Saturday, March 04, 2017

HBCU Presidents not impressed with Trump meeting




The Trump administration made a big deal of the meeting between Trump and several HBCU Presidents. Trump claimed that the meeting was successful and that it would help HBCUs. Well some HBCU Presidents such as Morehouse College's Dr. John Wilson Jr., and Dillard University's Walter M. Kimbrough didn't see it that way.
Statement from Dr. John Wilson Jr, Morehouse College: 
In a report from Fox 5 Atlanta, Morehouse College President Dr. John Wilson Jr., said that the White House had created high expectations after calling Trump’s executive order historic and revolutionary.
However, what the executive order really did was transfer the initiative on HBCUs from the Department of Education into the Executive Office of the White House. Also, no money is tied to the order. 
“I don’t mind saying, that we were — a number of us — were disappointed, not because of what we thought on our own leading up to this meeting, but what we were led to think,” Wilson said. “And so I think it was a little underwhelming to see that the most tangible differentiator that happened here was an office relocation.” [SOURCE]
Statement From Walter M. Kimbrough, Dillard University:
On Friday I learned that I was selected to give remarks today for the meeting at the White House with members of the Trump administration, most notably Secretary Betsy DeVos. We learned this weekend that there would be closing remarks by Vice President Pence, but the goal was for officials from a number of Federal agencies (about 5 were there including OMB) and Secretary DeVos to hear about HBCUs.
That all blew up when the decision was made to take the presidents to the Oval Office to see the President. I’m still processing that entire experience. But needless to say that threw the day off and there was very little listening to HBCU presidents today- we were only given about 2 minutes each, and that was cut to one minute, so only about 7 of maybe 15 or so speakers were given an opportunity today. [SOURCE]

PRESIDENT OBAMA DID HELP HBCUS


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