President Donald Trump meets with leaders of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP)
President Donald Trump on Tuesday moved to create closer ties with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), issuing an executive order that moves assistance to the 100 schools from the U.S. Education Department to The White House.
Congressional lawmakers met with more than 85 college leaders Tuesday, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told the group that the Trump administration would be "a strong partner in fulfilling your mission."
DeVos said HBCUs "have always been more than simply institutions of higher learning. You have long represented a challenge to the status quo, starting by providing a necessary opportunity to African Americans following the Civil War."
The moves came a day after DeVos raised educators’ hackles. After meeting with HBCU leaders at the White House on Monday, she released a statement that said, in part, that the schools “are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.”
DeVos, a Michigan billionaire and GOP mega-donor, has heavily supported K-12 school choice legislation.
Critics responded by pointing out that, at the time of their founding, HBCUs didn’t provide more choice for African-American students — they provided the only choice.
Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities called DeVos’ statement an “(E)mbarrassingly ahistorical alternative-fact-du-jour,” while Kristen Clarke of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law noted that HBCUS arose “not by choice” but because of Jim Crow-era racism.
Read the whole statement. It is BANANAS. Says the solution to school segregation was to build more black only schools. I'm not kidding. https://t.co/MOZ8RyUUfe
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 28, 2017
Slate called DeVos’ assertion “one of the more bonkers statements you will ever see a 21st century politician make, somehow twisting an attempt to bring up her pet issue of school choice into praise for the segregated higher education system of the Jim Crow South.”
In her remarks on Tuesday, DeVos tried to rectify the gaffe, noting that traditional schools "systemically failed to provide African Americans access to a quality education — or, sadly, more often to any education at all."
She also tweeted that HBCUs were "born not out of mere choice, but out of necessity, in the face of racism, and in the aftermath of the Civil War."
DeVos told the college leaders that she would work closely with the schools "to help identify evolving needs, increase capacity, and attract research dollars," among other measures.
But your history was born not out of mere choice, but out of necessity, in the face of racism, and in the aftermath of the Civil War.
— Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVosED) February 28, 2017
She added that she'd work to bring down high remediation rates among African-American students who arrive at college without necessary basic skills. "We will never deny, cover-up, or feign indifference to the system failing students," she said, "and that includes students who have achieved at the level set out for them, only to find that the expectations for them were set too low. We will call it out. We will engage with an eye toward solutions. And we will fix it."
Trump and DeVos on Monday met at The White House with HBCU leaders, surprising many in the group with the level of attention.
“It is unprecedented,” Johnny Taylor, president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, told The Washington Post. “It’s really, really bizarre, is the only thing I can say. It’s so counterintuitive you can’t make it up.”
In the past, leaders of HBCUs have complained that President Obama failed to devote enough time to their issues.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Taylor called the executive order "a significant and a positive first step in what we hope to be a productive working relationship" with the administration.
Dillard University President Walter M. Kimbrough said Monday's last-minute plan for the Oval Office visit included “very little listening to HBCU presidents.” Kimbrough said he and his colleagues were granted just two minutes apiece to speak, “and that was cut to one minute.” In the end, he wrote, just seven of a planned 15 or so speakers got an opportunity to speak.
Totally nuts. DeVos pretending that establishment of historically black colleges was about choice not racism. https://t.co/gROpItxRx4
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) February 28, 2017
In a posting on Medium, Kimbrough on Monday said the federal government must raise the maximum available Pell Grant, which serves nearly two-thirds of African-American students and more than 70% of those attending HBCUs. The government, he said, should also restore year-round Pell Grants that enable students to finish college faster and with less debt, and remove time limits on the grants to benefit growing numbers of part-time students who may require more than 12 semesters to graduate.
Follow Greg Toppo on Twitter: @gtoppo
Betsy DeVos said HBCUs were about school choice. As if white/colored water fountains were about beverage options. pic.twitter.com/I3tNlER43n
— Resist Dystopia (@AynAyahSteenkur) February 28, 2017
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