Historically Black Morgan State University Wins Fight to Prohibit the University of Maryland From Offering a Duplicative Doctoral Degree Program

In 2005 Morgan State University, the historically black educational institution in Baltimore, sought unsuccessfully to prevent the establishment of a joint MBA program between the University of Baltimore and Towson State University. Morgan State argued that the new, duplicative MBA program would draw white students away from its own MBA program and, as a result, would serve to increase racial segregation in the state’s higher education system. Under a desegregation agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, Maryland is prohibited from establishing academic programs at predominantly white universities that are “unnecessarily duplicative” of programs at the state’s historically black universities. Morgan State lost the legal battle. Today the joint MBA program at Towson and the University of Baltimore enrolls far more students than the small program at Morgan State.

This year Morgan State petitioned the state to end the online educational doctorate program for community college administrators initiated at the University of Maryland University College. Morgan State offers a traditional classroom-based doctoral degree program for community college administrators in which about 70 students are currently enrolled.

This time the state ruled in favor of Morgan State. The University of Maryland will not be permitted to offer its doctoral degree program to Maryland residents. Only students from outside the state can enroll in its online educational doctoral program.