May 15, 2017

Months After Meeting with HBCU Presidents, Trump Still Giving Mixed Messages on Black Colleges
By Jane Kennedy

CBC Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.)

U. S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.)

Dr. Lezli Baskerville, President/CEO, NAFEO

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Repeatedly during his first 100 days, President Donald J. Trump signaled to the leaders and supporters of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that the federal support on which HBCUs depend would remain a priority under his administration.

One sign of hope was an executive order that the president signed in February to move the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from the Education Department to the White House, which some believed was an indication that HBCUs would indeed continue to be a priority under the new administration that had been expressed by the President.

But, doubts surfaced just weeks later after dozens of HBCU presidents and leaders met with the President in the Oval Office Feb. 27 for a meeting that was widely panned as little more than a photo op. That same month, Education Secretary Betsey DeVos was heavily criticized for a statement in which she praised HBCUs as “real pioneers when it comes to school choice”.

HBCUs were actually birthed from legalized racial segregation when African-Americans had no choice but to attend Black schools. It was, in part, the aftermath of that statement that caused graduates at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach to boo and turn their backs on DeVos in protest as she began their commencement speech May 10.

Still, the Trump administration has sent yet another troubling message concerning HBCUs, contained in a signing statement connected to a temporary federal spending measure. The statement said, "Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program Account" among other funds, the order said, “My Administration shall treat provisions that allocate benefits on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender…in a manner consistent with the requirement to afford equal protection of the laws under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution's Fifth Amendment.”

This HBCU Capital Financing Program Account, which provides HBCUs with funding at reasonable rates to build new and renovate infrastructure on their aging campuses, was created in 1992 as part of the Higher Education Act passed by Congress. According to Black lawmakers and other HBCU advocates, race is not a criteria and to qualify for the loans the schools must meet standards based on mission, accreditation status and the year an institution was established.

Hours after the White House released the signing statement, Michigan Rep. John Conyers, who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-Louisiana) issued a joint response that questioned both Trump’s understanding of the Capital Financing Program and his commitment to HBCUs.

“Trump’s statement is not only misinformed factually, it is not grounded in any serious constitutional analysis,” it read. “For a president who pledged to reach out to African-American and other minorities, this statement is stunningly careless and divisive. We urge him to reconsider immediately.”

Dr. Lezli Baskerville, president/CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), in a lengthy statement noted that HBCUs serve diverse student bodies.

“Since their founding, HBCUs have been open to, welcoming and supportive of persons from all races, ethnicities, religions, and both genders except for the gender-specific HBCUs,” she said. “HBCUs enroll roughly 30% of non-African American students. Their faculty is more than 40% non African American. Today 5 HBCUs are more than 50% non-African American. At least one is majority Hispanic serving. One is being shepherded by a white female president.”

If the administration were to withdraw from the program, she added, it would be “devastating to these equal opportunity institutions to whose presidents and chancellors President Trump pledged the largest investments in their history.”

The President has hastened to clarify the signing statement and assuage his critics, stating that the signing statement “does not affect my unwavering support for HBCUs and their critical education missions.” Noting the executive order he signed in February to strengthen their capacity, he said his commitment “remains unchanged.”

On that, Baskerville is willing to give Trump the benefit of doubt and told the Trice Edney News Wire that DeVos’ decision to deliver her first commencement speech at an HBCU “is an important indication that this administration understands the centrality of HBCUs to the realization of many of its priority goals, including its education, workforce, economic stimulus, urban and rural revitalization, and infrastructure development goals.” Baskerville also said that the experience will help DeVos become an “even more potent voice” for HBCUs.

But, Conyers and Richmond aren’t buying it:

“Sadly and shamefully, HBCUs, including the schools that President Trump met with, are left to wonder whether he wants to help or hurt them,” they said in the joint statement. “If President Trump really wants to help HBCUs, he’ll implement the proposals the CBC has suggested to him in several letters, including the letter we sent him on April 27, calling for robust funding for a host of programs that support students served by these schools.”

May 10, 2017

By Frederick H. Lowe

President Trump's termination letter to FBI Director James Comey.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions' letter recommending the firing of Comey.

FBI Director James Comey and now former President Barack Obama who appointed him to head the agency in September 2013.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

May 15, 2017

By Frederick H. Lowe

Obama Presidential Museum

May 9, 2017

'State of Black America': Washington Power Shift Brings ‘Dire Risk’ to Economic, Social Progress
By Hazel Trice Edney

NUL President/CEO Marc Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Now more than 100 days since the inauguration of President Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated Congress, the “shift of power and priorities in Washington” has brought a “dire risk” to Black economic and social progress in multi-faceted ways, requiring resolute protection and a “Main Street Marshall Plan”.

This according to the National Urban League’s annual State of Black America report released last week.

“A little more than three months since President Obama has left office, much of the economic and social progress we saw under his watch is under imminent threat,” says NUL President/CEO Marc Morial in a statement upon the release of the report. “Recovery from the Great Recession has been slow, but it has been real….During the Obama era, the economy added 15 million new jobs, the Black unemployment rate dropped and the high school graduation rate for African Americans soared. Now that progress, and much more, is threatened.”

Morial continued, “It is impossible to discuss the state of Black America in 2017 without addressing the shift of power and priorities in Washington.”

The report, which has a 20-page executive summary and voluminous addendums and essays by numerous policy experts, outlines specific issues where NUL studies have found threats of imminent roll backs. Among them:

• “Recent proposals before Congress would shift desperately needed resources away from underfunded public schools toward our heavily-invested-in military. The federal budget currently under consideration would slash the budget of the Departments of Health, Education, Housing, and Labor—a blueprint for a sick, uneducated, homeless and unemployed America.  Suggested double-digit cuts, or the outright elimination of funding for vital programs and services, would devastate already vulnerable citizens and working families.”
• “During his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions surprisingly expressed his doubt—and disregard—for consent decrees secured by the Obama Justice Department in cities where policing patterns revealed ingrained racial bias, systemic civil rights violations and the regular use of excessive force. Citing his concern that the decrees undermine respect for law enforcement, Sessions has ordered a review of all federal reform initiatives, signaling a retreat on common sense police reform that endorses constitutional policing in all our communities. We believe he must continue to enforce these vital consent decrees.”
• “Furthermore, the social cancer of hate continues to metastasize, thriving in a climate conducive to hostility towards religious and racial minorities, permeating even at the highest levels of national discourse and threatening to further crack our fractured nation. In the 10 days following the 2016 election, the Southern Poverty Law Center recorded a ‘national outbreak of hate’ it deemed worse than the days after 9/11. Incendiary language about immigrants, Muslims, women and people of color has translated into discriminatory public policy, including an immigration ban that gives preference to one religion over another; baseless accusations of voter fraud that have provided fresh fuel to racially discriminatory voter suppression measures in state legislatures; and efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in parts, or as a whole, that would have the inevitable outcome of disproportionately burdening communities of color.”

Also included in the report are the annual “Equality Indexes” which compare the economic status between Blacks and Whites. In a nutshell, even the area with the best Black-White income equality revealed Black America woefully trailing and even dropping.

That area is Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., which remained at the top of the NUL Black-White Income Equality ranking for the third consecutive year. According to the 2017 Index, the median Black household in Riverside had 72 cents for every dollar of median white household income. This is down from 76 cents last year.  In Riverside, Black household income fell 3.2 percent year-over-year, while Whites saw an increase of 2.5 percent.

On the other hand, the SOBA reports that Black and White incomes were worse – or least equal -in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. And Bloomington, Wis. Areas. There, the gap was 41 cents on the dollar. In Minneapolis, the median household income for Blacks was $31,672 (up 12.4 percent from last year’s Index) compared to $76,581 for Whites (up 2.7 percent from last year’s Index).

The detailed report states that the highest median household income for both Blacks ($68,054) and whites ($112,177) was in Washington, DC-Arlington-Alexandria, Va. Areas. The lowest median Black household income ($23,693) was in Toledo, Ohio. It report notes, “even though Toledo had one of the lowest median white household incomes in the country, the white household income in Toledo was still more than double the Black household income.  Toledo, OH also had the highest Black unemployment rate, which would at least partly account for the low income of Black households.”

As a remedy to some of the most dire problems, the SOBA presented the Main Street Marshall Plan: From Poverty to Prosperity, described as “a sweeping proposal for economic and social revitalization of America’s cities and struggling neighborhoods.”

Among its key points, The plan calls for:

• National investment of $4 trillion over the next 10 years: $2 trillion for physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges and buildings and $2 trillion for human development, such as education, job training and health insurance.
• A comprehensive infrastructure initiative, with inner cities being the major beneficiary, and which must include a strong jobs-building component that guarantees minority business participation and employment for workers in high-unemployment neighborhoods.
• Other highlights outlined in the Marshall Plan include universal pre-k education, a $15 minimum wage with increases indexed to inflation, reforms to financial and educational institutions and programs, criminal justice and police reform and expansion and protection of voting rights.

Morial concludes, “While the Obama years were no panacea for America’s long-standing racial inequities, they were a steady climb toward improvement, and we are determined to keep moving forward to protect our progress.”

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