Tentative Pact to Desegregate Maryland Colleges Reached
A tentative agreement between Maryland and the federal government to desegregate the state’s public colleges and universities could end one of the country’s longest such disputes, it was reported Sunday.
The five-year plan to end the 16-year-old case was worked out over months of negotiations between state higher education officials and the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education, according to the Baltimore Sun.
“What remains is working out the legal aspects between our lawyers and theirs,” Sheldon H. Knorr, state commissioner for higher education, said.
Under the plan, the state must increase white enrollment at traditionally black colleges from 9% in the base year of 1982 to 19% in 1989, and black enrollment at traditionally white colleges from 11% to 15%, the newspaper reported.
The plan commits the state to enhance academic offerings at the state’s four historically black state institutions: Coppin and Bowie state colleges, Morgan State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
The agreement calls for 25 new academic programs at the colleges by 1989 and provides them with $75 million over the four-year period.
The state must also establish three teacher education centers by 1988 to attract students of both races, the paper reported.
“We didn’t want to take blacks out of the historically black colleges and leave them weaker and weaker,” Knorr said.
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