by Eric Ture Muhammad
Staff Writer

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (FinalCall.com)�A series of legal battles waged by White employees against Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) claiming discrimination, now threatens the survival of these institutions created for Blacks when attending White-only institutions was unacceptable, critics charge.

White professors, administrators as well as rank-and-file employees have now begun the process of suing HBCUs with claims of "last hired, first fired," and unfair denials of tenure or advancement. Some view the growing trend as a means to manipulate civil rights laws, creating a form of reverse affirmative action for Whites.

In recent years, claims of discrimination in academia have increased, according to the American University of College Professors. The rise has been attributed partly to changes in civil rights laws in the early 1990s allowing for more damages, and to a shrinking number of tenure and tenure-track positions at collegiate institutions.

But now in states such as North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania, White professors and others have filed claims alleging denial in advancement at HBCUs and being treated as interlopers. The colleges have generally denied the allegations or admitted no wrongdoing.

At least one lawsuit resulted in a multimillion-dollar verdict. In 1998, a federal jury awarded $2.2 million to two tenured White professors who were forced to resign from Cheyney University in Pennsylvania. They alleged the school retaliated against them for opposing the appointment of faculty members they thought were unqualified. In the past year, Delaware State settled two discrimination lawsuits filed by White former employees.

Although the institution reached settlements, administrators deny racial discrimination exists. "As far as I know, we have excellent diversity among the faculty," said Johnny Tolliver, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs. He said Whites constitute almost half of the faculty and about one-fourth of the 22 department chairs. Delaware State has a student population of more than 3,000.

"It�s the White professors who can�t get tenure for hook or crook, but the Black professors get hired as full professors with tenure," said Bob Russ, an English professor at Livingstone College in Salisbury, N.C., one of three White plaintiffs in a case that could go to trial later this year.

The plaintiffs in some of the lawsuits have charged that Black colleges are trying to maintain their racial identities by limiting the number of White professors and administrators. Mr. Russ claims that Livingstone College attempts to systematically remove Whites from leadership positions and says his case is a prime example. Last December, he was told by the institution that his contract would not be renewed, after twice being denied tenure.

Mr. Russ� claim said his tenure review recommends naming Black professors to replace several White department heads. Notations scribbled in the margins of his review read, "bring in Black, Ph.D.," "hire Black chemist" and "build up science and math (Black)," he said in a published report. The notations were alleged to have been written by Barbara Brown, a Black woman and former vice president for academic affairs at Livingstone. She now works at Albany State University in Albany, Ga., another HBCU that registered more than 20 such complaints of discrimination throughout the 1980s and 1990s. She could not be reached for comment.

A Distorted Debate?

Not only is the issue challenged in employment, but it is also a debate on the enrollment level. In an increasingly unstable U.S. economy, a college education is now critical to Whites who seek a life void of poverty. College admissions, particularly on the graduate level, have become a refuge.

"There have been a number of lawsuits and policies at both the state and federal level designed to limit minority access to college (especially graduate school) and expand access for Whites. Special outreach measures like affirmative action have been under attack in several lawsuits," said rights activist Makani N. Themba. "In the state of California, a statewide ballot measure was passed that greatly curtailed the ability of institutions to consider racial diversity as part of their hiring and admissions criteria.

"By contrast, Whites are suing for race conscious admissions to gain unprecedented access to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) so that they have expanded options for college education, especially at the graduate level. For example, Alabama State University is currently operating under an integration order that requires that they set aside nearly 40 percent of their academic grants budget for scholarships to Whites. The state augments the university�s $229,000 contribution with public funds bringing the �Whites only� scholarship fund to a million dollars a year," she acknowledged.

To secure these funds require few eligibility requirements. A student must be White and must have earned at least a C average. Blacks seeking general admission to the university must earn almost a full point higher to merit consideration, she said.

"In fact, as a C average is just slightly above the minimum required to pass a class, White scholarships are the only academic scholarships for entry at the university level with such low requirements," she told The Final Call.

Last April, the state of Mississippi agreed to end its legal battles concerning desegregation of its higher education system, achieving a $500 million settlement intended to abolish and remedy state-sanctioned racial discrimination. The Mississippi case took shape in 1975 when Jake Ayers, on behalf of his son and 21 other students, said the state maintained a segregated system of higher education and gave HBCUs less funding than their White counterparts. In 1987, a U.S. District court ruled that the state had done enough to end segregation. But in its 1992 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court called the predominantly Black institutions inferior and underfunded.

The high court ordered Mississippi to desegregate. Nine years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling proposed solutions that included the closing of three HBCUs and merging them with better-funded predominantly White institutions. Another solution proposed was the imposition of uniform admissions criteria for all state universities as well as the creation of special financial incentives to attract White students to historically Black campuses.

The HBCUs were unable to attract non-Black students in large numbers to campuses that were once segregated by law. Many felt that uniform standards would exclude other Black students who were able to attend and graduate from HBCUs in the past. The irony in all of this is that these policies of privilege that keep Blacks from institutions established to help address the horrific inequalities of slavery and its vestiges, carry no similar requirements in the "historically White colleges and universities." Many colleges across this country are overwhelmingly White with almost nonexistent diversity.

"There are no mandates, no timelines, not even laws or policies requiring integration at these institutions at any level," Ms. Themba said.

"Opponents of affirmative action don�t complain about alumni preference programs," said George Curry, editor of the National Newspapers Publishers Association (NNPA). "Among the worst canards is the allegation that these are �preference� programs. What colleges are saying is that for decades Blacks have been excluded solely because of their race. Therefore, given that historic discrimination, there is nothing wrong with considering race as one of many factors used to evaluate qualified applicants," he said.

Mr. Curry said the largest "preference program" does not involve affirmative action, but so-called "legacy" programs that give a preference to college applicants if their parents attended the same university.

"In 1994, 40 percent of the children of Harvard alumni applying to the university were admitted, compared to 14 percent of students whose parents were not Harvard alumni. A U.S. Department of Education study found that the alumni children admitted to Harvard had SAT scores that averaged 35 points lower than those of students with non-alumni parents," he said.

 Another study, he added, found that far more Whites have entered the gates of the 10 most elite American academic institutions through "alumni preference" than the combined numbers of all the Blacks and Latinos entering through affirmative action.