Trump boosts HBCU funding despite his attacks on DEI programs. Here is why some experts believe this is happening

By Nicquel Terry Ellis, CNN

(CNN) — When President Donald Trump’s administration announced it was boosting its investment into historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges this year, HBCU advocates lauded the move as a win for the chronically underfunded institutions.

The promised one-time gift of an additional $495 million would help Black colleges grow their endowments, expand research programs, upgrade facilities, strengthen campus security, and provide more support services for students and faculty development, advocates and university leaders said.

“It is significant, and it will be impactful on every campus,” said Lodriguez Murray, senior vice president of public policy and government affairs for the United Negro College Fund.

But some higher education experts say they are leery of Trump’s motives for increasing HBCU funding after his efforts to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the nation’s schools and universities and sanitize the history of slavery at national museums. Many of the DEI programs were created to offer an equitable and more welcoming environment for Black and brown students at predominately White colleges.

The investment in HBCUs came as the administration cut $350 million from other grants, largely from programs reserved for Hispanic Serving Institutions, or HSIs.

Marybeth Gasman, a professor for the graduate school of education at Rutgers University and executive director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, said she believes the Trump administration’s support for HBCUs while rejecting DEI sends a message that the president “doesn’t have an issue with Black people in Black spaces.”

“I think where he gets uncomfortable is Black people being in spaces that he thinks belong to White people,” said Gasman, who noted some conservatives have tried to diminish Black women in power by calling them “DEI hires.”

Gasman said Trump’s support for HBCUs also puts those schools in a tough spot because they are less likely to criticize him when he targets people of color or Black history.

Trump has forced several colleges – including Harvard University and the University of Michigan – to cancel their diversity programs after he threatened to pull their federal funding. In August, Trump directed his attorneys to perform a review of Smithsonian museums that are too focused on “how bad slavery was.”

“When you’re critical, he fires back,” Gasman said.

‘HBCUs are open to all students’

Trump’s financial pledge to HBCUs appeared to align with his priorities as he signed an executive order in April vowing to build on the work of his first administration by elevating HBCUs.

The investment marked a 50% increase to the anticipated allotment for fiscal year 2025, according to the US Department of Education.

In a statement to CNN, the Department of Education said it was using “existing flexibilities in discretionary grant programs to advance President Trump’s priorities and targeting resources toward the most effective interventions to bolster educational outcomes.”

According to The Associated Press, the Justice Department argued in a July memo that grants for HSIs were unconstitutional because they were reserved for schools that have at least 25% Hispanic enrollment.

“Unlike Minority-Serving Institution grant programs which confer government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas, HBCUs are open to all students and do not rely on racial quotas as part of admissions,” the Education Department said in its statement to CNN.

Andrés Castro Samayoa, an associate professor in Boston College’s School of Education and Human Development, said he suspects Trump is supporting HBCUs to gain “political goodwill.”

The move, Castro Samayoa said, will allow Trump to “point to this as engaging in allegedly nonracist behavior.”

“I think it becomes a question of optics rather than sincerity of approach,” Castro Samayoa said.

Castro Samayoa said the administration’s divestment in HSIs only leaves those schools with fewer resources to meet the unique needs of Hispanic students and potential disparities in educational outcomes.

“Any time you take funding away, you are affecting students negatively,” he said.

The White House and the Education Department did not immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment on the statements from Gasman and Castro Samayoa.

The impact of HBCUs

Stakeholders in the HBCU community insist that they have been able to get extra funding from the Trump administration because their institutions don’t practice DEI.

“There is no percentage of quota in terms of the number of students that have to be one race at an HBCU,” said Harry L. Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. “And we have some HBCUs that are predominately White.”

HBCUs were first established in the mid- to late-1800s, when legal segregation in the South prevented Black students from enrolling in existing colleges and schools in the North imposed quotas on the number of Black students who could attend. During this period, HBCUs became the primary means of providing a college education to Black people.

But the demographics have shifted over the years. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, non-Black students made up 24% of HBCU enrollment in 2022, compared to 15% in 1976.

Still, advocates insist that HBCUs struggle with funding and their endowments are significantly smaller than predominately White institutions.

“HBCUs have been underfunded since their inception,” Murray told CNN. “These are a group of institutions that have routinely punched above their weight in terms of impacting students coming from the most underserved backgrounds.”

George French Jr., president of Clark Atlanta University, said HBCUs have helped birth the Black middle class — which is crucial to the nation’s economy.

In his executive order on HBCUs, Trump recognized HBCUs as “beacons of educational excellence and economic opportunity that serve as some of the best cultivators of tomorrow’s leaders in business, government, academia, and the military.”

French said he was not surprised at the funding boost because of Trump’s track record in his first administration of supporting HBCUs.

In 2019, Trump signed the Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education (FUTURE) Act, a bipartisan bill that looked to strengthen HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions by providing $255 million annually.

“The current secretary of education (Linda McMahon) is demonstrating that they understand the importance of HBCUs to our economy,” French said. “We are impactful. So, I think when they went back and looked at the impact that we are making, the reports we are sending on a regular basis … we are moving the needle every single day.”

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