Hobbs Thursday Thoughts (FAMU, FSU, and Historical Racial Slights in University Governance) Growing up in Tallahassee,I distinctly recall that there were more than a few blacks who DESPISED Florida State University. By despised I do not mean to reduce this recollection to a dislike of the Seminoles football team, although most blacks who attended Florida A&M University football games in the 80s will attest that whenever the public address announcer informed the crowd that FSU was losing a football game, a raucous cheer often ensued and when the same would announce that FSU was winning, one would often hear a chorus of loud boos! No, when speaking of the real disconnect, much of the anger stemmed from the Jim Crow era and the knowledge that the Florida legislature routinely under-funded FAMU, an HBCU, in favor of historically and predominantly white FSU and, of course, the University of Florida, which was also segregated well into the 1960s. Blacks who were born before the 60s and who remember the Jim Crow Era, for the most part, have no love for neither UF nor FSU because of those slights, but the enmity toward FSU was often greater because of its close proximity to FAMU. This enmity only grew exponentially worse during the late 60s and early 70s after the State Board of Control closed down FAMUs Law School, only to open a new one a few miles away at FSU. Even unto this day, some of the older books at the FSU College of Law Library are stamped with the old FAMU Law sticker---a reminder of how FAMU, for many years, has been subject to the whims of a legislature and school governing system that has either actively advocated merging it completely with FSU, or shutting the school down altogether. Understanding this, I share the concerns of many FAMU alums and supporters that news of a back-room deal has surfaced that would separate the three-plus decades old FAMU-FSU College of Engineering is troubling. A Miami Herald article yesterday contains a paragraph that perhaps sums it up best: ...behind-the-scenes effort to divide an engineering program shared by Florida State University and Florida A&M University is igniting a lingering debate about racial inequality and how state resources are allocated in higher education. In 2013, FAMU had 369 engineering students enrolled at the E-School while FSU had 2,142. Besides funding and the sustainability of a separate FAMU program depending upon a possible funding dimunition by the legislature, the second issue is location---the current E-School is located near both campuses in Innovation Park, but if they were to separate, where would the presumably new E-School be built? In addition to this question, FAMU stakeholders now wonder whether FSU should be compelled to build a separate E-School elsewhere, which makes logical sense when considering that when the State of Florida decided to right the wrong that was the closing of FAMUs Law School in the early Aughts by creating a new one, it decided to locate the same in Orlando in large part because of its reticence to house two public law schools within the City of Tallahassee. Truly, if such was the logic then, such would only make logical sense, now, regarding an FSU E-School. What further complicates this issue is the fact that from the beginning of public universities in Florida, backroom deals have often found FAMU with the short end of the stick. Seprate But Equal, the law of the land before the Supreme Courts Brown decision in 1954, was often separate and completely unequal in word and deed. Some non-FAMUANS, including a growing number of black FSU and UF grads who are not fully aware of the racial slights, at times dismiss this as a form of paranoia, but the facts are what they are as far as race and funding for FAMU are concerned. Other FAMU critics dismiss these concerns by citing many of the issues that have plagued FAMU over the past decade as far as audits are concerned, but even that issue, when examined more closely, often is exacerbated because if the truth is told, some media outlets, at many times in ancient and recent Florida history, have been complicit in blasting negative issues and scandals at FAMU while not nearly providing similar coverage of scandals great and small at other public universities. This has led to a perception that financial audits at FAMU or the Champion Hazing death, for instance, has left non-FAMUANS believing that the school is troubled while similar audits at FSU and UF, academic cheating scandals or other scandals involving athletes and students at both FSU and UF, and even hazing incidents or other incidents that have led to deaths at FSU and UF, be it from shootings, fights or even football practice (Devaughn Darling), have not left nearly the same lingering thoughts that FSU or UF should be closed down or phased down. The truth of the matter is that Tallahassee is privileged to have two universities that are rich in academic and athletic history that call the city home. Their historical and current missions are distinctly different, and while at times there is overlap, such as the E-School, the benefits that such provides to both the greater Tallahassee area, the State of Florida and the world far outweigh some of the territorialism and in-fighting that has marked its existence for years. Further, the distinct missions of FAMU and FSU, while clearly separate, should not bridle or limit the ambition of either college because as they prosper, so, too, does the State of Florida. It is no secret that FSU, the younger brother to UF so to speak, wishes to have the same programs as UF and over the past decade, the addition of a medical school that is flourishing and the desire for an E-School now, further that ambition as FSU hopes to join UF and many other Atlantic Coast Conference schools in the academically prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU). As such, it is crucial that FSU obtain such programs as well as continue its non-secretive desire to obtain a Journalism School and a Pharmacy School as well. Such desires leave many FAMUANS anxious that in time, the legislature will seek to move FAMUs prestigious J-School and Pharmacy School over to FSU as well. For FAMU stakeholders, to fear as much is not paranoia, rather, it is logical and good sense and it is crucial that these debates are waged in the court of public opinion--- replete with a full accounting of historical and current slights---so that backroom deals dont accomplish now what the racists of yesteryear sought to do---which is to eliminate FAMU altogether.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 13:34:48 +0000
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