The Bipartisan Congressional Historically Black Colleges and Universities Caucus has been officially launched in Washington. The Caucus is being led by Alma S. Adams, a Democrat from North Carolina and Bradley Byrne, a Republican from Alabama.
The purpose of the bipartisan caucus is to promote and protect the interests of HBCUs. Together, members of the caucus will work to create a national dialogue, educating other members of Congress and their staffs about the issues impacting HBCUs. The caucus will also work to draft meaningful bipartisan legislation to address the needs of HBCUs, and to support students and graduates of HBCUs by increasing access and career opportunities.
Representative Adams, who served for 40 years as a professor of art at Bennett College, a HBCU in Greensboro, North Carolina, stated that “this bipartisan HBCU Caucus is bringing together champions for HBCUs, so that we can make an even bigger impact to ensure their needs are heard in every aspect of policy making and across party lines. I look forward to learning more from our students and faculty at HBCUs and will keep their insight with me as we work to reauthorize the Higher Education Act and fight for much needed Pell grant funding.”
There are 40 charter members of the caucus, including eight Republicans.
Anyone with an inkling of intelligence would question the purpose of this newly created Bipartisan Congressional Historically Black Colleges and Universities Caucus. The CBC have consistently neglected HBCUs legislatively and fiscally for quite some time due to political correctness, their complicity with the neoliberal agenda, along with having no immediate linkage with HBCUs. Yes. CBC member Alma Adams and others proudly say ” I taught at an HBCU”. However, how many of the CBC members actually send their own children to HBCUs (not including Reverend Jackson’s Family). As a result, there appears to be disconnect between HBCUs and CBC members until an after the fact response.
Regarding CBC member Adams (D-NC) and conservative Republican member Bradley Byrne (R-AL) is definitely questionable on numerous levels. For example, the Congressional Republicans (i.e., House and Senate) “reached agreement on a spending blueprint for the 2016 fiscal year that could lead to deep cuts in education spending and a reduction in benefits for student-loan borrowers”. In other words, what group of students will be disproportionally impacted by this spending bill.
In sum, this bipartisan group will be another paper tiger organization (akin to the White House Initiative on HBCUs) without any authority, fiscal resources to allocate to HBCUs, and will not publicly challenge the status quo publicly.