SUtrp96
HBCU SCREAMING CHAMP 99'
This was an email I recieved from a co-worker...
New Orleans: Governor Bobby Jindal and the Louisiana Legislative leadership announced through the news media that Southern University at New Orleans would be closed to save money to cover a budget shortfall. The Times Picayune reported that the Senate Finance Committee had on the table proposals that involved from one to as many as eight four- year campuses, including Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO). Sally Clausen, the Commissioner of Higher Education in Louisiana stated, “We do not have solutions… We have some of the scenarios.†Among the officials quoted in the newspaper article were President John Lombardi, Louisiana State University System; House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Flannin, (D) Jonesboro; Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Michot, (R) Lafayette; and Governor Bobby Jindal, who according to sources within the Legislative Black Caucus and Community Activist in the state of Louisiana, is behind all of these discussions.
Carl Galmon, a long time warrior in the human rights struggle in New Orleans and in the region and a Grambling State University Alumnus, stated, “All of this is about destroying Black Leadership.†Galmon stated:
All of this started during the Nixon era and Cointelpro when domestic spying ran rampart. I can remember them saying we got to get rid of those Black Colleges because that is where the Leadership is coming from in the movement. It is a conspiracy to kill and destroy Black Male Leadership and anyone who doubts this fact need only look at America’s and the Deep South’s track record.
He further discussed during the recent celebration of “Bloody Sunday†and the Selma to Montgomery March how activist must come to the table and be more pro-active in their struggle for Freedom, Justice, and Equality. U. S. Representative John Lewis (D) Georgia who spoke at the Selma March stated, “The tea baggers and tea party people are in the streets and we are on the sidelines. If we are to achieve real change, we must seek God’s Holy Direction, pray and work towards our righteous goal.†Another key leader in Higher education, Dr. Fred Humphries, President Emeritus of FAMU and the dean of Black State Institutions stated, “The legislative process gives people little time to organize. Everyone will be given one year notice to find another Job and SUNO will be working with a skeleton staff to wind things down.â€
Legal observers said that U. S. Supreme Court case law speaks against what Louisiana is doing in closing a Black College that has been discriminated against from its inception. The Supreme Court in United States and Ayers v. Fordice 112 S. Ct. 2727 (1992) approved the Office of Civil Rights regulations called “Revised Criteria†43 Fr. 6658 (Feb 12, 1978). The regulations state as follows:
In Fordice, the Supreme Court held that states operated de jure segregated high education systems have an affirmative duty under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution and Title VI to dismantle those systems and their vestiges. The Court, while acknowledging the differences between public higher education systems and elementary or secondary school systems, based this holding on the precedent established in its 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and its progeny in elementary and secondary school desegregation cases. 112 S. Ct. at 2736.â€
The State- wide system of Public Higher Education in Louisiana has not been officially relieved of its Constitutional obligation to desegregate and remove the vestiges from the segregated by law dual system of Higher Education. The Supreme Court in Ayers v. Fordice emphasized that the burden of proof falls on each state to establish that it has dismantled its prior de jure segregated system. The long history of racial discrimination and exclusion of career opportunities by white elected officials will force the president and his Attorney General to investigate Louisiana. The Federal regulations governing this matter states:
States may not place unfair burdens upon Black students and faculty in the desegregation process. Moreover, the Department’s ‘Revised Criteria’ recognize that State systems of higher education may be required, in order to overcome the effects of past discrimination, to strengthen and enhance traditionally or historically Black institutions, and any other actions that might impose undue burdens on Black students, faculty, or administrators or diminish the unique role of institutions. 59. Federal Register 4271-4272 (January 31, 1994)
The closure of SUNO cannot happen if the Mayor of New Orleans, his sister U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, The State Legislative Black Caucus in Louisiana and U.S. Black Caucus in Washington, D.C. together with the churches in the area, especially the Black Churches pray, march, vote, and raise money to defend against the forces of evil and darkness. People are already stepping up to the plate. Rev. Douglas Taylor, Pastor of the Lower 9th Ward Bethel A. M.E. Church, 1437 Caffin Avenue has opened up his doors for meetings, worshiping, praying and praising God for favor in establishing a Bigger and Better SUNO. The World Wide Empowerment Hour (email INFO@KermitEadley.com) has also committed to supporting this cause and this program may be viewed at his church from 5pm to 7pm. May 15, 2010. The Coalition to Save SUNO Committee that is made up of mostly college students, hope to join forces with local high school students in New Orleans this summer in planning a host of activities. Securing commitments from ESSENCE, Sugar Bowl, and Mardi Gras and the Tourist related entities and potential boycotting actions are all on the table. God did not give us a spirit of Timidity, but a spirit of Power, Love and Self- discipline. If God is for us, who can be against us.
