Long-standing desegregation case resolved

Academe, Mar/Apr 2002

NOTA BENE

The parties in a Mississippi desegregation case reached a resolution early this year when a federal judge approved a settlement plan in a lawsuit initiated in 1975 by a man who contended that the education his son received at one of the state's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) was not equivalent to the education received by students at traditionally white institutions in Mississippi.

The settlement provides for about $503 million in spending on the state's three HBCUs, including $83.6 million that has already been spent. The money, which will be paid out over seventeen years, will be used to develop and enhance academic programs, build new facilities, and start an endowment program for the institutions. In order to be eligible to control its own portion of the endowment, each university will have to have three successive years in which at least 10 percent of the enrolled students are not black.

In court, Mississippi argued that it had fulfilled its duty to establish an unsegregated system by implementing and maintaining nondiscriminatory policies and practices in student admissions and faculty hiring. But in 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiffs that vestiges of a segregated system still existed, and it ordered Mississippi to eliminate them.

How to accomplish desegregation has been a contentious issue in Mississippi, and many observers of and participants in the case have voiced opposition to the settlement. Some plaintiffs object to the nonblack enrollment requirement, particularly since a similar requirement is not imposed on traditionally white institutions. Others say that the plan will not provide enough unique programs at HBCUs to make them an attractive alternative to traditionally white institutions or significandy improve access to college for blacks. Even U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers, who approved the settlement, expressed concerns that it does not achieve the goal of desegregation and insisted that the state legislature ratify the settlement before his final approval, saying in a January order that he wanted to be sure the court was not being used "for political purposes as a tool to obtain money from the state."

Others question whether desegregation in itself is the appropriate issue on which to focus. "The true issue in this case," says Lorenzo Morris, a professor of political science at Howard University in Washington, D.C., "however it has been deformed in the process of litigation, is equity, fairness, and adequacy in higher education."