Panel Offers Diversity Goals For Texas HBCUs

Black Issues in Higher Education, May 25, 2000 by Lydia Lum

AUSTIN, Texas- A Texas panel has recommended ways for the state's two historically Black public universities to erase findings by federal officials that traces of segregation linger in Texas higher education.

Called "Priority Plan 2000," the panel capped six months of talks by suggesting that Texas Southern and Prairie View A&M universities strive for a set of goals including things as basic as "focusing on student academic success" and "providing scholarships, endowing chairs and providing competitive compensation."

The panel suggested improvements in funding, administration, programs and facilities at both universities.

Panel chairman Jodie Jiles says the recommendations also call for state education leaders and elected officials to pitch in, and for the administrators, faculty and staff of majority-White universities to help in a mentoring capacity.

"We have learned that just creating programs and authorizing money for buildings is not the solution," Jiles says, referring to previous policies. "A comprehensive plan with adequate resources to properly support these programs and facilities is vital to the success and growth of these universities. In the past, all we have gotten is reports back after allocating some money. This time, we are going to actually collaborate."

Jiles also is a member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which oversees state-supported institutions. Among other things, the regulatory board approves academic degrees and campus building construction, as well as developing policies to carry out laws affecting higher education.

"These recommendations let both institutions know the direction they should be heading," Jiles says.

Neither of the college presidents could be reached for comment.

But three Black lawmakers say they remain "cautiously optimistic about the course the committee has charted."

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, state Sen. Rodney Ellis and Texas Rep. Garnet Coleman have taken various roles in the past to help both schools -- especially Texas Southern, which has faced political and financial turmoil in recent years.

"We appreciated the hard work of the committee on this challenging issue," the three Houston Democrats said in a statement issued jointly. "But, given our history of big plans and broken promises when it comes to issues of discrimination, we are rightly skeptical about whether we will ever see results. We can no longer quietly accept broken promises on this issue."

The panel's recommendations are one result of a deal struck last year among the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, the Coordinating Board and state Gov. George W. Bush. Texas, which has relied on several state-approved desegregation plans, is one of the few states where federal officials are still monitoring progress in eliminating discrimination from higher education. The effort is part of the state's enforcement of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination in federally funded schools.

Last year, federal officials announced that Texas might be unintentionally promoting segregation because White students lacked academic reasons to attend Texas Southern in inner-city Houston, or Prairie View, in its namesake town northwest of Houston. Officials say they found "unnecessary duplication" of academic courses between Texas Southern and the University of Houston -- which is barely a mile away -- as well as between Prairie View and neighboring Texas A&M University.

Though the finding initially caused a stir on the campuses, officials never ordered Prairie View or Texas Southern to abandon their special missions to educate Blacks. Of Texas Southern's 6,500 students, 84 percent are African American. Of Prairie View's 5,900 students, 88 percent are African American. Overall, Blacks make up only 3 percent of the more than 396,000 students enrolled at Texas' public universities, but 32 percent of those Blacks attend historically Black colleges.

Meanwhile, majority White colleges, public and private combined, enroll 99 percent of Texas' White students, while Blacks make up less than 5 percent overall.

"There should be no exclusionary language that discourages any Texan from taking advantage of the excellent educational opportunities," panel members said in the recommendation list.

The committee outlined several goals for the two universities. Among them:

* Providing scholarships, endowed chairs and competitive compensation that attract and retain top quality students, staff and faculty.

* Ensuring that students learn technology applications in their academic fields.

* Increase fund-raising.

* Boosting enrollment numbers to more than 10,000 each.

Former Prairie View president Julius Becton, who served during the early 1990s, says the list is "nice, and better than having no list at all," but he says he doubts whether it has much punch.

"Will it produce a better student in the classroom?" wonders Becton, a member of the oversight committee in the Knight vs. Alabama federal desegregation case. "Will it inspire families? Will it inspire the staffs at the two schools? Will it inspire the people sending their kids to the two schools? I just don't know."