TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVES AND LEGAL ADVOCATES HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS DEMAND LETTER SENT TO GOV. ABBOTT ON LACK OF HBCU FUNDING

Following a demand letter calling on Texas Governor Greg Abbott to address the disparity in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) funding, Texas State Democratic leaders and legal advocates will hold a press conference to address the historical inequalities in these institutions of higher learning. 

Who:  

• State Representative Ron Reynolds, Chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus
• Attorney Carlos Moore, Past President of the National Bar Association, Carlos Moore Law Group
• Attorney John Moore, Moore Law Group, LLC
• Attorney Greg Hardmon, Doran & Cawthorne, PLLC

Where: Barbara Jordan Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University, 3401 Cleburne St, Houston, TX 77004

When: Wednesday, December 6^th, at 1:30 PM CT

Why:  As noted in the HBCU PARTNERS Act, while HBCUs represent 3% of postsecondary institutions, they enroll about 10% of all Black college students. Furthermore, these institutions generate close to $15 billion in economic impact and more than 134,000 jobs annually in the local and regional economies they serve. The three public HBCUs in Texas, Prairie View A&M University, St. Phillip’s College and Texas Southern University, have lagged in funding compared to the state’s Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs).

Prairie View A&M University, the 1890 land-grant institution in the state, has not been able to advance in ways that are on par with Texas A&M University College Station, the original Morrill Act of 1862 land-grant institution in Texas, in large part due to this unbalanced funding.

In the last 30 years alone, an additional $1,135,496,704 would have been available for the university if their state funding per student were equal to that of the state’s 1862 institutions. These funds could have supported infrastructure and student services and better positioned the university to compete for research grants.

This demand letter was filed to rectify the years of disparate funding and set the course for a more equitable process of higher-learning institutional funding for generations to come. We call on Governor Abbott and his administration to do what’s right and correct this historical wrong.