When news of a Mississippi bill that could have shuttered three historically Black institutions arose, HBCU students, alumni and supporters across the country flocked to social media in disbelief, ready to take action.

At Mississippi Votes, an advocacy group invested in the progression of Mississippi, their team full of HBCU alumni sprung into action – inspired to save their institutions – and helped kill Senate Bill 2726.

“The way that the entirety of the country rallied behind little old Mississippi should let folks know how important and pivotal HBCUs are to the legacy and history of Black folks in this country,” Hannah Williams, Mississippi Votes’ policy director said.

If passed, Senate Bill 2726 would have required the Institutions of Higher Learning, the statewide governing board for Mississippi colleges and universities, to close three out of the state’s eight public universities. Among that list were Delta State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for University, The University of Mississippi and The University of Southern Mississippi.

It also included three public HBCUs, Alcorn State University, Jackson State University and Mississippi Valley State University.

With the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. John Polk, citing declining enrollment, tuition rates and degree attainment as factors for the proposed closures, HBCUs have faced many of these issues due to underfunding.

Once the bill made it to the Senate Universities and Colleges Committee, it was struck down.

“We have enrollment issues nationwide, so that’s not unique to Mississippi. I think that once we give them [HBCUs] the tools they need and the programs they need to track students, they will be successful,” Democratic state Sen. Hillman Frazier, who serves on the committee, told Reckon.

While the bill was considered dead on March 5, according to Mississippi Votes, elements of its policies have resurfaced in another piece of legislation, Senate Bill 2725, which establishes a task force to study the efficiency at Mississippi colleges and universities.

Mississippi Votes is working to combat the shuttering of Mississippi HBCUs with campaigns and hashtags like #DontCloseOurSchools meant to kill this new bill just like they squashed the old one.

Two bad bills, one big fight

With enrollment and degree attainment as a continued concern for the Mississippi Senate Universities and Colleges Committee, the task-force bill was voted out of committee and heads to the full Senate for a vote.

The committee’s chair, Republican state Sen. Nicole Boyd, sponsored the new bill that would create the Mississippi University System Efficiency Task Force.

“This bill is about us taking a look, which we haven’t done in a while … at what is going on with our universities and colleges,” Boyd said.

The bill would focus on increased enrollment and graduation rates of Mississippians, as well as how to retain them in the state while addressing anticipated nationwide challenges such as demographic shifts and declining enrollment.

According to the Institutions of Higher Learning, Mississippi’s public university enrollment increased by 1.8% from fall 2022 to 2023, with HBCUs like Mississippi Valley State University seeing one of the largest enrollment spikes in the state with a 16.9% increase.

“Just last year Mississippi Valley State University increased enrollment and at one time they were on the chopping block, but I think that we need to get them the tools to be successful and to just keep supporting them going forward,” Frazier said.

Just like the old bill, the new task-force bill based on the task force-recommendations would determine what colleges and universities in Mississippi would remain open, close or merge.

“This bill is kind of camouflaged as, ‘What can we do better to help these schools?’ It feels like a two-headed snake,” Williams told Reckon.

Mississippi Votes is spreading the word to HBCUs and Black communities throughout the state about Senate Bill 2725 and how signing a petition, calling their senator, writing a letter or simply resharing a social media post can help kill this new bill too.

HBCUs are historically underfunded, including Mississippi’s

In September 2023, the U.S. Departments of Education and Agriculture sent letters to 16 governors in states with land-grant HBCUs calculating a $12 billion disparity in funding from 1987 to 2020. Miss. Gov. Tate Reeves was on the list.

“Unacceptable funding inequities have forced many of our nation’s distinguished Historically Black Colleges and Universities to operate with inadequate resources and delay critical investments in everything from campus infrastructure to research and development to student support services,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

Cardona and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, outlined in each letter that under the Second Morrill Act of 1890, states opening land-grant universities serving Black students are required to provide an equitable distribution of state funds to institutions founded between 1862 and 1890. However, of 18 states with HBCUs only two — Delaware and Ohio — are upholding the law.

With 19 land-grant HBCUs across the country, a lack of funding has impacted everything from building repairs to enrollment numbers at institutions like Alcorn State University, one of the three HBCUs on the list to possibly shutter. While Alcorn’s enrollment dropped by 1.3% from fall 2022 to 2023, the state of Mississippi currently owes the university $257 million that could go toward improvements that could increase enrollment.

Many students, alumni and community members have distrust in the state of Mississippi’s intentions for HBCUs.

“They’re [HBCU alumni] looking at the history of the state in terms of the underfunding of some of the institutions thinking, ‘The state will take action to harm the institutions,’ and especially with how Mississippi Valley, Jackson State and Alcorn State were underfunded for many years,” Frazier told Reckon.

As an alumnus of Jackson State University, Sen. Frazier said, “and I understand that because underfunding affects their ability to grow.”

While the Departments of Education and Agriculture expressed in the letters that governors should not decrease the funding at other institutions across their state to rectify funding gaps at the land grant HBCUs, decisions about when the additional funds get distributed could mean that institutions like Alcorn State remain open, close or merge.

“The closure of HBCUs has been happening literally since they started opening. And I believe that other states will most definitely try to copy and paste this legislation and hide it under the guise of, ‘We’re just trying to do what’s best with the state’s money.’ So I think that all public institutions that are HBCUs need to be on their toes,” Williams said.