Bush Administration Takes Aim at CUNY’s Black Male Initiative

The U.S. Department of Education informed the City University of New York that it has launched an investigation into the university’s Black Male Initiative to determine if the effort is discriminatory against women or any racial or ethnic group.

The Black Male Initiative was instituted university-wide in 2005. Its goal is to increase, encourage, and support the inclusion and educational success of under-represented groups in higher education. The university states that the program is open to all students without regard to race or gender. The initiative is funded with taxpayer dollars.

The program was based on a program initiated at CUNY’s Medgar Evers College in 2001. That effort has shown success. There were 1,044 black male students on the Medgar Evers campus in 2003. This year there are 1,371, an increase of more than 31 percent.

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