Today, Explained - Black schools, red states

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

A supporter of President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis was just appointed to lead the historically Black college Florida A&M University. Students and alumni are not happy. WFSU's Lynn Hatter and Tuskegee University's President Mark Brown explain how Black colleges are currently navigating red states. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Victoria Chamberlin, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Jonquilyn Hill. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Graduates during the Florida A&M University Commencement Ceremony in Tallahassee, Florida. Photo by Glenn Beil/Florida A&M University via Getty Images. Help us plan for the future of Today, Explained by filling out a brief survey: ⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's a weird time for universities right now. We spend more money on higher education than any other country and yet they're turning our students into communists and terrorists. We can't let this happen. From private schools like Harvard and Columbia to big state schools, universities are on high alert. Take Florida A&M University for example, one of the top historically black colleges in the country. An ally of Governor Ron DeSantis unexpectedly became the new president much to the dismay of students and alumni.

Right this very minute a group of activist Republicans are trying to put in the highest position of power someone who is solidly and objectively unqualified for. Her name is Marva Johnson. FAMU deserves better. How black colleges are fearing in red states. That's coming up on Today Explained. Pop music and heavy metal may seem like unlikely bedfellows, but the UK band Sleep Token has

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That's this week on Channels, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. It's Today Explained. I'm Jon Glenn Hill, guest hosting today. To learn more about Florida A&M's new president, we called up Lynn Hatter. She's a director of content at WFSU Public Media in Tallahassee. She's also a FAMU alum. I asked her why a university president appointment is such a big deal in the first place.

Well, it used to not be a big deal, but over the past couple of years, you've seen Governor Ron DeSantis exercising a lot more control and authority over who gets appointed to these presidencies. We've had many political appointees that the governor himself has interviewed. And then through his ability to install members of university boards of trustees and also the state's university system governing board, he has been able to exercise his preference for the leaders of these institutions. Who is Marva Johnson? Well, she's a highly successful public sector lobbyist.

She was one of the main lobbyists for charter communications, which is one of the largest cable providers in the United States. So we have Marva Johnson from charter. And she has long been aligned with Florida Republican politics. She previously served on our state board of education. Now, that's the group that oversees our K-12 and what used to be our community and state colleges here in the state. She was an elector for President Donald Trump at one point in time, and she's got strong ties within the Florida GOP. That allow us to continue to make the infrastructure investment in rural communities that leaders like our governor, Rhonda Santis, have framed for us.

All of that raised alarms among FAMU alumni and stakeholders because while Johnson has been highly successful in the public sector, she has very little experience at the state university system level and no experience in sort of the day-to-day runnings of a university at any level. And so that coupled with her GOP ties are what have really sort of set up and really kind of raised alarm for FAMU. If she doesn't have that experience, how did she become president in the first place? Well, she went through a search process.

There's a lot involved with that. She was not initially among the three finalists selected. She was a last minute addition to the finalists list. How that came to pass, nobody really knows. I hope the board of trustees heard loud and clear. We have three overqualified candidates. There's nothing she's bringing. Why would you not listen to your constituents?

You have three candidates with significant university experience. One candidate, zero university experience. It's just like, hey, I've served on the board for a hospital for the last eight years, but does that mean I can now go and be a doctor or I can go and be the CEO of a hospital? No. And that is something that has also

raised a lot of concerns among the university community, which is how did she get there when she did not meet the qualifications that the university itself laid out for what it wanted in a president? How has Johnson pitched herself to the FAMU community? Well, she was put on the defensive. During her interview process, the public side of the interview process, she did not face a very welcoming crowd.

And a lot of people there basically asked her, Do you feel that in this climate, under these circumstances, that you, in being supportive of Governor DeSantis could actually protect family. And her response was really telling and her response basically said, If the general public perception is that Governor DeSantis likes me, then wouldn't it stand to reason that he wants me to be successful? And so it was very contentious throughout her process. At some points, she demonstrated that she really did not know a lot about FAMU. The PharmD program, those students actually can do everything that the doctoral programs

require under the R1 designation. They even do a dissertation. Which is something that FAMU's own board, a chairwoman raised concerns with. Many answers were hollow. Many statements were false. PharmD students don't require a dissertation to graduate from Florida A&M.

And so there's been a lot just around what are her motivations, who is she here for, what does she hope to obtain with FAMU and what is her end goal? And by extension, what is the objective of the people who put her in this position? FAMU wants a leader that represents us, who is not a political ploy

or someone who does not have experience in higher education, but someone who represents the true values of what our mother FAMU was founded on in 1887, that's love and charity. And unfortunately, members of her party and members of people who are in line with her don't represent the true values of love and charity. This may have started with a black college in Florida,

but best believe it will not end there. So the fight that we take up in this moment is for FAMU, but it's not just for FAMU, it's for all of black America. The moment demands action and the opposition will be televised. What's the worry that Johnson will do as president? What is the big fear there? The big fear with Johnson is that she will give up or be willing to let go of several

programs that FAMU has long prided itself on. The university has recently come under fire for the past couple of years by the State University System Governing Board for low passage rates on its pharmacy program and its nursing program. These are some of the oldest programs in the state in these disciplines and some of the oldest programs at HBCUs in general.

And the university is deeply concerned that Johnson will simply try to kill off those programs. You know, this backlash is really existential and it's fueled in historic disparities that FAMU has faced over time. Florida A&M used to run a hospital that was taken from them. Florida A&M University's College of Law was dismantled and it was given to Florida State University. And so you've had these historical issues that are really kind of fueling the distrust that people are feeling at the moment. What does this story tell us about how HBCUs are navigating this particular political climate?

I think the primary concern with HBCUs is that they are increasingly facing many of the same situations that other institutions are facing, which is the loss of federal funding, potential changes in how federal student aid is allocated, the loss of federal research grants. But with HBCUs, especially if they're public, that public money plays an outsized role in their ability to finance themselves. And they're a lot more vulnerable to public financing changes than a lot of your predominantly white institutions are. And so they're struggling with how do we diversify our funding sources to ensure that we're still going to be here for another 130 plus years.

I will point out that one thing about Marva, Ms. Johnson, that is really interesting is that her argument, you know, for being named president was if you're so concerned about losing state funding, then wouldn't it benefit you to hire an ally of the people who control that funding? Six percent of the alumni are givers. Unfortunately, the rest of the money comes control that funding. Six percent of the alumni are givers. Unfortunately, the rest of the money comes from the state. We're going to need somebody who can not only raise money, somebody who's going to have to take in mind

that our students are our number one customer and constituent. This moment calls for someone who understands the systems that fund and govern us, because right now, our survivor depends on how we navigate those systems. That is not an invalid argument, right? That argument makes perfect sense. I think the question for FAMU that only FAMU can answer is, does that make perfect sense for it as an institution. That's Lynn Hatter at WFSU in Tallahassee. Coming up, the view from the president's desk at another black university in another red state. Support for Today Explained comes from Shopify. If you have a business idea or just an idea of something you want to sell, you won't

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Restrictions apply. See in-store or online for details. We're back. I'm Jonklyn Hill, filling in as host. Depending on the numbers you look at, there's something like 107 HBCUs in the country. They're public and private. They're big research institutions

and small liberal arts colleges. I wanted to get a better sense of what things feel like on these campuses given the Trump administration's attacks on universities. So I talked with Dr. Mark Brown, Tuskegee University's president. So feel is a good question, right? So you use the term feel. Tuskegee University in Alabama was founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881.

It's ranked at number three among HBCUs overall, tied with Florida A&M University. I'm familiar with Tuskegee. I have family members that graduated from there and who have taught at the school too. So some measurable things would be the White House initiative on HBCUs. President Donald Trump signed an executive order this week to help grow historically black colleges and universities. He plans to team up with nonprofits and government agencies to grow America's workforce in technology, healthcare, and manufacturing. The order directs federal agencies to increase federal opportunities for HBCUs, including grants and contracts. We've not seen all of the execution of that, but that's where I think you'll find measurable results. The president has publicly said, as has the secretary of education,

that they are supportive of historically black colleges and universities. I got the historically black colleges and universities. I got them more money than they ever dreamt possible. And they're in great shape now and they have long-term financing. And nobody did that but Donald Trump. And then we have done quite a bit to make sure everybody understands something. HBCUs are not diversity, equity, and inclusion universities.

Nor have we ever been. We are merit-based schools. Anybody can apply to come to Tuskegee, and if they qualify, they can come. We have never said, send me three of these and three of those, or we've never said that, nor have any of our universities. And so it is confusion if we are associated with the pattern of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Having said that, if someone wrote in the federal government a grant, and that grant said that we are specifically looking at a particular subgroup under the category diversity, equity, and inclusion. And the decision is that across,

not just HBCUs, across the educational spectrum, those grants have to be pulled back. Then HBCUs, not because they are HBCUs, but because they are using that grant would be impacted. Let me give you an example. So we have work that we do with University of Alabama Birmingham, and it is on cancer research, cervical, prostate, those kinds of cancers. Specifically, it deals with the genealogy of it. In other words, it's important where you do the research. It's important where you get the samples. The grant provides the payroll or a good portion of the payroll so that we can hire the best

researchers to come to Tuskegee and do that research using samples. And it's important because the morbidity rate of certain cancers are far greater in our region and our area than they are in others. So if the person writing the grant specifically targeted an area under the category BEI, it wouldn't matter if we were UAB or if you're the partner Tuskegee on the other end. If you had that broad category swap, you would impact us both and it does. So I want to make sure, is it a matter of policy or is it a matter of just pure confusion, I guess, is the question. But we got to work all that out. It's far more complex than I think some would want to make it.

Is there a consensus among black academic leaders right now? Are you at all anxious about the future of HBCUs? Or are you feeling more optimistic because of Trump's statements of support right now? So let me, again, kind of reframe it in my way of looking at this. Here's what people in higher education ought to be concerned about and I believe they are. There is a budget, right?

And the House of Representatives has submitted it to the Senate for action. 2026 President's budget. There are reductions in things like grad plus loans. There are reductions in the way that you use Pell grants, those people who would be eligible, income levels, those kinds of things. There are policies like risk sharing as it relates to defaulted loans over time that ought to concern schools who service students in need. And here's what I mean. Nine out of 10 students at historically black colleges and universities have some form of

federally assisted financial aid. Almost nine out of 10 when you look at it. Some form. Some it's a Pell Grant, some it's Stafford loans. Access to education will be impacted by that legislation. Anybody paying attention though would be concerned, but I want to be careful about one thing. What is the issue? Is it the issue that we're at HBCUs or is the issue poverty? In other words, I want to make sure we frame it the right way.

Because I'm at Georgia Tech, depending on a Pell Grant and a Parent PLUS loan to go to grad school to get a doctorate in engineering, I'm just as impacted if I'm down here trying to get a doctorate in engineering at Tuskegee. How do we make sure they have access? Historically, since the Higher Education Act of 1965, that access is determined by the federal assistance programs that are entitled for it. Most students, like you said, most students at HBCUs rely on Pell Grants

or some form of federal aid. What happens if access to those resources changes? What happens to the students? What happens to the universities? Here's what happens. In 2011, I think it is, the policy was to change access to the, what we call typically the parent plus loan, across the country, not just to any particular demographic. Three to four percent immediate reduction in enrollment

across HBCUs. Access went down. That's evidence. Access went down. At the same time across the country, enrollment went up. So I'm not saying it was targeted, I'm talking about the outcome. So that's what happens. That's what happens. If you reduce access to those programs, you're going to reduce access to students ability to go to college. And I'll take that just a little bit further. So let's say, how do we fill the gap?

One way is to get an endowed scholarship, right? The wealth of a university is based on the endowment to some degree. If you take the HBCU endowments and you add them all up, all of them, you will have less of an endowment than if you added up Brown University. Now, this is not a criticism of, I'm happy for the students at Brown University. I'm just trying to tell you the difference in the wealth that makes the impact far greater for a portion of society. In the first half of this show, we talked about Florida A&M where, you know, the new president has ties to Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.

A lot of HBCUs, including yours, are in states where Republicans hold the purse strings. I'm curious how you navigate that. So education is politically neutral. I believe that. Education should be politically neutral. And I think statesmen would see it that way. Here's my point. We produce chemical engineers. We produce electrical engineers.

We have an aviation science program. The nation is short on aviators. The plane doesn't know if you're Republican or Democrat, right? The plane just knows that a qualified person has filled that need, which has an economic impact to this state. You know, I take what you mean that I think a lot of this education stuff should be, you know, neutral, should be gender neutral, should be race neutral. But I often wonder if it is that way in practice. I mean, the disparities come from somewhere.

I wonder how you navigate that. I navigate that by making sure the framework of our discussions are the same. What is the economic impact of our state? Because I can have that discussion with anybody. The way you navigate this is in capability. Capability and I really, I can't overemphasize capability, outcome, and performance. That is what I want to drill into everybody at Tuskegee University is it's about the

outcome. You know, did the student get an internship? Did they get experience? Did they graduate? Dr. Brown, you strike me as, I think a word I would use to describe you is very pragmatic. Yes.

The way you approach things. And I think a lot of higher education institutions are trying to figure out the best approach to securing funds under this particular presidential administration. Where do you sit? Like, how do you think about these things and approach it? I would suggest the approach we ought to take with this administration, any other

administration, is that we are an economic engine that creates social and economic mobility for this country, and we take greater risk in doing so, and that should be recognized. That's the approach that we take. And I don't think the approach is unique to Tuskegee. You know, I could say that my friends in Huntsville, Alabama are doing the same thing at Alabama A&M. My friends at the Morehouse School of Medicine,

everybody should want the Morehouse School of Medicine to be successful. Everybody should want the Howard University School of Medicine to be successful. Everybody should want Claflin to be successful. Not just South Carolinians, but everybody. I think we live in a great country that can be greater just like any other country, but we're part of it and we're part of the greatness. And so HBCU is a part of the greatness and I think we need to continue to make sure everybody

understands that. That was Dr. Mark Brown, Tuskegee University's president. Today's show was produced by Avashai Artsy, edited by Amina Alsati. Andrea Christensdottir and Patrick Boyd engineered, and Victoria Chamberlain was on fact-checking duty. I'm Jonklin Hill. Shout out to the real H.U. It's Today Explained.

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