoming battle regarding their state and campus.
Now, the Trump Administration has said the quiet part out loud. The state of Tennessee and an anti-affirmative action organization sued the U.S. Education Department in June, asking a judge to halt the Hispanic-Serving Institution program. Tennessee argued that all of its public universities serve Hispanic students, but none meet the “arbitrary ethnic threshold” to be eligible for the grants. Those schools miss out on tens of millions of dollars because of discriminatory requirements, the suit said. This is the Tennessee that owes Tennessee State University $2 billion and refuses to repay. The anti-affirmative action organization is Students for Fair Admissions, which isn’t comprised of students and gets most of its money from conservative groups. $1 million of the $1.5 million raised came from just three conservative foundations.
The Justice Department refused to defend the government against the lawsuit, going as far as to say that Hispanic-Serving Institutions are unconstitutional because some of their funding is race-based. HBCUs receive some race-based funding. Although all students are welcome to apply, most do have a race-based mission related to why they exist in the first place. Tribal Colleges are living on the edge due to funding cuts, and they will save the HBCUs for last. Don’t pretend it could never happen. If Trump could come for Harvard and Columbia, he could certainly come for Howard, Morehouse, Spelman, Fisk, and the rest.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.