The Last Straw

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a full-blown supporter of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, hell I am an alumnus of two at both the undergraduate and graduate level, but Bobby Jindal is really making my nerves bad. For those of you unfamiliar with the situation, allow me to offer a brief synopsis. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, in an attempt to save some money within the State’s budget, proposed a merger of the University of New Orleans and Southern University at New Orleans and formed a board to write a report on the feasibility of this merger. Jindal cited the close proximity of the two campuses and their low graduation rates as the reason behind this, but I, like most products of the Southern University system, see the disaster that such a merger would create.

First of all, we, the products of THE Southern Univeristy SYSTEM (the only HBCU with its own system with 3 campuses and a law school), would attempt to cause hell to freeze over before we let someone take one of our campuses away from us. I guess Mr. Jindal is not well versed in the writings of Booker T. Washington, who said that the fundamental purpose of Tuskegee University is to give those who would be unable to earn a degree from most other schools a CHANCE to get said degree from their own efforts. Washington later went on to say that if only one of these cast-away students out of an entire freshman class earned a degree then the University would be a success. Hence the lower admission standard for most HBCUs as compared to Predominately White Institutions. But I guess that’s the trend in society these days, people don’t read or find out why things are the way the way they are before they make their commentary. And the funny thing is that with Jindal being an Indian-American, I would expect him to be more sympathetic to minorities, but I guess you forget who you are when you’re a Republican.

I know that the argument that I’m making does not take into accord how the UNO family may feel, but I’m not concerned with them at this point. The report that was compiled by a Colorado group states that the only two viable options are to assemble the two schools into a “University of Greater New Orleans” under the University of Louisiana System or to maintain two separate schools one as a “Metropolitan University” and the other as an “Urban Research University” but would call for new leadership at both schools and would do away with SUNO’s historically black mission, similar to that of Tuskegee. The second option would call for these two schools as well as Delgado Community College to fall under the umbrella of an entirely new system.

Am I the only one who’s lost here??? So now the governor can suggest outlandish proposals and these are immediately brought into action? The governor can remove schools from systems and place them into other systems or just move them into a brand new system all together? This is totally wrong and I think Jindal just bought himself a 12 round legal battle, hope he’s ready for all that. Maybe somebody can explain this madness to me so I don’t look at it as racist or make a bunch of derogatory remarks about Governor Jindal, but until someone can, he’s on my “Fuck You” list, right along with Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, George Bush, Bill White, Tom Joyner and a few others. This proposal could open up the flood gates for other states and probably get some other PWI’s to get law schools on the campuses of HBCUs in their respective systems. I have said for the longest that black folks and their desire to assimilate into Caucasian culture is what killed the HBCU, but if Jindal succeeds in this outlandish proposal and eliminates SUNO from the Southern University System, mark my words, the days of the HBCU are numbered, pray for us!