Talk:Historically black colleges and universities/Archive 1

College Hill
Do any of Y'all watch College Hill? Please assist in adding content to this new stub article. MPS 17:03, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization
Is there a Wikipedia policy about the use of capitals on 'black'? I can think of arguments for why "black" could be preferred and "Black" offensive, and for the opposite view.

I've removed a few instances of "Black" on the page because they looked odd when contrasted with "white", and I decided it would look worse to capitalize everything. However, I left "Black" in the intro because it should be identical to the page title, which has "Black" capitalized. --Saforrest 19:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Date? -- in the first paragraph, is the correct date 1964 or 1864? There seems to be some confusion.

--Gwynhefar 20:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, defines an HBCU as: "...any historically black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principal mission was, and is, the education of black Americans, and that is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association determined by the Secretary [of Education] to be a reliable authority as to the quality of training offered or is, according to such an agency or association, making reasonable progress toward accreditation."

Fisk
Why is Fisk listed under the "Women's Colleges" heading? Hasn't it been co-ed all along? Rlquall 18:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Article heading/intro
I think that the lead paragraph is somewhat misleading. It states that Blacks were denied opportunites at almost all predominantly-white U.S. institutions of higher learning, outside of the few listed, prior to 1964. While this was true at one time, particularly prior to and in the early 20th century, it was not true outside of the South in most instances well prior to 1964. 1964 marked a turning point in racial integration in the South in higher education in many instances, but it had already been achieved (to an extent) in most of the rest of the country somewhat prior to this. Comments? Rlquall 17:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd have to agree with you. While informal segregation certainly existed throughout the country, HCBUs developed almost entirely in the Deep South, where segregation was a matter of law. While smaller (but still large) numbers of African-Americans lived in the relatively more industrialized North and Midwest, virtually no HCBUs developed. I'd argue that's because there wasn't a need, at least not by the time we arrived at the Civil Rights Era. Goeverywhere 01:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Which is the oldest HBCU?
That might be interesting to note: which school (or schools) was the oldest and how it came to be. --Bobak 18:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

''The oldest recognized HBCU institution is Cheyney University, founded in 1837. Among its notable graduates and faculty are Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett, the second president of Cheyney and the first African-American diplomat, and Richard T. Greener, the first African-American Harvard graduate. Cheyney University was founded by Quaker philanthropist Richard Humphreys, a native of the British Virgin Islands who bequeathed $10,000 to create an institition of higher learning for Blacks.''

Hope this helps! NeoSoulBrotha (HBCUConnect.com)

Alumni Pride
I would like to propose eliminating the Notable Schools portion of this article. It is rapidly becoming a section lacking cited sources with several contradicting statements listed for multiple institutions (i.e. oldest school, largest enrollment, most graduates in a field, etc.). It seems that any writers are trying to tout the merits of their institution instead of maintaining a neutral academic point of view. The descriptions listed would be more appropriate on each institution's page. Absolon S. Kent 22:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Trivia section was removed on March 19, 2007. These items should be listed on each individual school's page.

Eliminate List of Institutions
I would like to propose eliminating the List of HBCUs since this list already exists in another area (please see List of historically black colleges of the United States. This is a list of historically black colleges in the United States from the Presidential Commission on Historically Black Colleges.Absolon S. Kent 20:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

University of the Virgin Islands
UVI was not established before 1964 but in 1964 so it seems to violate one of the criteria, but is nonetheless recognized as a HBCU. Rlquall 17:51, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * UVI's page states that it was established in 1962 and given HBC status in 1986. Elefuntboy 22:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Medgar Evers College
Should Medgar Evers College be listed as a HBCU? According to the official definition, a HBCU has to have been established prior to 1964. While Medgar Evers fits all of the other qualifications, it was not established until 1970. --Sometimesdee 17:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * No, because HBCU is something of a "term of art". There are several predominantly black institutions of higher learning established after 1964 (another besides Medgar Evers is Shelby State in Tennessee), but 1964 was established as the "cut-off" for an institution to be considered to be historically black, apparently because there was so much institutional racism prior to that time, and somewhat less of that particular form of racism after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Rlquall 18:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Should we start an article for Predominately black colleges and universities that do not fit the criteria of the historically black college? Schools like Medger Evers College, Chicago State University, or Bay Ridge Christian College could be entries. Absolon S. Kent 20:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I say no; there are so few that would fall under that category. A mention in the school's article and here is sufficient. 4.235.93.225 05:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Disproportionate pop culture section
It's a bit disheartening that this article only has one or two lines detailing the contributions of HBCUs to African-American culture and society, and then goes on and on ad nauseum talking about their role in the crosby show. Borisblue 03:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The Pop Culture section is once again becoming an Alumni Pride area. Recommend eliminating all mentions of specific schools. Absolon S. Kent 13:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Inaccurate statement

 * Writer notes that Southern University is the largest HBCU, but according to the National Center for Education Statistics FAMU has the largest enrollment of total students (13,013) and Black students (12,104). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Absolon (talk • contribs) 22:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC).
 * I know this is old but, Southern is the largest in physical size. It has three campuses one in Baton Rouge, one in New Orleans, and there's another somewhere else. FAMU is the largest in enrollment. The article should reflect both statistics. CJ 15:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Confusion on Brown v. Board
In the first part a HBCU is defined as an institution founded before 1964. However, later it states institutions founded after Brown v. Board are not eligible. Brown v. Board was decided in 1954, so there is a 10 year gap where it seems to be contradictory. For example, University of the Virgin Islands was founded in 1962, after Brown v. Board, but before the 1964 date and is recognized as a HBCU. Can someone clear up the discrepancy (1954 against 1964) for both me and on the page. Thanks. RonSigPi (talk) 01:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The 1964 date is the official measure, not Brown vs. Board of Education. The court ruling was a compromise statement added to address a past discussion on the issue of predominately black instuituions that were not included on the listing. I added the following (which is actually more accurate):


 * The Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, defines an HBCU as: "...any historically black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principal mission was, and is, the education of black Americans, and that is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association determined by the Secretary [of Education] to be a reliable authority as to the quality of training offered or is, according to such an agency or association, making reasonable progress toward accreditation." 


 * Other educational institutions currently have large numbers of African Americans in their student body, but as they were founded (or opened their doors to African Americans) after the implementation of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court (the court decision which outlawed racial segregation of public education facilities) and The Higher Education Act of 1965. Thus by definition they are not historically black colleges, but have been termed "predominantly black."


 * Hopefully this provides a little more clarity. Absolon S. Kent (talk) 01:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Moved for cleanup
I'm making a temp move of the below section for cleanup before reentry into the main article. I have a few problems with it in it's current form: 1). Why are we highlighting just women's colleges? Doesn't seem to add anything to the topic to discuss only one form of HBCU over others. 2). Scotia Seminary is not listed as an HBCU, thus Barber-Scotia info would need to be removed. 3). Listing of Bennett, Mount Hermon, and Spelman adds nothing to the subject. The individual dates are already included in individual articles. I would recommend removal of the whole section or major rewrites. Absolon S. Kent (talk) 12:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Women's colleges

 * 1867: Scotia Seminary: It became Scotia Women's College in 1916, Barber-Scotia College in 1932, granted its first bachelor's degree in 1945, received a four - year rating in 1946, and became coeducational in 1954.
 * 1873: Bennett College: Though it was founded as a coeducational school, it became a women's college in 1926
 * 1875: Mount Hermon Female Seminary: It closed in 1924.
 * 1881: Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary (Spelman College): It was renamed Spelman Seminary in 1884, began awarding college degrees in 1901, and was renamed Spelman College in 1924.

Recommended rewrites
Several HBCU's were established as female-only colleges. Included are Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary (renamed to Spelman Seminary in 1884 and Spelman College in 1924) and Mount Hermon Female Seminary (opened in 1875 and closed in 1924). Bennett College was founded as a coeducational school in 1873 and became a women's college in 1926.

History
Why is there so little history in this article? I take it from discussion that it got unwieldy, and was reduced, but couldn't we say something more? Jd2718 (talk) 21:29, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Cited entries on the history section are more than welcome. Most of the information previously removed was "alumni pride" about specific colleges and universities. A previous effort was made to research the origin of the HBCU executive order. -- Absolon S. Kent (talk) 21:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Merger from Black Ivy League
Black Ivy League has virtually no content actually about the Black Ivy League other than a list of schools claimed to belong to it (annotated with WP:BOOSTER-like info). Rather it's almost entirely lots of general HBCU material that (because HBCU seems like a superset of Black Ivy League) applies but is not specific to it. If there's no substantial content specific to Black Ivy League, might be better to include it in the HBCU article itself (bonus: avoid duplicating or content-forking all the HBCU material).

There's a worse problem though, and that's the verifiability of the list and notability of the term. The list of schools isn't cited. There are only two content cites (reviews and articles, not schools' own main homepages) and only one of them uses the Ivy term (and only in passing, not well-defined). And it only enumerates some of the schools on the WP article list. I don't think that article could even survive an AfD discussion. DMacks (talk) 07:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose - If the article cannot withstand AfD proposal it should be deleted. The two subjects are completely unrelated. -- Absolon S. Kent (chat),


 * With all do respect, there should be a more thorough explanation of Historically black colleges and universities as a whole on this pa ge.This explanation should include things like history and legacy and should point out things which make HBCUs unique and different than majority institutions. The Black Ivy League, gathered from the article, is a unique entity within the umbrella of HBCUs and should be described as such. The history, legacy, characteristics, and contributions of the so-called Black Ivy League stands out beyond the collective HBCUs. Being that this is an encyclopedia, I feel it necessary to inform all persons about the uniquess of an HBCU (if you're going to talk about it at all). The HBCU page should do more to accurately inform Wikipedia users about the general black college experience. I think the HBCU page (which could be classified as a stub in its current state) should be updated before another, more researched and explained one (the Black Ivy League) is done away with. Concerning citations, the few that are offered are plenty for the topic. Especially considering the fact that there are plenty pages about 'Ivy League' mimicking organizations which offer only 1 or 2 sources of material. The point is, the traditional Ivy League is the only official Ivy League and is so because of an athletic conference. All the rest, including the Black Ivy, were devised by authors and developed through colloquial and popular use. Most were only developed by college educational guides and are based on no other hard facts (like Hidden Ivy and Southern Ivy). Let's talk about those pages. Is that considered a credible source of information? The Black Ivy concept was developed by authors and eventually made its way to college ranking guides. Furthermore, it's a relatively new term and concept, so a plethora of 'credible' sources on the topic is not yet likely to be found. The Black Ivy League is legitimate in comparison to any other Ivy League entity floating around Wikipedia.


 * Moreover, maybe there is some potential to be found in the Black Ivy article. With more research and proper editing to both articles, maybe a future merger is possible.--Whojshaw (talk) 09:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Strongly Oppose. Black Ivy League is 25,524 bytes long -- and I disagree with the characterization of the content and the questions about its verifiability. I don't think there would be any question of merging Seven_Sisters_(colleges) into Women's colleges in the United States -- BCorr | Брайен 12:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Support. I can find hardly anything about the so-called Black Ivy League - a couple of sites and a Facebook group. I believe it fails the notability test. Makes for a good subsection, I guess, but hardly worthy of its own article. LoomisSimmons (talk) 13:44, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment. On second look, I'm wondering if an AfD is the better bet. By the article's own admission, There is no canonical definiton of the term rather than the few instances of occurrence in literature. Well, that tends to happen when your topic isn't notable and is based on virtually nothing at all. Even the term "Black Ivy League" seems to come from a single source. I'm all for alumni pride and all, but cuh-mon. LoomisSimmons (talk) 13:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Confusing sentence in opening
I don't know what the following sentence wises to say: "Some which operated for decades closed during the 20th century due to competition, the Great Depression and financial difficulties." I'm guessing the author meant to say that some of the colleges had operation interrupted for decades during the 20th century. They certainly didn't operate closed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.66.120.100 (talk) 22:21, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Criticism
No criticism section for an article about colleges that are basically institutionalized racism? Cool. That's the Wiki way! :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.43 (talk) 21:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your statement, but you are well within your rights to disagree with the content of the article. If you have creditable evidence that such institutions are "basically institutionalized racism" please feel free to add it to the article. Wikipedia is about facts, not personal subject opinions. Absolon S. Kent (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Question: if you made a Historically white college, would be racism? And if so, would that be a double standard if historically black are not racist? Rick lay95 (talk) 22:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)rick_lay95


 * Answer: The majority of major American universities are historically white (and predominately white). If you look at the article you will note that the HBCU institutions were established before 1964. During that time blacks were not allowed to to attend many universities with whites (especially in the Southern United States. Thus the term historically black was established. Hope this clears things up for you. God bless. Absolon S. Kent (talk) 02:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that dosn't answer anything. I have never seen where the Univeristy of Louisville or Hawaii or any college has stated that they were historically white. If I am not mistaken a university is just a place of higher education. Period. So I don't understand your answer. As as a matter of fact, historically white dose not show up in Wikipedia at all. Rick lay95 (talk) 16:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)rick_lay95


 * Not sure what's so hard to understand. The Department of Education created a special designation for colleges and universities that were established to educate African-Americans before they were legally allowed to attend colleges with whites. It took an Executive Order (Executive Order 12232) in 1980 to established this federal program "... to overcome the effects of discriminatory treatment and to strengthen and expand the capacity of historically black colleges and universities to provide quality education." HBCUs enroll 14% of all African American students in higher education and graduate 24% of all African American students enrolled in four-year colleges (although they constitute only three percent of America's 4,084 institutions of higher education). They account for one in six masters degrees awarded to African American men and women (source: U.S. Department of Education) The Univeristy of Louisville or University of Hawaii don't need to state that they were historically white because African American's couldn't legally attend them until the Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court (the court decision which outlawed racial segregation of public education facilities) in 1954. Absolon S. Kent (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with the gist of what you've said here, Absolon, but I don't think your last statement there is factually correct. Brown v. Board of Education had no direct effect on the University of Louisville or University of Hawaii.  In fact the University of Louisville  desegregated in 1951. But yes, it was certainly historically white. 192.249.47.179 (talk) 16:02, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

''There is often a lot of confusion as to what "historically Black" designates, and whether this is an incentive for these institutions to restrict their recruitment to Black students today. The consensus is that the term "HBCU" refers to the institutions (usually in the South) where de jure segregation required colleges to restrict their admissions by race. The emphasis here is not on creating or maintaining a predominantly Black student body today, but rather acknowledging the historical background of these colleges. In fact, many HBCUs, like most American colleges, are taking steps to increase diversity in their student bodies; some HBCUs such as Bluefield State University and Lincoln University are not predominantly Black.''

''The objective of HBCUs is not to create a discriminatory institution to exclude students of other races; but simply to acknowledge their history, as well as characteristics typical of these institutions (relatively small student body, governance by a religious institution or ideology, emphasis on community building, affordable tuition, conservative social values). Students of all backgrounds and ethnicities are welcome at HBCUs today.'' NeoSoulBrotha at HBCUConnect.com


 * Though it'd be best not to couch it in the adversarial terms of some of the discussion above, this sort of thing might be worth discussing in the article. As NeoSoulBrotha mentions, most HBCUs do aim at increasing the diversity of their student bodies. In addition there are legal requirements for them to do so in some states (that part has been more controversial). So the evolving, sometimes controversial, and often confusing issue of what HBCU status means for colleges today could be discussed. --Delirium (talk) 06:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://politics.gaeatimes.com/2009/11/19/opposition-strong-to-barbours-plan-to-merge-mississippis-3-black-universities-into-1-795/. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Diannaa (talk) 23:09, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

HBCU Closure Crisis
The HBCU Closure Crisis is a joke and should be deleted. First off, I found inaccurate information on the page. It stated that South Carolina State (a public university in South Carolina) was going to be shut down but that's a lie and was removed by me. There were only talks, nothing definite and the university is well and thriving right now (enrollment for Fall 2015 beat expectations). Howard University had cuts just like many universities in the nation, Louisiana State University had even more cuts than Howard due to budget restraints and had talks of declaring for a financial emergency. The whole premise is off one or two people's opinions and a skewed perspective, it's not based in fact. There's no closure crisis among the majority of HBCUs, a few small private HBCUs have closed over the past decade but so have non-HBCUs. To propose that it merges with the historically black colleges and universities wiki page is unfathomable and promotes false fear mongering and facts which is in violation of Wikipedia guidelines. HBCUs overall are increasing in funding and enrollment.Broadmoor (talk) 05:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with your general point. But the better way to handle this is to incorporate what material is salvageable from that article and then delete or redirect it here.  The premise of that article is overblown and misdirected but the broader points of the sources that articles cites are sound: (a) institutions with fewer resources are increasingly struggling as prices increase for a dwindling traditionally aged market and (b) HBCUs are and almost always have been underresourced therefore (c) they're particularly (but not uniquely!) vulnerable right now.  Those are really good points that need to be made in this article as they're extremely important for readers to understand if they're to really understand this topic in both a contemporary and historical viewpoint. ElKevbo (talk) 07:51, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I tried to savage as much possible before I started to work on my graduate school homework last night. There's plenty of misleading and false information still left that needs to be rectified, it shouldn't even be suggested to merge with a legitimate page until that's fixed.  Again, the possibility of it merging in the misleading state it's currently in is unacceptable, either you or I (or someone else) needs to fix it first and then it'll be fair to suggest it merges with a legitimate and balanced page, until then it needs to be on it's own because it's simply inaccurate and biased editing.  It should be completely gone to be honest, as someone who's familiar with HBCUs and the education system, this narrative that there's a closure "crisis" is hilarious and extremely false.  Out of the 100+ HBCUs currently in existence, there's less than 5 projected to possibly close or merge with another institution.  Morris Brown (a formerly almost closed HBCU) is now almost fully functional and in the works of increasing its enrollment and securing more funds.  Many HBCUs have financial issues mainly due to discriminatory practices by the government but as the years passes lawsuits and other measures have taken place to fix that.  But as I alluded to, in Louisiana, all the public universities are in a financial crisis, even the flagship university but there's no closure crisis at all, just money issues.  All the information I shared is readily available with a simple google search and I will provide it if need be. Broadmoor (talk) 14:43, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely correct. However, you don't own this article and get to exercise a one-person veto on what is and is not discussed or proposed.  If you feel that the other article is so wildly inaccurate that it needs to be hidden from readers entirely then you should nominate it for deletion.  We're now discussing what and how much material from that article should be merged into this one which is exactly what should be happening right now as prompted by the merge template. ElKevbo (talk) 15:43, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why you're trying to legitimize a blatantly illegitimate page. I'm not going to try to fix something that's based on a false premise and misleading information, there's nothing for me to build on. Again, some HBCUs (non-HBCUs) have money problems but that doesn't mean there's a closure crisis.  A crisis would suggest a number upward to at least quarter of HBCUs are in serious jeopardy of closing but that's not the case.  And it's not what I feel, anyone with a reasonable and fair mind can see the page is wildly inaccurate ... apparently you didn't even validate and research the topic yourself before you started leaving comments about it.  And I'm nominating the page for deletion just FYI, thanks for the link Broadmoor (talk) 04:06, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

When did HCBUs begin admitting non-African-American students?
I'm a non-American trying to understand what an HBCU is. Reading between the lines of this article, I can speculate that in 1964 there was an Act that forbade racial discrimination at American universities. After 1964, then, I am guessing that African-Americans could enrol at any university and that non-African-Americans could enrol at HCBUs if they wanted. The demographic tables suggest that since 1964, some HCBUs are now majority white students, while most remain majority black. Am I right in what I'm guessing here? If so, it would be great to actually say this in the introduction, since it's very vague at the moment. Cop 663 (talk) 18:22, 29 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Which HBCU's are majority white? BlackAmerican (talk) 16:10, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Racial-diversity chart
§Racial diversity at HBCUs has a chart listing the percentage of students at each school that are "African American" and that are "non-African American". The values do not total 100% for each school, and in most cases are off by many percentage points (i.e., not simple rounding error). How can someone be something other than "AA or not AA"? DMacks (talk) 04:40, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

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Current Status Bias
The current status page is extremely unbalanced and unfair. has deleted just about all of my content that balanced the section of the page. SemioneNation is creating a false narrative that HBCUs are on the decline and becoming irrelevant which is factually untrue. For example, the editor left the following comment italicized below

''In 2007, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund published a study of minority recruiting practices by Fortune 400 companies and by government agencies that found that 13% of minority college graduates were recruited from HBCUs while 87% of minority college students were recruited from non-HBCU institutions.[16] ''

The above italicized statement is misleading because HBCUs make up only 3% of the nation's colleges and universities so of course a smaller percentage of minorities recruited out of HBCUs will pale in comparison to minorities recruited from non-HBCUs. And when I attempted to provide more context, it was promptly deleted. Also this same user, has made other reckless editing on the page that I attempted to rectify only for all the changes I made to be reverted (for example misplacing the annual HBCU conference content that belongs in "current status"). There are several exceptional things happening with HBCUs but the user in question only left one that I added. SemioneNation is clearly a troll wanting to corrupt the integrity and quality of wikipedia and am blocked from stopping it from happening. Broadmoor (talk) 19:16, 1 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Umm no. You have provided a completely biased and promotional view of this article. You say that my edits provide a false narrative of the current status of HBCUs when I got all my info from government backed sources. I never knew that government backed information was misleading. You quote a bunch of articles that are biased and have false information. The statistics that I have posted show the true status of HBCUs in 2015-2017. Whether you want to agree with these statistics or not, they are absolutely true in terms of declining enrollment nationwide and the gap of black Americans getting degrees from HBCUs compared to Non-HBCU institutions in the 21st century. This is a FACT backed by government statistics. Nothing that I posted included my own opinion. The annual HBCU conference was moved to history because it belongs there. It does not describe the current status of HBCUs as a whole. You are trying to spin every fact listed to give an unrealistic light on the subject.--SeminoleNation (talk) 03:34, 2 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree that this content is neutrally written and appears to be reliably cited. Just because you don't find thing exceptional doesn't mean they shouldn't be reported. One could easily say that this is a major result and demonstrates that HBCUs are currently relevant because recruiting disproportionately favors them. But I can't write that (and nobody else can write any other "narrative" around it) without a reliable source to analyze the situation because it would be WP:SYNTH. I would love to see a secondary source discussing it. DMacks (talk) 15:30, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Tuskegee Airmen
Near the end of this article, there is a claim that "the Tuskegee Airmen were educated at Tuskegee University." As a member of the national Tuskegee Airmen association, I can assure you that this is wrong. Most of the original World War II Tuskegee Airmen underwent their flight training at Moton Field, in Tuskegee, Alabama, which was indeed a facility that was part of Tuskegee Institute. But the airfield had nothing to do with academics, so to say the Airmen were "educated" at the school is simply not true. It's in a sense like saying that somebody who learned how to drive in Cambridge "was educated at Harvard." Most of the men who became Tuskegee Airmen had college degrees or were college students when they enlisted, since this was at that time a requirement for anyone, white or black, to sign up for USAAC/USAAF flight training. A few of them had actually attended Tuskegee Institute, but that was only a small number of the pilots.173.62.31.201 (talk) 16:40, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Grammar issues
This article has several issues with grammar and writing style. Some parts are sloppy and need to be fixed. 73.109.92.67 (talk) 05:13, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I proposed that Jewish refugees teaching in black colleges be merged into Historically black colleges and universities. I think the content of the Jewish refugees teaching in black colleges could be a subsection of the history section and it is short enough to fit in there (it can be shortened further). PopularOutcasttalk2me! 00:13, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 *  Support   Neutral  – it seems highly unlikely likely that this meets the general notability guideline, namely: [having] received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Therefore, this should not might be a standalone article. See WP:NOPAGE. Let's see what find sources comes up with:
 * I note zero results in Google books (except a Wikipedia mirror), and nothing in JStor, NYT, or elsewhere. Basically, this is pure original research; this topic does not exist other than at Wikipedia. Article should be deleted, after saving anything worth merging somewhere else. Mathglot (talk) 03:50, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I note zero results in Google books (except a Wikipedia mirror), and nothing in JStor, NYT, or elsewhere. Basically, this is pure original research; this topic does not exist other than at Wikipedia. Article should be deleted, after saving anything worth merging somewhere else. Mathglot (talk) 03:50, 24 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment Mathglot, your searches are COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS, looking for the exact search term on such a topic, which could be described in all sorts of ways. For heavens sake! Have you looked at the actual sources cited and seen if they amount to significant coverage? Johnbod (talk) 17:01, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems I spoke too soon. Given your comments (no need to SHOUT, though ), I had a look at how Find sources generates its searches, and you're right, it adds double quotes, which makes an exact search on a long query very unlikely to turn up results. A much better search would be unquoted (maybe an alternate version of Find sources would be helpful). These are attempts to do that:
 * Find sources (unquoted search) : Google ( books · news ·  newspapers ·  scholar) ·  JSTOR ·  NYT
 * Find sources (unquoted; shorter query) : Google ( books · news ·  newspapers ·  scholar) ·  JSTOR ·  NYT
 * The results from these searches certainly do put a different perspective on it, and the topic does seem to be notable. Wrt your question, the existing refs also support notability. The question of merger then, would seem to be whether it should be a standalone article or not. Per OP, it is short enough to fit in Historically black colleges and universities, which is not too big to accommodate it. Otoh, if this article is likely to be expanded further with more references, that might make it unduly large to merge. I'm not sure which is the better course at this point, so I've struck my Support vote and leaving it neutral for the time being. Mathglot (talk) 20:17, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. Said article contains some relevant content, but has too narrow a scope to warrant a separate article. Feer  06:26, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose: This page is dedicated to African Americans' self determination and struggle to rise from slavery. Why on earth would you want to add a section on Jewish Refugees teaching in them. What does that add? If anything, is threatens to detract from a very powerful entry on black history.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.231.239.185 (talk) 10:31, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This article already has a sentence about it in the World War II section. It could use a couple of more sentences from the Jewish refugee article and then that article can be deleted. The HBCUs chose to recruit Jewish refugees during this time frame because the institutions had trouble finding qualified professors to work there. Jewish professors had trouble finding institutions that would take them as they fled Germany. HBCUs offered them jobs and two disenfranchised groups helped each other. No detraction here. It's still the history of HBCUs and it was their idea to hire the refugees. PopularOutcasttalk2me! 13:19, 13 April 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 16:31, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization of Black
Black is a social identity for a label as a people. Various media outlets capitalize it too. We don’t have to capitalize this entire page, but I strongly believe we should at least capitalize the title of it: Historically Black colleges and universities. AfroWorld33 (talk) 20:26, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I hope you don't mind that I moved your comment down to the bottom of the page (where new comments are usually placed) and added a new header; I was worried that your comment might get lost at the top of the page as a reply in a section from 2006!
 * It would be helpful if you shared some prominent examples of how media outlets handle this question. It would also be helpful to review the related discussion at the Talk page of our Manual of Style section for capital letters; if that discussion is ever resolved then it would provide helpful and perhaps definitive guidance for this one. ElKevbo (talk) 20:52, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

HBCU Library Alliance
HBCU Library Alliance members in Wikidata: < https://w.wiki/mNY >. -- M2545 (talk) 23:37, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 12 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Flamondabrown.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:30, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

HBCU notable alumni clean-up
Can we please start a HBCU project where editors fix the notable alumni section on HBCU pages. 98% of the HBCU pages have notable alumni sections with tables requesting graduation years but many are missing and difficult to find. However, if you look at the non-HBCU notable alumni sections (i.e. Nicholls State University or LSU), you'll see they don't have tables that require the class year and look much cleaner. Doing this will improve the pages for HBCUs and decrease percieved biases against minorities on Wikipedia. I fixed some but it's so many to fix. Happy Black History Month!Broadmoor (talk) 03:06, 7 February 2022 (UTC)