July 3, 2024
The candidates’ statements about supporting HBCUs were examined by CNN’s fact checkers.
During the Presidential debate on June 27, hosted at CNN’s studio in Atlanta, both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump touted their records related to funding HBCUs. However, as the candidates’ statements were examined by CNN’s fact-checkers, they found that Trump’s statements regarding his support of HBCUs were more false than those of Biden.
As CNN reported, although Biden appeared to misstate his administration’s investment into HBCUs, the Biden-Harris Administration has provided $16 billion of investment into HBCUs since 2021, along with clear messaging that he supports the institutions.
In contrast, Trump’s support of HBCUs was often a mixed bag, as he would create initiatives like restoring year-round Pell Grants and the FUTURE Act, which provided HBCUs with $255 million in yearly funding. However, his public statements about HBCUs directly contradicted his actions. In 2017, Trump openly mused that federal funding for HBCUs was potentially unconstitutional, remarking that “It benefits schools on the basis of race.”
Lodriguez Murray, the senior vice president for Public Policy and Government Affairs at the United Negro College Fund, highlighted the historical underfunding of HBCUs since their establishment. Murray underscored the crucial link between Congress and HBCUs, noting that under the Biden-Harris Administration, funding for these institutions has nearly doubled, compared to the previous Trump Administration.
“Congress took the lead on putting the HBCU funding in those bills and passing them. The third COVID-19 bill, passed under President Biden, included as much funding for HBCUs as both of the first two Covid-19 bills under President Trump,” Murray told CNN.
In a July 2 column for NOLA.com, Walter Kimborogh, a former HBCU president, was much more critical of Trump’s record regarding HBCUs. “HBCU federal funding increased during the Trump years in office as they have pretty much under every administration (as the federal budget has also increased). But when you look at his budget requests for HBCU funding through the Department of Education, Trump proposed over $100 million in cuts to HBCU programs. The funding increases during the Trump administration were proposed and passed by the House and Senate due to HBCUs’ broad bipartisan support,” Kimborogh wrote.
Kimborogh served as the seventh president of Dillard University from 2012 to 2022, and was previously the president of Philander Smith College from 2004 to 2012.
Kimborogh continued, “When Trump recently said he funded the schools when no one else did or even thought about it, he told a blatant lie.” According to Kimborogh, Trump portrays the “heads of the schools” as coming to the White House every year to beg for money. And, a photo from 2017, showing Trump in the Oval Office with HBCU presidents, helps give Trump’s narratives plausibility. “But,” said Kimborogh, “as someone who was there, having led two HBCUs, worked at two others, and served in leadership with the United Negro College Fund, his stories are more accurately fairy tales.”
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