By Stephen J. Gaither
A bill that was thought to threaten multiple HBCUs in Mississippi did not pass in the state’s legislature. John Polk, sponsor of controversial SB 7526, wanted to make that much clearer.
“Please everyone get that message out,” Polk told the Clarion-Ledger. “The chair has killed my bill. That way, I can sleep at night.”
The bill was introduced last month to the Senate Colleges and University Committee that would have led to three of the state’s nine universities shutting down. Three of those institutions are HBCUs — Alcorn State University, Jackson State University, and Mississippi Valley State University.
Instead, SB 7525 moved out of committee, which will study the “efficiency” of those universities.
“We had hearings earlier this year where we were looking at things, and we now have a lot of data and information that was presented and that was about the enrollment cliff that we’re seeing across the country, and how that would impact our Mississippi universities,” UC Chair and bill sponsor Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, told the committee Monday at the Mississippi Capitol. “We’ve seen declining enrollments at smaller universities, we’ve seen increasing enrollments at some of our other universities. This would give us an opportunity to look at that over the summer with the task force.”