How Minority-Serving Institutions Are Responding to Trump’s Win — and Making Their Pitch

As a Trump presidency starts to take shape, leaders of minority-serving institutions and their advocates are building a case for their worth — and how their work connects to the president-elect’s vision. Their campuses, they say, are critical to improving the lives of lower-income and working-class Americans, they provide good value, and they are deserving of funds Mr. Trump has said he wants to spend on the country’s infrastructure.

The key, they say, is to get out in front of the Republican agenda — both the incoming president’s and that of the new Congress.

“If Trump really feels that African-American communities are as blighted and dangerous as he said on the campaign trail, you present yourself as an antidote to that,” says William B. Harvey, a distinguished scholar at the American Association for Access, Equity, and Diversity. But, he says, “if the strategy is to wait until people get settled and the policies begin to be developed, then I think we’re behind the eight ball.”

Mr. Harvey, a former dean of the School of Education at North Carolina A&T State University and professor of leadership studies, says historically black colleges should be combing their alumni databases to find registered Republicans who can be tapped to reach out to legislators and talk concretely about how their programs promote job growth and community development. “You have to have an overtly political agenda here.”

Mr. Trump has established fraught relations with the nation’s minority groups. He has described black neighborhoods as ghettos, promised to deport illegal immigrants, and once suggested that Muslims carry special identification cards. The days since Mr. Trump’s election have been marked by scores of racist incidents across the country, including several on college campuses.

Because of that, leaders of minority-serving institutions are reacting to Mr. Trump’s election on two fronts. They are tending to students on their campuses who fear discrimination or deportation. And they are gearing up to advocate for federal programs and policies that benefit them and their students.

A Stunning Upset

Donald J. Trump won election as the 45th president of the United States in an astonishing upset of Hillary Clinton, a Democrat who had long led her Republican rival in the polls. Here is extended coverage of the unexpected result of their contest, and news and commentary about the coming Trump administration.

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More than 600 American institutions serve primarily minorities, educating more than 20 percent of all undergraduates enrolled in higher education, according to the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania. That includes historically black colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal colleges, and campuses that serve a high number of Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders.

Nearly half of the students enrolled in those institutions are the first in their families to attend college; more than half receive Pell Grants for low-income students. The colleges also play a disproportionate role in serving minority students. About half of all Latino students attend a Hispanic-serving institution. And, while historically black colleges enroll only 10 percent of all black college students, they turn out 18 percent of all black college graduates.

A Looming Threat

For Hispanic-serving institutions, Mr. Trump’s presidency poses an imminent threat to many of their students. The president-elect has said he wants to eliminate President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which has enabled many undocumented students to stay in the United States and attend college.

“The morning after the election there were undocumented students in my office crying,” says Joseph I. Castro, president of California State University at Fresno, which has about 1,000 such students on its campus. “Until there’s clarity from the president-elect I think we’re going to have nervousness on our campus and uncertainty.”

Antonio R. Flores, president and chief executive of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities is optimistic that Mr. Trump will scale back his immigration proposals, pointing to recent comments he has made that he will focus on deporting criminals. But Mr. Flores is still waiting for a forceful condemnation of incidents like the Michigan middle-schoolers’ chant of “Build the wall!” as well as other hateful comments by some of Mr. Trump’s supporters. “To me that is disgraceful and it has to be stopped. Not tomorrow, but yesterday.”

At North Carolina Central University, a historically black college, Jarvis A. Hall, an associate professor of political science, says students there are also tense and confused. Mr. Trump had minimal support in the black community, and students at N.C. Central were active in the days leading up to the election in encouraging voter turnout. The day after, “there was almost this steady stream of students coming into my office and saying, What happened?” Mr. Hall notes. In his 20-plus years at the campus, he says, “I’ve never seen this kind of reaction.”

Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, a historically black college in Louisiana, said the election provides an opportunity for students to become engaged in the political process. Mr. Kimbrough faced intense criticism before the election for allowing David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader running for the U.S. Senate, to participate in a candidate debate on campus. He doesn’t regret the decision, and says that Mr. Trump’s election proves how important it is for students to engage with people holding different viewpoints. “A lawyer doesn’t go into court only knowing their own client’s side,” he says.

Silence on Minority-Serving Colleges

When it comes to policy, Mr. Trump presented few proposals on the campaign trail that were specific to higher education. He has suggested abolishing the U.S. Department of Education and eliminating the government’s direct-lending program. And he has also pitched his own version of an income-based loan repayment plan and promised to scale back regulation, relief that colleges might welcome.

Mr. Trump has not talked specifically about minority-serving institutions. (Hillary Clinton, by contrast, had pledged to spend $25 billion on historically black colleges.) Advocates of minority-serving institutions are most worried about what will happen to spending on Pell Grants and on federal funds devoted to their institutions, such as Title III and Title IV grants through the Department of Education. Any cuts to those federal programs would be especially devastating since many minority-serving institutions operate on the financial margins, and the grants provide critical support for their financial, infrastructure, and academic needs.

Marybeth Gasman, director of Penn’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions, is worried that Mr. Trump may target the various White House initiatives created to support the institutions, such as the one on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. That policy started during President Jimmy Carter’s administration and has been supported by Republican and Democratic presidents ever since. Given that Mr. Trump comes from outside the political establishment, she says, there is no guarantee that he, too, would back those programs.

In general, higher-education associations that represent minority institutions are positioning themselves as nonpartisan champions of educational equity and opportunity through which Mr. Trump can improve the economy. “We take the long view here and we work across the aisle always,” says Michael L. Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund, which represents private historically black colleges.

He’s optimistic that black colleges can make a convincing case for being engines of growth — at a low cost. Tuition at UNCF-member colleges is 26 percent less than at private peer institutions. Given the bipartisan interest in reducing college costs, he says, that could be a strong selling point for minority-serving institutions.

In other areas, education advocates see some benefit in Mr. Trump’s approach, particularly his commitment to reducing regulations. Carrie L. Billy, president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, points to the new U.S. Department of Labor rule on overtime for workers, which increased the salary ceiling under which employers must pay overtime to about $47,000 a year. In Washington, D.C., that might not seem like a lot, she says, but in North Dakota, “probably 95 percent of staff at tribal colleges make less than that.

“That regulation is going to have a tremendously adverse impact on tribal colleges, with little warning,” she said.

Mr. Trump’s pledge to put money into infrastructure improvements could also help minority-serving institutions, many of which have aging campuses and lack significant endowments. “As we talk about rebuilding the infrastructure of America broadly we should make the case for HBCUs in particular,” says Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which represents public historically black colleges.

Mr. Taylor has been laying the groundwork to develop bipartisan support, including naming Paris Dennard, a Republican strategist and supporter of Mr. Trump’s candidacy, as communications director in September. His appointment was controversial at the time, but now it looks prescient. And Sam Clovis, national co-chair and senior policy adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign, visited the organization three times during campaign season, says Mr. Taylor.

“Thirty-five of my 47 HBCUs sit in a Republican state or House district,” says Mr. Taylor. “We rely on federal support of everything from student loans to Pell to Title III. So much of our revenue comes from the federal government, we needed to be on both sides.”

Beth McMurtrie writes about campus culture, among other things. Follow her on Twitter @bethmcmurtrie, or email her at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.