Report Finds That Historically Black Universities in Maryland Continue to Suffer From Vestiges of Racial Segregation and Discrimination

Since 2001 the state of Maryland has given more than $400 million to its four historically black universities in an effort to alleviate the past effects of racially segregated higher education. The effort has been to bring the black universities up to par with the state’s predominantly white public universities.

However, the academic standards and graduation rates at the historically black universities remain far below those at the predominantly white schools. The black universities do not have the same quality of laboratory space and equipment, nor do they have the campus infrastructure that exists at the predominantly white institutions.

A panel of higher education experts was asked by the Maryland State Legislature to come up with a plan to improve the historically black institutions. The report, which was recently released, concluded that “substantial additional resources must be invested to overcome the competitive disadvantages caused by prior discriminatory treatment.”

But Maryland is in the midst of a severe budget crisis. It is doubtful that the legislature will take the advice of the panel it enjoined. One Democratic legislator conceded, “They need so much that we’re not going to get there.”

Copyright © 2008. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.