Professional Schools

Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.

“This is a pivotal moment for us all in the legal academy to come together in coalition around academic freedom,” said Professor Conway, dean of Penn State Dickinson Law and the School of International Affairs. “We may disagree on many other things, but we must collectively uphold academic freedom.”

For the 2025-2026 academic year, Black students represented 11.3 percent of all applicants, but only 8.4 percent of all matriculants to medical schools in the United States. This is a significant decline from 2021-2022, when Black students' representation among medical school matriculants peaked at 11.7 percent.

“This program opens new pathways for discovery, equity, and leadership in medicine and research,” said Dana Williams, dean of the Howard University Graduate School. “The cross-disciplinary work of our students will shape the next generation of physician-scientists and biomedical innovators.”

Through this new partnership, eligible Charles R. Drew University students are guaranteed admission into the medical degree program at American University of Antigua College of Medicine.

The new fellowship follows the recent closure of Penn Carey Law's Office of Equal Opportunity and Engagement and a pause in the Sadie T. M. Alexander Scholarship program, which covered tuition for students who planned to focus their studies and future law practice on racial justice.

Ofosuwa M. Abiola is dean of the Graduate School at Bowie State University in Maryland and Vonda M. Easterling is dean of students at Fort Valley State University in Georgia.

Alena Allen, the first Black law school dean at Louisiana State University, claims the university has discriminated against her, forcing her to resign from her position after she raised concerns about the school's finances.

The new agreement will provide Tennessee State University students studying human performance and sports science with hands-on training opportunities in athletic training and sports medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Through a new partnership with Western University of Health Sciences, students at historically Black Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles now have access to a streamlined admissions process into WesternU's doctor of podiatric medicine degree program.

The partnership will connect faculty and staff at Charles R. Drew University with students who are members of several Identity Centers at the University of California, Riverside. Participating students will be introduced to CDU's graduate and professional programs and special priority for scholarship opportunities will be provided to UCR students who choose to enroll at the historically Black medical school.

In 2021, the American Bar Association informed Texas Southern University that the HBCU's law school building did not comply with safety standards, putting the law school at risk of losing accreditation. To make the required updates, the university has recently requested $120 million from state legislators.

Tennessee State University undergraduate students now have the opportunity to earn a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry from TSU and a medical degree at Belmont University in just seven years, reducing the traditional timeline for a medical doctorate by one year.

Morehouse School of Medicine has recently partnered with Phoebe Putney Health System to create new residency programs, develop clinical training opportunities for students, expand the physician pipeline, and address local health needs.

Dr. Chance was appointed dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine in 2014, making him the school's first Black dean.

Professor Washington has been a faculty member with Southern University Law Center for over two decades. He is an expert in conflict resolution and has mediated hundreds of cases at the federal, state, and local level.

Dickinson first joined the Pitt Law faculty in 2017 and has served as vice dean for the past two years. His academic expertise centers around constitutional law.

In 2024, the share of Black applicants to U.S. medical schools increased by 2.8 percent from 2023. However, the share of Black medical school matriculants decreased by 11.6 percent. Notably, there has been year-over-year progress in overall Black medical school representation, which has risen to from 7.9 percent in 2017 to 10.3 percent in 2024.

A new study by scholars at the medical schools of New York University and Yale University finds that African American or Black students were less likely than their White counterparts to feel that medical school training contributed to their development as a person and physician.

In the fall of 2024, Black students made up 7.7 percent of all first-year students at law schools in the United States. Among the 2024 cohort of 3,060 entering Black students, 2,099 were women. Thus, women made up nearly 69 percent of all Black first-year law students.