Students’ Response to HBCU Presidents Meeting with Donald Trump

The college president must be many things to many people. The HBCU president must be a lot more to many more — especially to students. At schools where 70, 80, and sometimes even 90 percent of the students are Pell Grant eligible, it’s no shock that presidents find themselves being parents to some, mentors to others, and sadly but thankfully, sometimes even a savior – providing the last bit of hope to those who’ve considered giving up and in. It goes without saying that our presidents are our role models. Many hail from rough backgrounds like our own. Poverty. Gang violence. Single-parent homes. However, their successes, in not just the academy, but throughout their entire journeys, attests that it’s really not about where we come from, but where we want to go and how hard we’re willing to work to get there.

Over the past two days, many HBCU presidents have been meeting with Donald Trump and other government leaders at a Congressional “fly-in” led-in-part by HBCU alumna, Omarosa Manigault. Though we, the students, appreciate Trump and his administration’s uncanny openness, we can’t help but welcome this gesture with concern and apprehension. And we’re sorry that you may feel that you’re in the direct line of our fire, frustration, and fury.

A photo of Trump with presidents of historically black colleges is making people go ?. Here’s what they talked about https://t.co/oS3okqxAWV pic.twitter.com/KLnXaKfepJ

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 28, 2017

We cannot help but acknowledge that this meeting was arranged, scheduled, and (on occasions) changed at the whims of the administration without much, and usually no, prior communication with the presidents and appropriate constituents. Because of the sporadicity of it all, many presidents were unable to conduct surveys and gather input from their schools and the communities you serve. Furthering our uneasy feeling toward it all.

Moreover, we cannot pretend to have forgotten the things Trump has said and done to our sisters, those by birth and choice; citizens by blood, plane, and boat; and Syrian brothers and those like them who are facing internal and external political oppression abroad. We cannot forget the xenophobic, racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, and homophobic Trump rhetoric that will continue to infiltrate our minds and timelines over the next 4 years. We cannot wholeheartedly believe that Betsy Devos, who incorrectly refers to HBCUs as testaments of “school choice,” has our best interest at heart — or even knows how. We do now at least know and recognize, more than ever, the need to be politically involved, inclined, engaged and mobilized.

We look forward to that glorious day when we have collectively situated ourselves to only have to negotiate with who we want and how we want. Amongst us, we have academics and scholars, Chief Financial Officers and Small Business Owners, astronauts and senators, and even Academy Award Winning Actors and Honorees, surely we can develop a stable foundation to support our own institutions. We hope you will lead that effort, and of course, include us.

For Always Advocating On Our Behalves,
The HBCU Student Body