Donald Trump is steadfast on trying to persuade the Black community that he has done so much. Now he’s taking credit for “saving” our Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
During the final presidential debate he asserted that he “saved” the predominantly minority institutions after he signed a bill that would provide permanent federal funding.
Trump then claimed that HBCU’s were repeatedly sending representatives to the White House to speak with him, adding that those same reps told him they had “no funding,” Politifact reported.
“President (Barack) Obama would never give them long-term funding, and I did,” Trump said. “Ten-year, long-term funding, and I gave them more money than they asked for because I said, ‘I think you need more.’ … But I saved historically Black colleges and universities.”
The bill he referred to is the FUTURE Act that he endorsed in 2019, the bill allocates an annual $255 million for colleges who serve minorities and has set aside $85 million for HBCUs.
But thanks to Trump, his claims have now come under scrutiny and it’s vague how much leg work he contributed to the act. In fact, it’s safe to say his statement that HBCU didn’t have funding is false, they did under the same Title III program when forever President Barack Obama was in office.
“The only words the president contributed were his signature, ‘Donald J. Trump,’” Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., an original sponsor of the bill said in August.
“President Trump did no more for HBCUs than any other U.S. president, but I don’t know of anything that he has done that has had a disproportionately negative impact on HBCUs,” said Ivory Toldson, who is a professor at Howard University and served as an HBCU liaison for the Obama administration. Toldson noted that presidents have limited powers over the federal budget.
Prior to the FUTURE Act HBCUs had to ask congress to renew the mandatory funding each year, the signed bill no longer requires that but the credit is something Trump should proclaim, it’s result are the collective efforts of organizations that support HBCUs.
