Are HBCUs dens of fools?

By Lucius Gantt
The Gantt Report

I'm concerned that many of America's historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are becoming miseducational jokes.

Every day I turn on the radio I'm being encouraged to give money to help some HCBU. I get form letters and phone calls asking my business to sponsor Black college activities or to purchase season tickets for athletic teams.

If you truly keep up with the goings on at HBCUs, you would know that a lot of the money contributed, donated or allocated to certain Black colleges has been allegedly misused, misappropriated, embezzled or stolen by financial criminals. One Black school chose not to invest with Black investment firms and instead spent $500,000 with America's greatest financial scammer, Bernie Madoff , and lost every dollar.

Rampant cronyism

Many institutions of higher learning deserve support, but that support should go both ways. Everyone can give money to HCBUs, but few people can get money from HCBUs. Most HBCU staff s are permeated with the relatives, spouses, signifi- cant others and friends of the HCBU administrators. Other jobs are reserved for HBCU graduates that can be controlled by the persons that hire them.

In the small towns where many HBCUs are located, the HBCU presidents, football coaches and top professors are the highest paid Blacks in their respective communities. However, instructors and potential instructors that are highly experienced and at the top of their professional games need not apply.

Why? Because at many schools, there seems to be an HBCU mafia. "If you want to teach or work at a Black college, you should have attended the school." If you're not a "made man or made woman," so to speak, you may never get a decent job at a HCBU.

I think I'd be a pretty good associate professor at a Black school, but I'm not waiting for a call from any dean of journalism or communication because the devil will never be able to control a saint.

Does it sound like I hate HBCUs? Well, I think I've done much more for the HBCU in my community than the school has done for me. I sent both of my children to HBCUs. My daughter attended Morris Brown, my son FAMU. Who donates more money to HCBUs than parents that pay tuition, buy books and pay student housing and fees for four or more years?

Activists shunned

When I was college age, I applied to go to Morehouse but the school refused to give me work-study or fi- nancial aid, so I ended up graduating from Georgia State. In those days, the Atlanta University Center was the center of the civil rights movement and political protest in the South.

Now, it's hard to tell a Morehouse man from a Morehouse woman. Gays and transvestites are welcome at HBCUs, but the schools shun militants, revolutionaries and community activists.

Giving should be reciprocal. Give to your favorite HBCU by all means, but tell your favorite school to give back to the community and others that are good people but didn't attend that particular HCBU.

Contact Lucius at www. allworldconsultants.net.