JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Students and graduates of Lincoln University sued the state of Missouri on Wednesday, alleging decades of underfunding at the historically Black university undercut their education and devalued their degrees, The Associated Press reported.
The lawsuit is the first effort by a newly formed group called the 1890 Project, which has more than a dozen other states in its sights.
“It is very unfortunate that we still live in a climate where, depending on the color of one’s skin, one gets precedence over the other,” said plaintiff Jeanneth Johnson, a 54-year-old Lincoln graduate from Sterling Heights, Michigan.
The University of Missouri system and the governor’s office both said they could not comment on pending litigation.
In 2023, the Biden administration found that HBCUs in 16 states had missed out on $12.6 billion in funding over three decades. It found only two states, Delaware and Ohio, funded their traditional and HBCU land-grant universities equitably.
Land-grant universities began with the Morrill Act of 1862. An 1890 update required states to either open land-grant schools to students of all races or create separate schools for Black students.
Missouri chose Lincoln, then called Lincoln Institute, which a Black Union Army unit started after the Civil War by pooling their wages. Seventeen other states set up 18 more land-grant schools for Black students, including Tuskegee University.
Federal law requires equitable state funding for all of a state’s land-grant universities.
Sources: Associated Press via KTAR News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: TheCatalyst31 / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
