April 7th 2024.
On March 28, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, signed a bill that has raised some eyebrows. The bill effectively removes the entire Board of Trustees at Tennessee State University, the state's only public HBCU. The decision came swiftly as the bill passed through Tennessee's GOP controlled House and Senate. Governor Lee wasted no time in signing the bill, even going so far as to announce that he has already chosen the replacements for the board.
According to reports from the Associated Press, Republican leaders claim that this move is in the best interest of TSU's success. However, Black Democrats such as Tennessee Representatives Justin Jones and Bo Mitchell remain skeptical. Despite the new board being composed of Black business leaders, the university was not pleased with the decision.
TSU expressed its displeasure with the dissolution of their board in a statement to The Tennessean. The statement read, "This is unprecedented, unfortunate, and uncharted waters for any public university in the state. We believe this legislation will disrupt our students' educational pursuits, harm the image of the university, and remove a board that had achieved success in its enhanced governance of TSU."
The alumni of TSU were also upset by this sudden change. Retired school teacher and TSU graduate from the 1970s, Ramona Willis, shared her disappointment with NBC News. "It's all disheartening," Willis said. "They hold back billions of dollars from the school, but yet they want to remove the board? Could some issues be because we just didn't have enough money, money that is just sitting out there that should be ours? It's hard to accept that they can know this and yet ignore it and put our school in disarray."
Representative Jones raised concerns about the lack of investment in HBCUs by state governments. In a critical statement, he stated, "Instead of us rectifying the problems that we created through racist policies by underfunding Tennessee State University, we're now advocating to vacate their board." This issue has also caught the attention of NLP cohost Andrew Gillum, who made a case for the state of Tennessee to address the disparities in funding between TSU and the predominantly white institution, University of Tennessee Knoxville.
Questions have also been raised about the precedent for such a drastic move. Representative Mitchell stated, "I've seen many audits of many universities that look horrendous. Have we ever, ever vacated an entire board of a university before? Have we ever done that?"
A 2022 report from Brookings Metro highlighted the cycle of chronic underfunding from state governments that HBCUs face. As one participant in their conversation stated, "The very traditional underwriting processes that banks follow makes it hard to break the chicken-egg syndrome of success begets success... If you got a good balance sheet, you get financed. If you don't have the balance sheet of a Johns Hopkins, then it's going to be very difficult to get very big financing opportunities."
In February, SB1596 was introduced along with another bill that gave Governor Lee the authority to transfer the governance of any state university board to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission if their board ceases to exist. At that time, TSU issued a statement addressing the potential impact of the bill on their students and university, stating that they are working with legislators to address any detrimental effects and avoid a significant change in their governance structure.
TSU is also in the midst of searching for a new president, as current president Dr. Glenda Glover announced her retirement at the end of the year. Three finalists have been named, and as WSMV reports, the new Board of Trustees is expected to be appointed in April. The presidential candidates recently met with the TSU community in open forums to assess their fit with the university's culture and vision.
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