Minorities in Southern Television: Visibility But Little Control

By Faye McDonald Smith

Vol. 1, No. 10, 1979, pp. 3,26-29

The days are over – pretty much – when Black people would do a double take when they turned on the television set and saw one of their own as a news reporter. They may have squinted their eyes and perked up their ears to look and listen a bit more intently. They were, after all, “checking out” the new personality, and they wanted to make sure that every hair was in place and every word in syntax. For what that person said and did, how he or she looked and acted, was somewhat representative of Black people in general. If the reporter flubbed it, there was a collective sigh of embarrassment; if he or she performed favorably, there was that communal sense of pride, right-on and a job well done.

Those days are over pretty much. Now, Black news reporters and anchor people are not an uncommon lot; and while there are still some television stations which have yet to embark upon this new frontier, in recent years there has been a significant increase in on-air Black talent.

Due largely to FCC and EEOC rulings, local television stations have hired more minority reporters, anchor people and program hosts, some of whom have brought strong personalities and higher ratings to the stations. But the old adage “strength in numbers” does not apply here. The increased minority participation amounts to higher visibility on the screen, but little managerial input in the board room – or elsewhere.

A 1977 report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights entitled Window Dressing on the Set: Women and Minorities in Television, made this finding:

“In comparison with their presence in the work force in general, a relatively high proportion of minority females (and to a lesser extent minority males) are employed in visible positions as on-the-air talent. Increased visibility on the screen without comparable representation in decision making positions suggests that, minorities and women serve merely as window dressing.”

In making its report, the Commission used data from 40 major market commercial and public television stations. As a follow-up to that initial report, the Commission released more current data in January of this year in Window Dressing on the Set: an Update. That report cited “no significant increase in the percentages of minorities and women employed as officials and managers in the 40 station sample.” The report further stated that the vast majority of the official and manager positions at the stations were held by White males, and in contrast, “the percentages of Black male and Black female officials and managers are significantly lower than the overall percentages of Black employment.” The percentage

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breakdown of all officials and managers at the stations was defined as such: White males, 64.9%; White females, 21.3%; Black males, 5.2%; Black females, 4.4%; Hispanic males, 1.7%; Hispanic females, 0.8%; other minorities, less than 1.7%.

Another finding from Window Dressing is perhaps even more indicative of the under representation of Blacks in managerial positions. The report cites that although many minorities and women had impressive job titles, their low salaries and locations on organizational charts implied an artificially inflated job status.

Hattie Jackson can attest to that. As program coordinator at WXIATV, the ABC affiliate in Atlanta, Jackson acts as the liaison between the network, the syndicators, and her station.

“In my opinion, sixty percent of Blacks in broadcasting are FCC commitments. My title is, I think. Supposedly, I’m a woman in management, but in essence, I’m considered a secretary. Regardless of how much (Black) people want to believe it, who may say to me ‘you run the programming department,’ I do not have any policy-making power.”

Jackson says she does the majority of the work in the programming department, and that at times her opinion is sought; however, her requests to sit in on department head meetings have been denied. She says she can’t categorically claim racism, because her White counterpart at another Atlanta station has the same problem. Racism or sexism – take your choice. The reluctance on the part of management to afford minorities and women decision making opportunities seems prevalent.

“I know where I want to get in TV,” says Jackson, who states confidently that she will be a program director. “I have a timetable and I know that you cannot change people’s hearts or heads. You must know where you want to go and if it means leaving – then go. I think you have to take a stand; you have to take a risk.”

Black women working in television in the South are making gains in the broadcasting industry, according to a recent study by the Radio and Television News Directors Association. The study indicated that television was far ahead of radio in employment of minority news staffers, and that most of the progress has been made in the South, where minority employment is highest.

The RTNDA study found that seventy-one percent of all television stations reported minority employment, compared to only twenty percent of radio stations. In the South, the statistics were higher, with eighty-three percent of the television stations having minorities on staff, compared to thirty-one percent of the radio outlets. Nearly twenty-five percent of the women working in television news were members of minority groups, and the study applauded “impressive gains” by Black women among the news staffs of the nation’s broadcast stations.

A close look at the job classifications, however, clearly indicates that while Black women are increasing in numbers on broadcast news staffs, they remain far behind in managerial positions. Of the 26,547 employees classified as officials and managers in the RTNDA study, 1,975 are minorities. Of that total, 643 are Black males; 388 Black females.

“It’s true that Black women are hired more often (than Black men), but in terms of moving into managerial positions, perhaps Black men are getting the better shake. However, the situation is so bleak overall, that the difference is miniscule. Less than one half of one percent of Blacks are in real decision making jobs.”

Such is the assessment of William Dilday, general manager of WLBT, the NBC affiliate in Jackson, Miss. The only Black general manager of a VHF station in the U.S., Dilday categorizes “decision making jobs” into three major levels: a) general manager, general sales manager, program director; b) news director, chief engineer, production manager; c) promotion manager, programming manager, news assignment director.

“These people usually control what you see and hear, who’s hired and fired, what vendors are used in the disbursement of funds,” says Dilday.

At WLBT, which has a viewing audience of one million, Dilday has appointed a Black production manager, public service director, children’s program director, and assistant news director. He says he looks for people who are trainable and that if someone’s a good administrator in education, that person could adapt to television administration, or if someone is a good salesperson, then he or she could adapt to television sales.

“With a forty percent Black staff,

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there’s no way all those people were qualified when they walked in the door at WLBT. But they were qualifiable, and that must be considered.”

Dilday attributes the paucity of Blacks in policy making positions to the lack of a true commitment by television management to open up such jobs. He also faults what he calls institutionalized racism.

“We’re fighting against the good ol’ boy network, where Joe Jones will call up Jim Smith to recommend somebody. There’re so few of us in the industry getting those calls and able to refer.”

Perhaps another reason for the dragging of feet by top management to include more Blacks in their ranks is due to a rather nasty and prevalent human trait – greed. People in power tend to hold on to it, are often obsessed by it, and don’t like to share it. In addition, the possibility of younger, aggressive professionals who could take over, and perhaps perform more efficiently, looks as a not-so-distant threat to many television executives. To their way of thinking, it is simply best to restrict the numbers of qualified applicants. The fewer, the better.

And when there are qualified minority applicants to move into managerial positions, the rules of the game often change. In one instance at a television station in a large Southeastern market, the program director left, and the Black woman who had worked as his assistant would have been next in line for the job. She didn’t get it. Instead, the entire programming department was revamped, a former engineer was brought in, and titles and responsibilities switched around.

“I think most of us agree that there ought to be more Black program managers,” says A.R. Van Cantfort, president of the National Association of Television Program Managers and program director of WSB-TV, the NBC Atlanta affiliate.

“We’ve discussed this a number of times at our meetings, and we certainly need to encourage more in that area. However, becoming a program manager just doesn’t happen overnight. I don’t want to overplay the job, but in addition to programming responsibilities, there are many other facets involved, like negotiating contracts, license renewal, handling temperamental talent.”

Ed Jones, newly appointed Black program manager at WDVM Channel 9 in Washington, D.C., agrees with VanCantfort.

“A person must know station operations. He can’t just walk in and say, ‘I want to be a program manager,’ and expect to be trained for it.”

Jones worked at the Washington, D.C., CBS affiliate as an assistant program manager at WSSB-TV in Hartford, Conn. He is one of only two Black program managers in commercial television. John Robinson at WTEV in New Bedford, Mass., is the other.

“We’re lacking Black program managers for the same reason so few minorities are at influential levels in other aspects of business,” says Jones. “There’s a lack of sensitivity to seek out such people and hire them at that level. The entire industry is bad.”

The case for more Black television managers is certainly evident, but at the same time, the positions of those Blacks who do have high visibility – the on-air reporters and anchor persons – should not be taken for granted. Often, a station believes it has met its “minority commitment” with the hiring of one Black personality.

Diana Fallis has worked as a reporter for nearly five years at KTRK, the ABC affiliate in Houston. For the past two years, she has also worked as the week-end anchor.

“I was one of the first Blacks to do so in the Houston market,” says Fallis, and that’s just .week-end. There are no Black anchors in Houston aside from week-end, and Houston has a Black population of well over 400,000.”

The situation in New Orleans does not appear much better, according to Lester Soublat, continuity director for WYES, the city’s public television station.

“New Orleans has a history of old money tied very much to the social scene in the city, and while that doesn’t necessarily dominate politics (as evidenced by a Black mayor), for a city with a 40 percent Black population, we are woefully underrepresented.”

Soublat is responsible for all on air promotion and public service an-

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nouncements, and he says if Black organizations and activities are not getting enough coverage on the commercial stations, he tries to compensate by running their spots more frequently. He says that Blacks need to pool their resources together because “in this city, Blacks don’t have significant management positions or visibility.”

As in many other cities, Black broadcasters in New Orleans have tried to organize to share information on employment opportunities in the industry, and to provide workshops, seminars, and mutual support. Some of these groups, such as NOBIC (New Orleans Blacks in Communications) were proven to have some impact. When it was rumored that one of the local stations wanted to fire a Black newscaster, NOBIC ran a discreet campaign to let the station management know that the newscaster had strong support in the community, and consequently, NOBIC has been credited with helping to secure the broadcaster’s job.

On-air positions, while not managerial, still need to be maintained and increased, believes Phil Evans, host of a public television program on WYES.

“In a city such as New Orleans with a large Black population, you’d expect to see a reflection of this on the air. Management would argue that while it’s true the city proper is predominantly Black, when you consider the signal range of the television station, Whites make up the majority of the viewing audience. And they believe this justifies low minority representation.”

In addition to his role as a host, Evans is also the producer and project director of “Schools: Insight” a $120,000 federally funded program which provides information to help Louisiana parents and public school systems adjust to desegregation.

Evans says he likes working in public television, and that even though it doesn’t compete with commercial salaries or shatter the ratings books, he thinks public television offers him more of an outlet to expand his talents.

Few may argue that public television provides more creative flexibility than commercial television, but in turn, does public television also offer greater upward mobility for minorities?

“No,” believes Ed Jones of Washington, D.C.’s WDVM. “Once you get beyond the layers of bureaucracy, and really look into the ranks of broadcasting, you’ll find that public television is probably worse. It doesn’t have as much visibility and therefore can get away with more, and just like Congress, the biggest offenders of affirmative action are often those agencies which are supposed to regulate it.”

Current information from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting indicates the paucity of Blacks and other minorities in management positions at public television stations in the Southeast. Based on full time employment data as of March of this year, the CPB survey shows that Whites make up an overwhelming 93.4 percent of all officials and managers. The breakdown by sex and race is as follows: White males, 69.4%; White females, 24%; Black males, 1.9%; Black females, 2.6%; Hispanic males, 1.3%; Hispanic females, 0.4%; other minorities, 0.4%.*

While William Dilday of WLBT is the lone Black general manager of a commercial VHF station in the continental U.S., public television has no Black general manager among its 250-plus stations. And the only minority general manager in public television is John Siqueiros, who heads KCOS in El Paso, a Texas city with a 60 percent Hispanic population.

While commercial television can boast of all of two Black program managers, public television’s record is scarcely better, with only a handful of Black program managers nationwide. In the Southeast, there is only one – Ray Dennell at WLRN, the smaller of the two public television stations in Miami.

Wayne Godwin, director of station relations for PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, readily admits of the need for Blacks in top station management jobs. But he says that in monitoring minority representation, one should also look at the national policy making boards which govern the local stations. In this instance, PBS can point to Stanley Evans, a Black member of the Board of Regents of the University System of Maine, who is currently head of the PBS Programming Committee.

Godwin also mentions the significant role of the local program producers such as those who work in the area of minority or community affairs.

“I was once a program director,” says Godwin, “and relied heavily on producers for local programmatic content. Although they are removed from station policy, their input in their programs reflects their sensitivity to their audience and we shouldn’t downplay their importance.”

According to Godwin, there’s a “keen sensitivity” in PBS to the need for more minority participation, but that sensitivity has yet to translate itself into more jobs for minorities among the hierarchy. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting recently funded a Minority Task Force Report which was highly critical of public broadcasting’s role in the hiring

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and promotion of minorities. The major conclusion was that minority programming was seriously deficient due to an inadequate number of minorities employed in the system, especially in decision making positions.

Efforts are being made, albeit slowly, to improve the minority employment picture in public broadcasting. The National Association of Educational Broadcasters has set up a personnel service to help minorities in career placements. Last year, the program, known as PACT (People and Careers in Telecommunications) placed 158 individuals, of which thirteen percent were minorities. Most of the jobs were in the midlevel range, from executive program producers to camera operators and other technicians, positions which PACT director Joe Schubert defines as “the working guts of the system.”

The NAEB is also proposing the development of an executive recruitment program which would identify qualified minorities for top managerial positions.

Commercial television is trying to make its thrust towards increased minority ownership, an area which could certainly stand an extra boost. The Storer Broadcasting Company has established a minority ownership fund and Allbritton Communications has had a program in operation since July ’78 which is designed to advise minority groups in purchasing broadcast stations.

While these programs get an E for effort, they don’t measure up as a panacea of any sort. Commercial broadcasters can well afford to transfer some of their obsessive zeal for ratings into initiating fair promotion practices which would move minorities onto the management level – allowing them to fully use their talent and skills.

On the governmental front, the Federal Communications Commission has initiated a policy which permits broadcasters whose licenses have been designated for revocation or renewal the right to sell their properties at a “distress sale” price to parties with significant minority ownership interest. Also the Small Business Administration recently changed its policy to, allow for loan guarantees by banks at up to ninety percent for the purchase of broadcast stations and cable systems. Seven of the first thirty-two loans went to minority applicants.

But these recent and, some may argue, half-hearted efforts should not be considered as compensatory pay back. More sustained and far reaching mechanisms are needed to reverse the years of stone-walling which have blocked qualified minorities from climbing up the managerial ladder.

*Summary information was based on 13 Southeastern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.

Television producer Faye McDonald Smith works at WETV, Channel Thirty, in Atlanta.

Twenty Years in the Making and Still Unresolved: Ayers Desegregation Suit Has Far-Reaching Impact on Black Colleges

By Faye McDonald Smith

Vol. 16, No. 4, 1994, pp. 8-11, 14-16

In the heart of Dixie, publicly supported black colleges and universities in Mississippi have been dissected, diluted, or dismantled-on paper-for the past twenty years. Now, many people are concerned and outraged that the breakup of these institutions may actually occur, if proposed changes to address desegregation issues are implemented.

Race, Mississippi politics, and the survivability of black colleges make a volatile mix that is only part of a complicated, long-standing lawsuit that decries a dual educational system for white and black students. Ayers v. Fordice has slogged through the courts for two decades, yet is still not resolved. The case reached the Supreme Court in 1992, was remanded back to the lower courts for specific remedy, and is expected to wind its way once again before the nation’s highest court.

For now, plaintiffs and defendants are awaiting a lower court ruling on their separate proposals regarding the restructuring of white and black publicly funded colleges and universities. Of particular concern to the plaintiffs is the preservation of traditionally black institutions and the accessibility of higher education to black students.

Ayers has taken on a regional significance far beyond Mississippi, as other Southern and border states are waiting to see how the court ruling may impact their own desegregation plans. James Lyons, president of Jackson State University, one of Mississippi’s three public institutions of black higher education, describes Ayers as “the case that will determine the future of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in this country.”

The case was filed in 1975 by Jake Ayers, Sr., on behalf of his son and several other students attending Alcorn State University. A civil rights activist and former sharecropper, Ayers charged that Mississippi discriminated in its educational policies by offering a dual educational system for whites and blacks, with black schools, such as Alcorn, receiving inferior resources and facilities. Ayers died in 1986 at the age of 66; Fordice is the current governor of Mississippi.

Of the state’s eight public colleges and universities, five operated exclusively for white students and three operated exclusively for blacks. Federal law mandated that this system of de jure segregation be dismantled. The private plaintiffs in Ayers, along with the U.S. Justice Department, contended that Mississippi had failed to correct this wrong. In 1987 the trial court ruled in favor of Mississippi; in 1990 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled that the state had fulfilled its affirmative duty to dismantle its segregated system by adopting good-faith, racially neutral policies that let students attend institutions of their choice. The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1992 that the lower courts had used the wrong legal standard and that the state must do more to eliminate the vestiges of a segregated system.

The Supreme Court ruling mentions four obvious though not exclusive “remnants of the prior system” that the lower court should consider: admission policies, duplication of programs, mission statements, and continued operation of all eight public universities.

A Wide Divergence of Interpretation

Ironically, both plaintiffs and defendants have declared the ’92 Supreme Court ruling as victories for their sides. The plaintiffs point out that the Court agreed with them that Mississippi’s university system continues to have segregative and harmful effects. On the other hand, the defendants, trustees of the state’s Institution of Higher Learning (the State College Board), emphasize that the Court rejected the plaintiffs’ demand for upgrading of the black institutions-Jackson State, Alcorn State, and Mississippi Valley-“solely so that they may be publicly financed, exclusively black enclaves by private choice.” One could argue, though, that to “enhance” black colleges would certainly be permissible within the Supreme Court guidelines, so long as meaningful numbers of white students are in attendance at those schools.

Clearly, there is plenty of room for interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling, which in many ways only raised new questions and assured further litigation by

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directing the lower courts to sort out these issues.

At the core of Ayers is the issue of sovereignty and the right-to-exist for publicly supported black colleges. Alvin Chambliss, attorney for the plaintiffs through the office of the Northern Mississippi Rural Legal Services, thinks that desegregating the state’s higher education system can be done while also preserving historically black schools. For instance, he says that just as the University of Mississippi-Ole Miss-is white-dominated and whitecontrolled even though it has black students, black schools should be able to maintain black control while also having a sizable number of white students and faculty. “But white folks want total liquidation of these black schools with nothing in their place,” states Chambliss. “They say that the only way you can have total desegregation is if black schools are dismantled, or stay around as a part of your heritage to be a beacon of hope for black people in a very limited way. I think that’s wrong. Black schools should be equal partners in the system of higher education. They do best what American education was designed to do: research and teach.”

Special Role of Black Colleges Cited

Indeed, the special mission of HBCUs is frequently raised as the main reason not only to maintain but also strengthen black schools. Delores Spikes, president of Louisiana’s predominantly black Southern University system, which is also facing court challenges regarding desegregation, says that the unique culture at HBCUs provides a special delivery mode of instruction. “Our mission is not only to provide opportunities to young people who wouldn’t otherwise have them, but also to be a competitor among other white and (private) black schools. The subject of closure in states where the college-going rates are lower than the national averageescapes me.” Of the 107 black colleges and universities in the nation, nearly half receive state funding.

Spikes says that HBCU status does not mean a school has to be mostly black, but that by history it is. She points out that HBCUs were not established because blacks were trying to separate from whites; but the other way around. Indeed, attorney Chambliss has reiterated that black schools in Mississippi, as elsewhere in the South, were established bylaw, not by choice, because the state refused to educate black students alongside whites. He says that for Mississippi and the State College Board to now threaten black schools with outright dissolution or merger with white schools would place an undue and unjust burden on black colleges to remedy the segregation that the state itself created. “In essence, the proposal submitted by the Board is that the Negro problem will be solved by killing off black folks,” says Chambliss, who is known for his use of inflammatory language and courtroom dramatics to underscore his arguments.

A few months after the June ’92 Supreme Court ruling, the State College Board submitted a proposed desegregation remedy, recommending that black Mississippi Valley merge with Delta State University and form a new institution called Delta Valley (with the Mississippi Valley campus converted into a prison); that black Alcorn State be merged with Mississippi State; and that predominantly black Jackson State emphasize graduate work.

Black Student Enrollment Dropping

Chambliss views that proposal with disdain, arguing that the downsizing of the system adversely affects black students. According to his data, there were seventeen thousand black students in the system at the time of the

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Supeme Court ruling; now there are thirteen thousand. “They’re trying to get the system under ten thousand blacks,” he claims, “and in the fall of ’95, the real numbers will show up. The impression given to the public is that if you get rid of or do whatever you do to black schools, there’s a corresponding increase of black students in white schools. That’s not true. They don’t go to white schools. They go to the schools of last resort or they don’t go at all.”

In its initial proposal, the State College Board also recommended other mergers, including that of predominantly white Mississippi University for Women with the University of Southern Mississippi. There was criticism that this merger was recommended primarily to blunt the expected outcry against the proposed closure and/or merger of black schools. The State College Board, however, insisted that its goal was a plan that complied with the directive of the Supreme Court, and that in no way were elements of that plan designed to deliberately harm black colleges or serve as a smokescreen to camouflage such an intent. “The Board has to think of students first and higher education first,” says W. Ray Cleere, Mississippi Commissioner of Higher Education, who as a named defendant says he cannot comment on specific elements of the case now before the judge. “The Supreme Court ruling has required that we look at the entire history and organization of higher education in our state,” says Cleere. ‘We’ve worked with staff and employed a lot of consultants to … put forth proposed remedies that would best serve the broadest section of the population.”

Sides Too Far Apart to Settle

Over the years, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers had urged the plaintiffs and the defendants to work out a settlement that would satisfy the main concerns of each side, while also addressing desegregation. However, negotiations broke down when it became apparent that opposing positions were so rigid as to make compromise impossible. With settlement seemingly out of reach, the case went back to Judge Biggers, who, during the fall of 1994, indicated he would visit each campus and inspect its facilities before making a decision. It is expected that it will take several months for judge Biggers to review the lengthy trial documents and consider the proposals set before him by the plaintiffs and the State College Board.

The Department of Justice’s Office of Civil Rights has issued updated criteria that the burden of desegregation should not be borne by black schools and black students. Some people have taken solace in the OCR guideline, believing that it offers a degree of protection against a willy-nilly disruption of black colleges. But others believe that, as with many aspects of Ayers, there can be various interpretations, and that what may seem burdensome to some will not trouble others.

The Board has made some changes from its initial proposal, focusing more on mergers than outright closures; however the plaintiffs have long maintained that the state’s three HBCUs should remain open and be strengthened. Their proposal calls for Jackson State to operate a law school and to be given new programs to gain parity with the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State, and Southern Mississippi. The plaintiffs’ proposal also calls for Jackson State to take over the University of Mississippi’s allied health programs, nursing school, and medical school. “Jackson State is an urban institution and should be a comprehensive university,” states Chambliss. “There’s not one black state-supported medical school in America, and that didn’t happen by chance.”

The plaintiffs’ proposal recommends that Alcorn gain technological and agricultural programs from Mississippi State, and become an equal recipient of land grants; and that Mississippi Valley be enhanced in the area of health sciences, have its nursing school restored, and offer extensive remedial education, since it serves a high proportion of the poorest students in the state.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has submitted its own proposed remedy. Its proposal supports the continuance of all eight state-supported schools, but contains several recommendations that the private defendants dispute, such as that Hinds Junior College be placed under the jurisdiction of Jackson State. In fact, Chambliss and the private defendants regard the Justice Department as a somewhat unhelpful ally that mostly has muddied the waters. The tension between the two groups of plaintiffs could be seen during a hearing last May when attorney Alvin Chambliss requested that his opening statement on behalf of the private plaintiffs be separated from the time allotted for Justice Department attorneys. However, Judge Biggers ruled that attorneys for both sets of plaintiffs had to share the same forty-five minutes. Chambliss is clearly irritated that judge Biggers has bought the defendant’s position that the private and public plaintiffs are the same. Chambliss states that while he represents the interests of 350,000 black Mississippians, the Justice Department represents whomever is in the White House.

The Justice Department first intervened in the case during the Bush Administration, after the DOJ Office of Civil Rights had reviewed Mississippi’s higher education system under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and found it unsatisfactory. For Chambliss and the private plaintiffs, the involvement of the Justice Department has been a mixed blessing. While it has added further cre-

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dence to the charge that Mississippi has a biased higher education system, it has created unwarranted conflicts on matters of remedy and process.

Disunity in the Plaintiff Ranks

Even the private plaintiffs are not always unified, Chambliss has been described as bombastic, confrontational and uncompromising, which has complicated efforts toward a negotiated settlement. Others regard Chambliss’s outspoken style as an ideal fit for the kind of passionate, unwavering advocacy that is needed for black colleges. What has been most frustrating for Jackson State President Lyons is that numerous opportunities to discuss issues of importance to black colleges, such as duplication, breadth of academic programs, and how to make HBCUs more attractive, have been consumed by the ever-present emotional issue of closures and mergers. “I don’t think it serves the state well to have this cloud of Ayers over us,” he says.

Lyons and the presidents of Alcorn and Mississippi State are in especially tenuous positions because their institutions are governed by the State College Board. “Our board represents the defendants in this case,” states Lyons, “but our alumni, elected public officials and friends of the university are on the other side. It puts us in a difficult situation.”

Administrators in Holding Patterns

In addition to walking the fine line between the Board and their university constituencies, Lyons and other black college presidents also have to cope with the day-to-day uncertainties of the prolonged Ayers litigation. Will the schools receive a windfall from the state to develop new programs and new facilities? Or, if the plaintiffs win in the next Court ruling, will that decision be appealed and reversed? In some instances, stagnation and paralysis have taken hold. “There have been debates among our board members as to whether to approve new programs,” says Lyons. “In fact, I can document that program approval has been held up in some states as far as New York, where officials are waiting to see what’s going to happen in this case. That’s the impact of Ayers.”

Commissioner Cleere agrees that the Ayers litigation has been disruptive to higher education in Mississippi and throughout the South. He says he has a continuing dialogue with colleagues in other areas who have wondered whether to proceed with certain program changes that may be affected by the fallout. The enormous amount of time and energy spent on the issues surrounding Ayers has certainly taken its toll. “I know of no one who is not exhausted by the process,” says Cleere.

Why has the case dragged on for so long? One reason is that it originally involved a claim against the universities and the junior colleges, but the courts later bifurcated it, dividing it into two parts. Also, the many efforts to reach an out-of-court settlement, the information-gathering by the Department of Justice, and the appeals process itself all consumed substantial time.

But attorney Bill Goodman, who has served as lead counsel for the defendants since 1981, thinks there is a more underlying cause for the endless litigation. Over the years, new priorities and demands have come to the forefront, creating a lawsuit that involves issues that are quite different from twenty years ago. “The case now is about how much high school curriculum ought to be taught in colleges,” says Goodman. “The other side is pushing institutional interests, when they ought to be pursuing individual [student] interests.” Goodman thinks that while plaintiffs were once focusing on making it easier for black students to get into white colleges, now that it’s happened, they’re saying ‘it’s a trick—you’re only doing that so historically black colleges will lose their enrollment.'” Goodman says he applauds the role of black colleges in American society and understands why people feel so strongly about them. But he says the plaintiffs can’t have it both ways—on the one hand arguing in court that white schools should be more open, while advocating more funding for black colleges. “These arguments for funding need to be made in the legislative arena rather than in the judicial,” he states.

Board member Sidney Rushing, who was chairman at the time of the initial proposal by the Board, says that Ayers has taught him how hard the issue of race is. “Everyone is suspicious of what we’re trying to do, and the black community feels we represent another effort to eliminate an endangered species.” Rushing, who is black, has been labeled an Uncle Tom, a sell-out, and other unflattering names because of his voting with the Board’s position. “I’m not there to be popular,” he states. “Basically, it’s a matter of finance and administration. I understand the need for quality education because I’m out where the rubber hits the road. I know what students must have in order to be competitive.”

According to Rushing, even state-supported schools need additional outside funding, and he cites predominantly white Mississippi State for successfully raising $50 million recently. He acknowledges that while Mississippi has not been equitable in its distribution of resources, the other side of the coin is that there has been little alumni support of HBCUs. Rushing maintains that for black schools to remain viable, they must generate significant funding beyond what might be forthcoming from the

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state. “We’ve got to learn how to support our institutions.”

Media Blamed for Fanning Flames

Besides the sensitive issue of race itself, which alone creates charged emotions and flares of distrust, Rushing blames the media for fanning the flames of hysteria. He recalls how at one point the named defendants, which included Board members and all the presidents of historically white universities, went into closed executive session for deliberations, which was permissible by state law. The press, he claims, hammered them for that, leaked incorrect information and helped stir up myths and untruths. “We were under a gag order and couldn’t talk,” says Rushing. “When people can’t get information, they use their imaginations. We were trying to work out a compromise, but the only issue the press covered was that the black college presidents weren’t invited; they didn’t mention that the lawyers had recommended that only the named defendants be present. The headlines in the media read something like ‘black college presidents thrown out of deliberations.’ You can imagine the uproar.”

There were other rumors, such as that Jackson State University would be closed, although Rushing insists that closure of Jackson State was never an issue. Still, to some people the words “merger” and “downsizing,” tossed about by the Board, were euphemisms that attempted to mitigate what they perceived as the Board’s proposed slashing of black colleges.

There is a built-in irony in Ayers, in that it was filed by a black man in an effort to secure more equitable resources for his son’s college; yet it may actually be the catalyst for the elimination of public black colleges as they exist today. While enhanced programs and facilities would be welcomed and are long overdue, there are some who voice concern that the colleges may lose their special ability to nurture and support black students in ways that more-integrated schools have been unwilling or unable to do.

Case Goes Beyond Enrollment

Academic and legal scholars seem to agree that even though the final word on Ayers has not yet been written, its court rulings so far indicate a clear shift in the shape and form of historically black public colleges and universities. In order to continue to receive state funding and to be eligible for enhancement resources, black colleges and universities must more fully desegregate throughout their faculty and student population. There is a movement towards bringing in special programs and curricula that will attract a more diverse student body. For instance, at Jackson State, a white recruiter sends out the message that white students are welcomed, and already about 40 percent of Jackson State’s graduate students are white.

Attorney Chambliss also acknowledges that Ayers is not about preserving exclusively black public colleges, but expanding access to higher education, and assuring that HBCUs receive appropriate funding for academic programs and campus facilities that will enable them to compete with white institutions. “We’re against all-white and all-black schools,” states Chambliss. “I don’t believe in racial separation. I think Jackson State can exist being black controlled with a sizable number of white faculty and students, and someday maybe even have a white president—so what?” But, Chambliss notes, the legacy of racism makes it unlikely that predominantly white schools would play by the same rules. “Can you imagine Ole Miss with a black president?” he asks. “People would die.”

Still, the “look” of a more fully desegregated system means that there will be less racial identifiability among white as well as black colleges. For some educators, what is most important is not just that white schools have more black students and vice versa, but that there is equal access of opportunities for students at all levels.

The academic community is eagerly awaiting a report on higher education desegregation forthcoming from the Southern Education Foundation. According to Elridge McMillan, president of SEF and co-chair of the Foundation’s Panel on Educational Opportunity and Post-Secondary Desegregation, the report uses Ayers as the starting point, but transcends the specific facts of the case and looks beyond the legal rationale of institutions. “Our approach is student-centered,” says McMillan. “The needs of students must be paramount in fashioning strategies to ensure equal opportunity in higher education.” Lisle Carter, vice-chair of SEF’s higher education panel, says that the report explores the opportunities and obstacles of a student entering college, and once in, of staying there. “We look at the linkage between grades K-12 and college, and examine the responsibility of the college/university system in respect to that.”

The report will also recommend that whatever reforms and desegregation remedies are considered, it is critical to have the highest levels of governance and leadership included in the process, along with the academic community and strong citizen participation. “For change to work, it has to be collaborative,” states McMillan.

Meantime, Ayers continues its painfully slow journey through the courts. The most recent hearing in December dealt with the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction on new admission standards. The Board wanted to implement a policy that would change the ACT (Ameri-

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can College Test) minimum score of 18 at white schools and 15 at black schools—to a system-wide score of 16, or a grade point average of 3.2. Chambliss has argued that the data indicates that those students who have achieved a 3.2 GPA are identical to those making a 16 or above on the ACT, and that more black students would be ineligible for admission. The Board’s position was that it is trying to comply with the Court ruling to make the admissions process more uniform.

Return to Supreme Court Expected

Defense attorney Bill Goodman says that people forget that the reason the state has a dual standard was because black college presidents requested it back in the seventies, to compensate for the inferior elementary and secondary educations that had been afforded black students, and to increase the rate of black student admissions. “No one’s happy with what’s on the table from the State College Board,” says Goodman. “Mississippi State now has a lower standard, and Mississippi Valley is concerned that with a higher standard, its enrollment will drop.” Judge Biggers subsequently enjoined the State College Board from implementing the new standard until his rulings on the desegregation proposals, expected during the first quarter of 1995.

When will it all end? Most likely, not until Ayers comes again before the Supreme Court. Chambliss states how Brown v. Board of Education was first presented before the Supreme Court on a liability issue, and then later came up on remedy. He predicts the same pattern for Ayers. Now, as Judge Biggers considers the desegregation proposals before him, it is expected that whoever loses will appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court, and, if needed, to the Supreme Court.

So it would be unwise to hold one’s breath. One educator who has carefully followed the case stated facetiously that if the litigation continues at this rate, Ayers might be marking its twenty-fifth— anniversary—with no resolution in sight. Hopefully not. Few people would regard that as a passage of time worth celebrating.

Faye McDonald Smith is a writer living in Atlanta. She frequently covers business and educational issues.

Sidebar: State-Funded Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Compiled by Jeffrey Leak

Vol. 16, No. 4, 1994, p. 10

Alabama

1. Alabama A M University, Normal

2. Alabama State University, Montgomery

3. S.D. Bishop State Community College, Mobile

4. J.F. Drake Technical College, Huntsville

5. Lawson State Community College, Birmingham

6. Trenholm State Technical College, Montgomery

Arkansas

7. University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Pine Bluff

Florida

8. Florida A M University, Tallahassee

Georgia

9. Albany State, Albany

10. Fort Valley State College, Fort Valley

11. Savannah State College, Savannah

12. Atlanta Metropolitan College, Atlanta

Louisiana

13. Grambling State University, Grambling

14. Southern University A M College, Baton Rouge

15. Southern University New Orleans, New Orleans

16. Southern University Shreveport, Shreveport

Mississippi

17. Alcorn State University, Lorman

18. Jackson State University, Jackson

19. Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena

20. Hinds Junior College, Utica

North Carolina

21. Elizabeth City State University, Elizabeth City

22. Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville

23. North Carolina A T State University, Greensboro

24. North Carolina Central University, Durham

25. Winston-Salem State University, Winston-Salem

South Carolina

26. Denmark Technical College, Denmark

27. South Carolina State University, Orangeburg

Tennessee

28. Tennessee State University, Nashville

Texas

29. Prairie View A M University, Prairie View

30. Texas Southern University, Houston

Virginia

31. Norfolk State University, Norfolk

32. Virginia State University, Petersburg

West Virginia

33. West Virginia State College, Institute

34. Bluefield State College, Bluefield

Sidebar: Similar Issues in Alabama

By Staff

Vol. 16, No. 4, 1994, p. 9

Lawyers for Alabama’s HBCUs spent much of February 1995 in a Birmingham federal courtroom arguing their own twenty-year-old higher education desegregation case. When it became clear in the 1960s that desegregation could no longer be avoided, both Auburn University and the University of Alabama built extension campuses in the front yards—as it were—of Montgomery’s Alabama State University and Huntsville’s Alabama AM University. Over the ensuing decades, millions of dollars that could have gone for improvements at the predominantly black schools were spent instead to develop competing programs at Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) and the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

Interestingly, civil rights lawyer Fred Gray lost a 1968 suit to block construction of AUM. In 1983, Gray was among the lawyers who filed Knight v. Alabama, arguing that the state was still operating a dual system of higher education based on race. Over the next decade several Alabama judges were recused from this case, and finally it was taken over by Judge Harold Murphy of Rome, Georgia. In a 1991 ruling, Murphy agreed with plaintiffs that there were still vestiges of discrimination in Alabama’s higher education system. For the past three years, Murphy has tried unsuccessfully to get the parties to settle the case. Finally, in January 1995, he began a new hearing, and, as this issue of Southern Changes went to press, was making statements from the bench that indicated he was close to imposing a solution.

Ayers v. Fordice: An Update

By Faye McDonald Smith

Vol. 17, No. 1, 1995 p. 19

In our last issue, (Winter ’94), we ran a detailed article about the twenty-year-old Ayers desegregation case of higher education in Mississippi. In March 1994, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers, Jr. issued the much-anticipated ruling. Here’s an update:

Neither the plaintiffs (representing the interests of Mississippi black students and black colleges) nor the defendants (representing the Board of Trustees of the Institutions of Higher Learning), can claim an outright victory from Judge Neal Biggers’s March ’95 ruling in the Ayers case. Both sides expressed a mixed reaction to the 188-page decision — supporting some elements, while objecting to others.

The court ordered that the 1995 admissions standards proposed by the Board for first-time freshmen, should be implemented at all eight public colleges and universities. This ruling is perhaps one of the most disappointing to the plaintiffs, since attorneys for the black colleges have argued that due to a history of inferior elementary and secondary schools in predominantly black and poor communities, fewer black students would be eligible to enter any Mississippi college under the higher ACT standardized test score that the Board can now impose throughout the system.

The court concurred with the Board’s proposal that, beginning in 1996, predominantly black Jackson State University will offer allied health programs, plus advanced degrees in social work, urban planning, and business. The court ordered the Board to conduct a feasibility study on establishing an engineering school, a public law school, and a five-year pharmacy program at JSU.

The court ordered the State to allocate special funds totaling $20 million for educational and facility enhancement at Jackson State, as well as recruitment and scholar-ships for white applicants; plus $9 million to historically black Alcorn State University for the Small Farm Development Center and an endowment trust for educational enhancement and racial diversity. The court also ordered the State to provide funding for an MBA program and capital improvement at Alcorn.

To the relief of the plaintiffs, the judge rejected the Board’s proposal to consolidate predominantly white Delta State University and overwhelmingly black Mississippi Valley State University, citing that the relative success of Delta State in educating both white and black students, and the significant nurturing that Mississippi Valley provides to under-prepared blacks would likely be substantially mitigated under a merger. However, the judge left the door ajar for a merger, stating that if in good faith the Board decides that consolidation is the only education-ally feasible solution, the court would reconsider.

Judge Biggers also ruled against the Board’s pro-posed merger of Mississippi University for Women with Mississippi State University, both historically white institutions. The ruling stated that the Board’s theory of “sharing the pain” — i.e., if black colleges are merged, then predominantly white colleges should too — “… is an inadequate justification for so drastic a measure with practically nothing to be gained relative to the ends of desegregation.” It also pointed out that presently MUW plays a major role in the desegregation process, since it has the highest percentage of black students among the State’s majority white institutions.

In essence, the Court found that the Board’s pro-posed mergers or consolidations among the State’s eight colleges and universities would not resolve the core problem of eliminating the remaining vestiges of de jure segregation, and that the Board needed to address other matters — unified admissions, coordination of community colleges, and more racially diverse faculties and administrations — in order to fully desegregate its system and provide equal access to Mississippi higher education, regardless of race.

To some observers, the judge’s ruling leaves many questions unanswered, and sets the stage for another round of contentious litigation. Initially threatening to appeal, the Board has since indicated that it will not embark on yet more costly litigation and will comply with the court-ordered remedies. Attorneys for the plaintiffs are in the process of deciding if an appeal is feasible. The judge ordered the establishment of a three-person Monitoring Committee to review court-ordered remedies, and the plaintiffs intend to ask the Committee to expand the decree in areas where they think it doesn’t go far enough.

It is not yet clear what impact the ruling will have on several other states which are also embroiled in desegregation lawsuits.

Atlanta writer Faye McDonald Smith frequently covers education and business issues.