'The Debt' podcast covers the South’s lengthy struggle to repay public HBCUs : NPR

[ad_1] An extended-running struggle over how one can calculate and repay state funding money owed to public HBCUs is flaring throughout the South, and Emily Siner and Camellia Burris inform the story of their podcast 'The Debt' from Nashville Public Radio and The Tennessee Lookout.

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

State governments throughout the South have underfunded their traditionally Black public schools and universities, or HBCUs. So how ought to these money owed be repaid? States have wrestled with this query for many years, and it is led to lawsuits, college mergers and, in a single case, a student-led starvation strike. Reporters Emily Siner and Camellia Burris inform the story of considered one of these public HBCUs, Tennessee State College in Nashville, of their podcast "The Debt." Emily and Camellia, welcome to this system.

EMILY SINER: Thanks for having us.

CAMELLIA BURRIS, BYLINE: Thanks.

MCCAMMON: I wish to begin with one thing that received nationwide consideration a couple of years in the past. The state of Tennessee got here out with a report saying that it had underfunded its public HBCU by as much as half a billion - with a B - {dollars}. How did that occur?

BURRIS: Nicely, TSU is a land-grant college, and these faculties have been created when the federal authorities gave states cash or land to begin schools. However within the South, states ended up opening Black schools to maintain getting these federal funds however keep segregation. And the state is required to match a few of these federal funds. However for the Black faculties, they normally didn't.

Quick ahead to 2012 or so. There was a brand new lawmaker in Tennessee named Harold Love. Somebody instructed him that TSU nonetheless wasn't getting its matching funds. Love did some analysis and located that it is true. TSU was not getting matching funds for a few years. However the College of Tennessee, the state's different land-grant college, all the time received their matching funds. It wasn't till the summer time of 2020, although, and the George Floyd protests when the state legislature agreed to essentially perform a little research into the again pay. They usually came upon that because the Nineteen Fifties, the state owed as much as $544 million, not together with inflation.

MCCAMMON: Wow. I imply, that's some huge cash. Did lawmakers know this was occurring because the Nineteen Fifties?

SINER: Sure, they did. In reality, Harold Love's personal father, who was additionally a state lawmaker, tried to lift the alarm about this within the early Seventies. And there have been these massive fights in courtroom over funding for TSU extra broadly. In 1968, a lady named Rita Geier sued the state of Tennessee over its unfair therapy and funding of TSU, and this case lasted for 38 years. So it was talked about for nearly 4 a long time.

Within the early years of the case, they argued that the state ought to shut down the College of Tennessee's offshoot campus in Nashville as a result of it was a predominantly white college in direct competitors for funding with TSU. This was one thing that TSU actually wished, however the white management of the state didn't like this concept of a merger. We spoke to at least one TSU administrator from the mid-Seventies named George Pruitt, who talked about simply how traumatic this time period was.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE DEBT")

GEORGE PRUITT: We knew we have been at struggle. We knew that our jobs have been at stake. We knew that if we misplaced, we have been all going to get fired. However you will have to recollect, this was within the center '70s. You realize, Martin Luther King had been killed in '68. So we knew what we have been up towards, however we did not care.

MCCAMMON: Wow. So what was the results of that case?

SINER: Nicely, the decide ended up approving the merger of TSU and UT Nashville. He agreed that, yeah, it is not going to work to have two universities with these sorts of demographics in the identical metropolis, and so hold the preexisting college, TSU, and fold this new college, UT Nashville, into it. It was an enormous deal for TSU as a result of the thought was that the College of Tennessee, which was nearly all white, was all the time given loads of sources. It had loads of respect from state lawmakers, and now that was all going to be transferred to TSU.

But it surely did not work out that approach as a result of the merger nonetheless by no means actually addressed the underlying situation of funding and what the state owed. The buildings have been nonetheless falling aside. The academics have been nonetheless poorly paid. Many white college students ended up leaving. There was an try within the late '80s to present TSU $22 million to repair asbestos of their buildings, and even that received pushback from some individuals within the state who complained that TSU was getting particular therapy.

BURRIS: Yeah, and we noticed this come to a boiling level in 1990. TSU college students have been fed up with the situations on campus, so that they staged a sit-in at a constructing on TSU's campus for 2 weeks. Some even went on a starvation strike. Antonio Terry was a type of college students who occupied the constructing.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE DEBT")

ANTONIO TERRY: The information individuals got here in, and so they went into the rooms and so they noticed the asbestos. They filmed it and confirmed it. The general public is taking a look at it on the information. Like, these college students usually are not mendacity. Take a look at this. How can they dwell in this sort of situation? And that is what received the general public over.

BURRIS: And this truly labored. Lastly, the governor of Tennessee on the time made a push for giving TSU extra funding to enhance its buildings. However the buildings have been only one piece of the puzzle. As we noticed with consultant Harold Love, there have been nonetheless different money owed that didn't come up even on this 38-year case.

MCCAMMON: Yeah, and it sounds prefer it needed to get actually dangerous earlier than something in any respect was finished when it got here to the asbestos situation. Simply going again to Harold Love, what occurred along with his efforts to get well that state land-grant funding for TSU?

SINER: So, he did get a serious victory. In 2022, the state legislature accepted $250 million for TSU. However then a report got here out from the Biden administration, which was taking a look at underfunding of public HBCUs throughout the South, and it mentioned Tennessee owed TSU greater than $2 billion, so far more. And that led to a complete new dialog round, like, how do you even calculate the debt? How have you learnt if you've damaged even? And perhaps, extra importantly, how do you truly get individuals in energy to really feel a way of accountability round it?

MCCAMMON: We have been speaking with Camellia Burris and Emily Siner of "The Debt" podcast from Nashville Public Radio, which you'll take heed to wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks each a lot.

SINER: Thanks.

BURRIS: Thanks.

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