In Maryland, the state challenges the view that new programs at historically black colleges will attract white students.

Inside Higher Ed reports.

Maryland and HBCU advocates at odds over how to remedy segregation in higher ed

In Maryland, a lawsuit over the desegregation of historically black colleges and universities has people in the state and those who watch higher education wondering: Did HBCU advocates ask for too much? Did the state give too little? Are both sides gearing up for a court battle that might just reach the U.S. Supreme Court and change states’ legal obligations to their public black colleges?

Two years ago a federal judge ruled that the Maryland Higher Education Commission perpetuated segregation by allowing predominantly white universities (PWIs) to duplicate programs offered by HBCUs, assuring that white students would overlook black colleges and setting off enrollment struggles at some of the state’s four public black institutions.

Since then the two sides have bitterly disagreed on how to remedy the segregation — with the state of Maryland most recently arguing against many of the theses that have governed desegregation strategies in the past and disagreeing with nearly all the proposals offered by HBCU advocates, calling the proposals “manifestly risky, costly and intrusive in the extreme.”