The federal government asks governors to equitably fund land-grant HBCUs, including FAMU

The federal government is urging over a dozen state governors — including Gov. Ron DeSantis — to make good on state debts to land-grant HBCUs, alleging that Florida A&M University has been denied nearly $2 billion since 1987 by the state of Florida.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona along with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack sent letters to 16 state governors Monday, calling on them to equitably fund 16 land-grant HBCUs across the country due to the over $12 billion disparity in funding between the schools and their non-HBCU land-grant peers.

“Unacceptable funding inequities have forced many of our nation’s distinguished Historically Black Colleges and Universities to operate with inadequate resources and delay critical investments in everything from campus infrastructure to research and development to student support services,” Cardona said in a prepared statement.

Attempts to get comment from the governor's office were unsuccessful.

Under what is called the Second Morrill Act of 1890, states that chose to open a second land-grant university to serve Black students are required to provide a fair distribution of state funds between their 1862 and 1890 land-grant universities.

But data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Survey (IPEDS) shows that unequitable appropriated funding of the land-grant HBCUs ranges from $172 million to $2.1 billion from 1987 to 2020.

FAMU’s counterpart when it comes to land-grant institutions in the state is the University of Florida.

But $1.973 billion of state appropriated funding has been held back from FAMU in the last 33 years compared to the amount of money that UF has been receiving from the state.

FAMU declined to comment on the issue while active unrelated litigation is pending on the same subject in the U.S. District Court.

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Other land-grant HBCUs include North Carolina A&T State University with a $2.08 billion gap in state appropriations compared to North Carolina State University, Fort Valley State University with a $603.156 million gap compared to the University of Georgia and Alabama A&M University with a $527.28 million gap compared to Auburn University, according to NCES.

“The documented discrepancies are a clarion call for governors to act without delay to provide significant support for the 1890 land-grant institutions in their respective states,” Vilsack said in a prepared statement. “Failing to do so will have severe and lasting consequences to the agriculture and food industry at a time when it must remain resilient and competitive.”

While there are HBCU land-grant institutions in 18 states, the 16 letters were sent since Delaware and Ohio have equitably funded their respective universities, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture release.

The letters from the U.S. secretaries come during a time where advocates — including a group of FAMU students who took their concerns to court — have been pushing for states to increase HBCU funds.

Last year, six FAMU students filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination by the state, which includes allegations about how the university faces underfunding when compared to other state institutions in Florida.

In a June court hearing, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle rejected a motion to dismiss by Attorney General Ashley Moody and gave the students 30 days to amend their complaint to provide more data in support of their allegations.

But the state made a motion to dismiss the revised version, which has led the plaintiffs to respond with a new complaint that they hope will be back in front of a judge sometime toward the end of the year or in the beginning of next year to present their arguments, according to civil rights attorney Joshua Dubin — the lawyer representing the FAMU students.

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“I think it's a step in the right direction that light is being shined on this issue, but a request is just a request,” Dubin told the Tallahassee Democrat Thursday, referring to the letters sent to the governors. “We’re looking for something more than a request. We’re looking for a court order that mandates the state of Florida to equitably fund FAMU.”

“The main reason behind filing the lawsuit in the first place is to get some equality here,” he added. “We’re going to keep pushing toward what our objective is, which is to right past wrongs and to ensure that it doesn’t continue so that a brighter future can be created for FAMU and its students.”

As the letters to the governors were released Monday, so were the U.S. News & World Report’s latest rankings, revealing that FAMU exceeded its goal of breaking into the Top 100 among the nation’s public universities at 91st place.

FAMU also maintains its standing of being the top public HBCU in the nation for the fifth year in a row, according to the 2023-2024 U.S. News rankings.

In addition, the university is seeking $50.4 million in state funding in its legislative budget request, which is nearly twice the amount it requested last year.

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“I am continually inspired by all that HBCUs have achieved despite having to punch above their weight,” Cardona said in the release. “Our HBCUs graduate a huge share of our nation’s Black educators, doctors, engineers, judges and lawyers. These institutions and the talented, diverse students they serve must have equitable funding in order to reach their full potential and continue driving innovation.”

The Departments of Education and Agriculture have offered to work with each state’s budget office to examine the funding data and bring balance to investments in the underfunded HBCUs.

Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on twitter @tarahjean_.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Biden's team says FAMU denied nearly $2 billion in state funding