In the spring of 2022, Isabella Miller finds herself faced with a difficult choice. This high school senior from South Carolina was accepted into Harvard, the dream of many American high school students. She was also admitted to Howard, a black college in Washington. Isabella, a mixed race with an African-American father and a white mother, does not hesitate for long. To everyone’s amazement, she chose Howard. “I always felt like an outsider in my high school, which was mostly attended by white people. I was judged all the time, I had to constantly prove myself. At Howard, I felt comfortable, the connection with the students was immediate. Everyone looks like me, for the first time I have black teachers, and I can really be myself.”
Isabella is not the only one to make this choice. In recent years, HBCUs (historically black universities and colleges) have experienced a resurgence in popularity. The first higher education institution for African Americans was founded in Philadelphia in 1837 by a Quaker. After the Civil War (1861-1865), more than 200 others were created by missionaries and philanthropists to educate the millions of former slaves, mostly excluded from institutions reserved for whites. Until the 1960s, Howard, Spelman, Morehouse and other HBCUs produced a multitude of judges, doctors, members of Congress and personalities, including Martin Luther King, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, director Spike Lee… But the number of admissions declined after the end of segregation and the implementation of affirmative action. Many blacks preferred to enter more prestigious, traditionally white universities that offered them scholarships. The percentage of students enrolled in the 100 or so HBCUs has fallen from 18% in 1976 to 9% in 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Over the past three years, however, applications have increased 40 percent at Howard and 25 to 30 percent at other HBCUs. A phenomenon all the more striking given that university enrollments at the national level fell by 15% between 2010 and 2021. The reason? We are talking more about these campuses, particularly since the election of Kamala Harris, the vice-president, herself a Howard alumna. This is also due to the increasingly tense racial climate. The current generation grew up with the neo-Nazi protests in 2017 in Virginia and the repeated police blunders which led to the deaths of Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd… “Students enroll because the teaching is rigorous,” explained in August Dr. Wayne Frederick, president of Howard – who, in the meantime, has been replaced. The “black Harvard”, as it is nicknamed, is famous in particular for its medical school. “But, since the death of George Floyd in 2020, they also want a less discriminatory, more secure environment, where they have the feeling of being accepted,” he adds.
“It’s like a weight has been lifted off them”
This is exactly what motivated Isabella Miller. At school in South Carolina, they nicknamed her “Miss Affirmative Action” to humiliate her. She was also the subject of hate attacks on social networks for having defended the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. “Here, for four years, I escaped racism, it’s a relief. And people understand what I went through, because everyone has had this type of experience. It’s relaxing,” says this 19-year-old girl in second year of sociology, sitting under the campus foliage. “All my life I have been in the minority, and suddenly I find myself in the majority. I will never experience this anywhere else.”
Ashley, a first-year biology student with long braids, also comes from a white high school in California. “I found it exhausting to be the black representative in my classes and to be constantly under pressure to get the best grades,” she says in the cafeteria overlooking a large lake. “I decided to come to Howard because I wanted to focus on my studies without having to think about my race.”
For Dr. Gladys Francis, the vice-dean of the arts and sciences department, who is originally from Guadeloupe, the transformation of the students upon arrival is striking: “We see them flourish in a few weeks. It’s like if we took a weight off them. HBCUs have become refuges, and they retain their reason for being, because the racial question is not resolved.” Originally founded to train African-Americans, they today welcome teachers and students of other ethnic origins, who represent approximately 20% of Howard’s students.
The campus, located in the heart of Washington, is a real dive into black culture. The cafeteria speakers blare singers Drake and SZA. Thursday is Soul Food : we serve fried chicken and cornbread, Southern specialties. Every Friday, members of fraternities – male societies – meet on the central lawn for an ancient ritual. Dressed in the colors of their group, they engage in circle dances inspired by African rhythms while chanting their anthems. As for the teaching, it is designed from an African-American perspective. There is a law course on reparations to descendants of slaves, another in history on the great African civilizations…
“Above all, we instill in them self-confidence, we teach them to push back barriers. This is the main reason for their success,” said Wayne Frederick. “It’s inspiring to be here and to know that so many famous people have been here before us. It prepares us well to then face the real world,” remarks Déja Daniel, in his final year of law school. “However, HBCUs should not be bubbles,” continues Gladys Francis, one of whose missions is to organize stays abroad. “It is crucial that students are exposed to the outside reality.”
Universities “systematically poorly funded”
The campus also reflects the problems of the African-American community. Among the 13,000 students, there are 7 girls for every 3 boys. An imbalance linked to the difficulty of recruiting young Black people and the fact that many drop out during the year.
What will be the impact of the elimination of positive discrimination decided last year by the Supreme Court? Difficult to predict. But Dr. Frederick expects an increase in applications. However, Howard is already running out of space, and part of the courses are taking place online. These universities are “systematically poorly funded,” notes a study by Andre Perry of the Brookings Institution, a think tank. States grant fewer subsidies to HBCUs than to predominantly white faculties, tuition fees are lower, and the number of scholarships higher, in order to meet the needs of students from modest backgrounds. Another factor: donations from alumni, less fortunate than those from Harvard or Yale, are lower. In 2020, the ten largest black institutions totaled $2 billion in endowment funds, compared to $200 billion for the ten largest majority white institutions.
To narrow this gap, the Biden administration has released nearly $6 billion in grants. Mackenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, the boss of Amazon, has paid more than 500 million dollars to around twenty HBCUs, including 40 million to Howard. Reed Hastings, the boss of Netflix, gave 120 million. And in 2021 the state of Maryland paid 577 million to four establishments which accused it of budgetary discrimination. But six small universities have closed since 2000, and many are in dire financial shape. Last year, around 50 received a series of false bomb threats, shaking students’ sense of safety. In one of the calls to Spelman College, some psycho claiming he was going to blow up the place said, “I chose this college for a reason. There are too many black students here.”