The trustees behind Tennessee’s sole public HBCU were recently removed from their positions on the board as part of the latest legislation of GOP lawmakers.
Announced on Thursday, the board behind Tennessee State University will be forced to step down from their positions because of the latest legislation Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed into law.
In a 66-25 vote held on Thursday, members of the state House, a majority of whom are Republicans, agreed to pass the bill that would remove the leaders from the position. Hours later, Lee made the bill official and proceeded to name new trustees for the board.
In a press release, he named Terica Smith, the Deputy Mayor and Director of Human Resources, and Marquita Qualls, the founder of Entropia Consulting, as the latest leaders amongst eight other members.
According to lawmakers, the move to remove the board of trustees was made after a variety of audits showed that the HBCU had issues with maintaining the finances of the schools, claiming that they weren’t accurately reporting their purchases and didn’t know how to make changes to budgets.
In a review released on Wednesday however, the auditor found that there wasn’t evidence that “fraud or malfeasance” had occurred on the executive leadership level.
Following the announcement that the board members will be removed, students and TSU leaders expressed their frustration with the decision, standing in the state capitol with a banner reading “TSU takeover.”
The students particularly pointed out the untimeliness of the board removal as it coincides with the school’s search for a new president.
“I believe that we should use all our resources to ensure that our next president is going to be the most effective leader to lead our institution to a better future,” said TSU freshman Samson Cook per local news outlet News Channel 5. “Moving forward, I believe the students should encourage other students. I believe that we should encourage the Black community to get involved with this issue. If this issue persists, this issue will spread.”
The removal of the board for alleged financial reasons comes months after a Washington Post analysis showed that, while TSU was supposed to receive $544 million in land-grant funding from the state throughout the course of 50 years, only $250 million were allocated as of April 2022.
Overall, HBCUs across the nation are being extremely underfunded.
Per the Biden administration, in 16 states alone, HBCUs have been given $13 billion less in financial aid than what they deserve.
“This is a situation that clearly predates all of us,”said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack per their letter. “However, it is a problem that we can work together to solve. In fact, it is our hope that we can collaborate to avoid burdensome and costly litigation that has occurred in several states.”
