Last week, Florida State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, responded publicly to the Biden Administrations’ letter to the state urging the state to equitably fund Famu, the state’s only public historically Black college or university.
In the letter, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack said that Florida had short changed FAMU nearly $2 billion in state support between 1987 – 2020.
On the contrary, Rodrigues claims, “FAMU’s operational funding has increased by 37.6%” since Desantis became governor (in 2019).”
“During the DeSantis administration, our FAMU students continue to benefit from unprecedented state investments in faculty, classroom operations, housing and the campus experience.”
“As a result, FAMU will continue to provide an elite education to students for generations to come,” Rodrigues added.
White House says not so
Tony Allen,Chair, President Biden’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and President of Delaware State University, countered “if you really included the whole of (FAMU’s) existence, the disparities are much much more than just the $2 billion. You are looking at about $2 billion and much more. You have to consider that the (Biden) administration’s report only covered a period of about 33 years (1987-2020). FAMU has been around 136 years, so if we go back and look at it in its entirety, we are looking at much much more."
“And, to put it in context these dollars (which were withheld) could have had a meaningful impact on campuses such as FAMU even today. You think about new classroom space, new living spaces, new laboratory space, renovations, all sorts of things that could have been done with this money,” Allen added.
“We are talking about recruitment, and that's both of faculty, staff and students. FAMU and other HBCU’s could have better facilities that would have let them provide best-in-class opportunities. We have long said, that HBCUs do more with less. We now say boldly that less is no longer acceptable,” said Allen.
