In October 2013, years of political and legal wrangling reached a climax when District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake ruled Maryland had indeed violated the U.S. Constitution under the framework established in United States v. Fordice when it allowed traditionally White higher education institutions to unnecessarily duplicate programs already existing at HBCUs, thereby undermining those institutions’ ability to provide a diverse academic environment that could improve and insure their students’ higher education success.
Maryland “has never dismantled the de jure era of duplication of programs that facilitated segregation—and it has maintained policies and practices that have even exacerbated this problem,” Blake concluded in her 60-page opinion finding that the State continues to maintain and perpetuate an unconstitutional system of higher education that is segregated by race and which violates the rights of students who attend the HBCUs.
The jurist further mandated that the State of Maryland and the plaintiff, the Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education (the ‘Coalition’) enter into a period of mediation during which they were directed to negotiate and come up with a remedial plan that would legally address the State’s protracted violations and eliminate the inequities the HBCUs have suffered over the past 40-plus years.
In connection with the directed mediation, Judge Blake provided a specific outline of what those remedial measures should include:
- avoiding future duplication;
- expansion of institutional missions, program uniqueness and institutional identity at HBCUs;
- transfer or merger of select high-demand programs to HBCUs from traditionally White institutions to include programs created in duplication of pre-existing offerings at HBCUs; and,
- enhancement of current programs at HBCUs and collaborations that otherwise benefit HBCUs.
The mediation talks failed. Thus, Maryland and the Coalition were tasked with submitting individual proposals for remedying the constitutional violations and eliminating the effects of program duplication at Maryland’s HBCUs to aid Judge Blake in making her remedial order and final judgment.
The Coalition, which comprises current and former students of Maryland’s public HBCUs—Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University, and the
University of Maryland Eastern Shore—submitted its proposal on May 5 while the State of Maryland did not submit a proposal until Nov. 20, following its failed attempt to challenge the legal foundation for Judge Blake’s ruling on appeal.
The Coalition’s proposal is based, in part, on recommendations from Dr. Clifton Conrad, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the nation’s preeminent scholar on this issue who’s testimony was a significant part of the record before the Supreme Court in Fordice, and Dr. Walter Allen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who also has long experience in similar litigation in Alabama and Mississippi.
“The Coalition’s proposal responds directly to the Court’s findings against unnecessary program duplication between Maryland’s traditionally White institutions and nearby historically Black campuses and the Court’s prescribed framework for a remedy” said Coalition President David Burton. “Moreover, our proposal provides proven strategies for eliminating the duplication and promoting desegregation without compromising quality of programs, student access and costs efficiency.”
The Coalition’s first strategy would require the State to restructure the process by which institutions propose and secure approval for new programs given the State’s continued refusal to address the matter of program duplication, the court document states.
The second strategy calls for enhancing the institutional identity of HBCUs in order to draw students of all backgrounds and races by creating distinct programmatic niches, with unique, high-demand courses at those institutions. That approach also calls for eliminating duplicative programs at traditionally White institutions and transferring them to nearby HBCUs, and also folding the University of Baltimore into nearby Morgan State University to further establish that HBCU as the State’s public urban university.
The third Coalition proposal calls for strengthening existing program offerings at HBCUs by enhancing those programs, establishing new joint programs between TWIs and HBCUs and revising the mission distinctiveness of Morgan State and Coppin State universities. The plan also attempts to reduce the undue competition posed by the University of Maryland University College by converting that institution into a digital platform for on-line degree programs offered by all of the State’s universities and colleges, a model more consistent with the delivery of on-line education in other states across the country.
The State of Maryland’s proposal opened by announcing that the University of Baltimore-Towson University joint MBA program, which was deemed to be duplicative of a similar program at Morgan State, would be dissolved, going back to the singular University of Baltimore program authorized in 1972.
“Thus, the joint MBA program, which was a major focus of this Court’s ruling, is no longer at issue. This important fact must be considered in the crafting of any remedial order,” the State’s court filing read.
The first strategy of the State’s proposal would create a $10 million fund to support the development of new collaborative programs between HBCUs and TWIs over the next six years. Under this proposed strategy, campuses would jointly submit proposals for programs that do not duplicate already existing programs at HBCUs—though they can enhance or build upon such pre-existing HBCU programs.
The second strategy proposed by the State would establish an Early College Summer Academies program at each of the HBCUs, as a means of exposing high-schoolers to the “strengths of the HBIs’ programs and state-of-the-art facilities.” This proposal suggests that the curricula for this program should play to existing HBCU program strengths such as the:
- STEM-related subjects at Bowie State;
- health professions at Coppin State;
- engineering at Morgan State, which already conducts a Summer Academy of Mathematics and Science; and renewable energy; and the,
- PGA Golf management/hospitality and tourism management programs at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
HBCU supporters said the State’s proposal was anemic and a slap in the face after years of Maryland’s failure to abide by the law.
“This is not a serious proposal. Not only does it not eliminate any existing duplication but it makes no commitment to preventing duplication going forward,” said Michael Jones, lead attorney for the Coalition and a partner in Kirkland & Ellis LLP. “We were supposed to be working for the last two years on proposals to remediate the findings in Judge Blake’s ruling. , they spent three weeks cobbling this together to keep themselves from being sanctioned.”
The State’s proposal was also accompanied by several affidavits from TWI presidents criticizing the Coalition’s plans.
UB President Kurt Schmoke decried the proposed merger of his institution with Morgan State, saying mergers rarely work and that the two schools were too different in their missions and student populations.
Similarly, Freeman Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, panned the proposed transfer of programs from its College of Engineering and Information Systems to Morgan State, saying, “Elimination of any programs in this ‘system’ would irreparably damage the academic quality of the remaining programs and the academic foundation of the College.”
But Burton, the Coalition leader, countered those arguments, pointing to successful institution mergers in Tennessee in the 1990s and more recently in Georgia, where 10 institutions have been merged into five over the past three years. He also said it’s difficult to give credence to institutions that have benefitted from the State’s perpetuation of program duplication.
“Ironically, the strength of the Coalition’s proposal is best illustrated in the affidavits of UMBC and UB presidents Freeman Hrabowski and Kurt Schmoke,” Burton said. “In arguing the importance of the duplicated programs to their campuses, they inadvertently illustrate the tremendous harm done to HBIs in unnecessarily duplicating their programs at nearby TWIs and the enormous impact transferring such programs could have for increasing the competitiveness of HBIs in recruiting talented students regardless of race, attracting quality faculty and securing funding from government agencies, foundations and private individuals.”
