Gov. Bill Lee signed a law vacating Tennessee’s only publicly-funded historically Black university’s board, drawing condemnation from students, HBCU advocates, and lawmakers who challenged the decision, arguing the priority should have been remedying the severe and chronic underfunding the school faces.
The state legislature passed a bill on Thursday to vacate the entire board of trustees for Tennessee State University, abandoning their original plan to oust only a few members. Lee passed new legislation hours later reseating the 10-person board with Black business and political community members in Nashville who are all TSU graduates. State lawmakers still have to approve the appointees.
Calls for a new board started surfacing in 2023 after several audit reports revealed student housing shortages, unsustainable scholarship increases, and lingering financial discrepancies at TSU, according to The Associated Press.
The state legislature crafted a bill that the Republican-controlled House voted on right after multiple reports were released this week that listed dozens of recommendations to rectify “significant procedural deficiencies” at the institution.
However, that same report also concluded there was “no fraud or malfeasance” by executive leadership.
TSU leaders noted the decision puts the university in a precarious position as their current search for a new president is still underway.
Outgoing TSU President Glenda Glover plans to step down in June.
“This is unprecedented, unfortunate, and uncharted waters for any public university in the state,” TSU said in a statement. “We believe this legislation will disrupt our students’ educational pursuits, harm the image of the University, and remove a Board that had achieved success in its enhanced governance of TSU.”
Democratic lawmakers stated that House Republicans quickly decided to vacate the board instead of addressing the long-standing issue of underfunding that TSU has faced for years. A federal report revealed the school was underfunded at $2.1 billion based on its land grant status.
Data from the National Center of Education Statistics revealed that white land-grant institutions were better funded than historically Black land-grant universities. Only two schools in Tennessee have that designation: the University of Tennessee and Tennessee State University. Last September, Gov. Lee received a report from federal officials showing a “severe financial gap” in funding between both schools.
“TSU would undoubtedly be in a different position today if it had received the funds promised by the state over the course of the last three decades,” TSU’s statement continued. “While we are very disappointed by today’s vote, we will continue to work with the General Assembly and the Governor’s office to pursue options, both in funding and governance, that allow TSU to continue the momentum it has achieved in enrollment, research, academics, and providing great opportunities for students.”
“It’s all disheartening,” Ramona Willis, a retired teacher who graduated from Tennessee State in the 1970s, told NBC News. “They hold back billions of dollars from the school, but yet they want to remove the board? Could some issues be because we just didn’t have enough money, money that is just sitting out there that should be ours? It’s hard to accept that they can know this and yet ignore it and put our school in disarray.”
“Instead of us rectifying the problems that we created through racist policies by underfunding Tennessee State University, we’re now advocating to vacate their board,” Rep. Justin Pearson, a Democrat from Memphis, argued.
TSU students were at the Tennessee Capitol during the vote. Some spoke out, stating that the changes to the board shouldn’t be the primary focus at this time.
“Everyone’s opinion was already solidified regardless of the individuals who stood up and defended the university tooth and nail and compared our institution to other (land grant institutions) in the state and just continue to emphasize what the facts are and the numbers are,” TSU Student Body President Derrell Taylor said. “And still have no response as far as the funding could’ve looked like or what the university could’ve looked like if we didn’t go through the underfunding issues. Nothing was done to address that. Nothing was done to address what will happen in the future and where to receive these funds.”
“Now next I believe that the vacate of the board is untimely, when I mean untimely, it is because currently our institution is searching for a new president,” Samson Cook, a freshman TSU student, stated. “I believe that when we should use all our resources to ensure that our next president is going to be the most effective leader to lead our institution to a better future.”
