The Challenge

In 2013, UNUM Fellow and Tennessee General Assembly Representative Harold Love, Jr. discovered that the state of Tennessee unlawfully denied Tennessee State University (TSU), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), one-to-one state-matching funds owed under the 1890 Land Grant Act.

In 2020 and 2021, Representative Love identified over $500 million in owed funding for Tennessee State University from 1957 to 2020. In 2021, he secured over $300 million in the state budget.

The Opportunity

If a historically black land-grant institution was established through the 1890 Land Grant, the state may also owe it funding.

Representative Love figured out how to do this on his own. Others do not have to. Below is a primer on how to recover owed HBCU funds, taking inspiration from the process Representative Love used.

Secure State-Matching Funds for a Historically Black Land-Grant Institution: A Primer

This toolkit guides efforts to recover state-matching funds that may have been withheld unlawfully from other historically Black land-grant colleges and universities. It synthesizes political and legislative steps Rep. Love took to recover that initial $300 million owed to TSU and shares how it can be replicated for other historically Black land-grant institutions. Here are the major steps:

  • Identify if a state owes its historically Black land-grant institution funding

  • Build stakeholder buy-in to recover owed funds

  • Draft and pass legislation to recover funding

At the end of this step-by-step breakdown is a full case study of Representative Love’s work. It includes specific legislation names and constituent outreach. It is also available as a PDF you can download.

Background: The 1890 Land Grant Act

The 1890 Land Grant Act, also known as the Second Morrill Act of 1890, provides federal grants through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to nineteen historically Black land-grant institutions (“1890 institutions”) for agricultural research, education, and extension. These 1890 institutions are often called Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs.

These nineteen HBCUs did not always have access to land-grant funds. Initially, those funds were only provided to the fifty-seven institutions deemed eligible under the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. Those predominantly white land-grant institutions and universities are known as “1862 institutions.”

The USDA distributes capacity grants, also called formula funds, among eligible 1862 and 1890 institutions based on statutory formulas. These grants generally require one-to-one non-federal matching funds provided by the state or a non-federal source.

Currently, the law permits the USDA to give waivers to states. These state waivers allow them to match less than half of federal funds for 1890 institutions. The waivers were intended to ensure that historically Black 1890 land-grant institutions would still receive federal funds even if the states could not provide the full match.

However, states have used these waivers to underfund historically Black 1890 institutions while fully funding their 1862 institutions.

From 2011 to 2020, historically Black 1890 institutions failed to receive up to $165 million because of USDA-granted waivers.

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in 2020, historically white 1862 institutions received over 80 percent ($574 million) of federal capacity funds. Historically Black1890 land grant institutions received 18 percent ($124 million).

State failures to provide a one-to-one match to historically Black 1890 land-grant institutions is a problem that must be fixed—and can be.

The Process

First, engage in archival research on the state-matching funds provided to land-grant institutions. This will help identify appropriations disparities between a state’s historically white 1862 institutions and historically Black 1890 land-grant institutions. Other benefits include:

  • Becoming the subject matter expert
  • An advantage in the committee and legislative process
  • Help establish messaging and talking points

Research Tips

  • Obtain as much budgeting information from historically Black land-grant institutions
  • Try to access budgets that date as far back as possible
  • Leverage help from research partners like EPU or other nonprofits

The next step involves developing messaging, ideally using language that increases bipartisanship.

A bipartisan approach to messaging will help members of both parties to see disparities in funding as a state issue and not a historically white vs. historically Black college and university issue. This may make it easier for members to accept that disparities must be addressed through legislation, rather than a costly and time-consuming lawsuit. It also helps limit the possibilities of a protracted fight

The Big Picture

Think about messaging in three parts: cause, consequence, and correction.

  • Cause: State legislators unlawfully withheld matching funds from a state’s historically Black 1890 institutions.
  • Consequence: The lack of funding contributes to systemic inequities, including deferred maintenance, depleted endowments, and dilapidated infrastructure.
  • Correction: The state should provide the total amount of funding that was unlawfully withheld.

Key Messaging Language

Here are some examples of powerful, race-neutral language:

  • Underfunded
  • Lawfully required
  • Bipartisan
  • Equitable funding
  • Collaboration
  • Outdated infrastructure
  • Return on investment

Key Messaging Checklist

  • Talk about doing more with less: Give examples of how much the historically Black 1890 institution(s) has achieved with limited resources. This demonstrates that the 1890 institution has had a good return on investment.
  • Talk about deferred maintenance: Deferred maintenance is visible evidence that helps to describe the negative impacts of lack of funding on the historically Black 1890 institution.
  • Emphasize that it is not “us vs. them”: It will help to emphasize that this process is not about historically white institutions vs. historically Black institutions, but rather is a collective state issue.

After brainstorming messaging, propose a bipartisan committee to study the funding disparities between 1862 and 1890 land-grant institutions. A bipartisan joint committee can be established using the annual appropriations process.

Such fact-finding committees can:

  • Hold hearings to gather data on funding disparities
  • Request analyses of past budgets
  • Offer critical legislative and policymaking support, including the justification for new legislation

Proposed Witnesses

  • State and Legislative Budget Office
  • State Education Department
  • President of the 1890 Land-Grant Institution

Potential Outcomes

  • A non-partisan official record of the state’s funding disparity
  • A historical overview of the land-grant acts and what state and federal law requires
  • Members receive information related to the 1890 land-grant institution’s successes and challenges

Questions to Consider

  • What are the desired outcomes?
  • Who would be on the fact-finding committee?
  • What is needed to make the fact-finding committee bipartisan?
  • In what policy-related work can the committee engage?
  • What government offices could support the committee’s fact-finding? Ex: Tennessee has an Office of Legislative Budget Analysis
  • What academics or academic institutions could support the committee’s fact-finding mission?
  • How can committee findings help educate and engage potential allies and stakeholders?

Identifying state and/or federal funds potentially owed to a historically Black land-grant institution involves many stakeholders. Here are some representative stakeholder groups and different questions to consider for each.

Legislative Allies

  • Who are relevant political allies and caucuses?
  • What role does political party play in this process?
  • What role does caucus leadership play in this process?
  • When should caucus leadership be engaged about this particular issue?
  • How to solidify support among allies and caucus/party leaders?
  • How will engaging party and/or caucus leadership help this process?

Bipartisan Leaders

  • Who are potential bipartisan allies?
  • When would bipartisan allies become engaged?
  • In what ways can leaders be involved beyond asking them to sponsor a bill?

State Governor

  • Should the Governor of the State be included?
  • How could engaging the Governor help in this process?

Other Political Stakeholders

  • What other political stakeholders would be interested in this work?

University Leadership Stakeholders

  • When would HBCU President(s) become engaged?
  • What role would the HBCU President(s) play?
  • What are the pros and cons of engaging HBCU Presidents? What impact could that have on the process?
  • What other HBCU academic leaders should be included? If yes, what role would they play? What are the pros and cons?
  • What impact could engaging HBCU leadership have on the process?
  • Should any 1862 institutions join the effort? If yes, what role should they play?
  • When are alumni associations engaged?

Civic Trade Associations, Coalitions, and Like-Minded Stakeholders

  • Will people engage with organizations like the Thurgood Marshall College Fund or the Association for Public Land-Grant Universities? If so, when?
  • What additional organizations should people include in that engagement? What organizations should people not include?
  • Will people conduct public-facing campaigns together? If so, when?
  • Will people and like-minded stakeholders use social media or other platforms to raise awareness about this issue? If so, when?

Having a legislative strategy is key to achieving the goal of changing laws to recover owed funding. Legislative efforts may include:

  • Determining the cause of disparate funding
  • Assessing the consequence of this disparity
  • Creating legislation to correct this disparity by appropriating unlawfully withheld funds
  • Creating legislation that requires reporting of state-matching funding

Here are helpful questions to ask while drafting and pressure-testing legislation.

  • What types of bills have been introduced in the past on this topic?
  • What changes did those hearings yield?
  • What can be learned from those past bills as they draft their bill?
  • Where will the new bill intersect with previous legislation (drafted or passed)?
  • What impact will the bill have?
  • What pieces of the bill may be met with resistance?
  • How can the data gathered by the fact-finding committee or stakeholder support be used to address potential resistance in advance?

Case Study: Representative Harold Love Jr. & Tennessee State University

This case study shares the innovative and effective work of Representative Harold Love, Jr. to inspire and enable others to take similar actions in their home states.

In 2013, Rep. Love discovered that his state’s 1890 institution, Tennessee State University (TSU), was unlawfully denied state-matching funds under the 1890 Land Grant Act. While federal law permits USDA waivers, for decades TSU had not received funding on par with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, a state 1862 institution.

Before Representative Love’s legislation, the impacts of this funding disparity at TSU included:

Rep. Love spent seven years doing archival research on the state-matching funds provided to TSU.

The first research was to understand the capacity grant matching requirement. This was an important first step because he needed to show how crucial the state funding was to the university and why there was a need for capacity grants.

The second step was to engage in conversation with the state agency responsible for recommendations for funding to discover why the funding was not being provided.

The third step was to access budget records for the capacity grant funding history of both land-grant institutions in Tennessee. Rep. Love needed these to show the clear difference in the funding of the two institutions.

Rep. Love was careful to craft bipartisan messaging to try to limit a protracted fight. It included using terms such as “deferred maintenance,” “return on investment,” and “equitable funding.” He also stayed away from “us vs. them” narratives.

For example, when he crafted messaging around deferred building maintenance, he emphasized that Tennessee State University buildings are state buildings. Because the funding was different, buildings on TSU’s campus couldn’t be maintained in the same way as buildings at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Reminding members of the General Assembly and the Executive Branch that these are state buildings helped reinforce the argument that it is a state matter when Tennessee State University is treated differently.

On June 20, 2020, the Tennessee General Assembly formed the Land Grant Institution Funding History Study Committee. This six-member bipartisan committee was tasked with studying inequities of prior years’ federal and state funding for land-grant higher education institutions, including TSU. 

This committee was essential for building TSU’s legislative and political support to obtain its state-match funding.

Hearings 

Budget Analysis

Representative Love used the Office of Legislative Budget Analysis to find funding disparities between 1890 and 1862 Institutions.

He found that between 1957 and 2020, TSU did not receive the required match from the state of Tennessee. He also discovered that in many instances, it still needed to receive the total amount of federal funding passed through the state.

Policy Work

On June 30, 2021, he held a TSU planning recommendations meeting to discuss applicable laws on land-grant institutions. 

Rep. Love built stakeholder support across the aisle, including with the Speaker, Lt. Governor, Governor, and Commissioner of Finance and Administration.

Step 5: Execute A Legislative Strategy

On February 5, 2019, Representative Love introduced HB823. It required the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to submit a report on the federal appropriations and matching funds allocated under the 1890 Land Grant Act. HB823 became law on May 2, 2019.

On June 20, 2020, appropriations bill HB2922 created the General Assembly Study Committee on Land-grant Institutions. 

On February 1, 2022, Representative Love introduced HB2293. It required TSU to submit annual reports to the Governor related to: 

  • The progress made in addressing the improvements to TSU’s facilities and infrastructure
  • How the improvements address needs identified in the Tennessee Higher Education Commission’s  evaluation of TSU facilities and infrastructure needs

What Comes Next?

EPU serves as a resource to community leaders, policymakers, and advocates across the South to help them take actionable steps to accelerate positive change. These resources include, but are not limited to:

  • Research and analysis
  • Technical assistance
  • Policy development

We would love to connect with you and discuss the change you want to make. Here are ways you can contact us.

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Additional Resources

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