Should HBCUs Admit Prisoners?The Obama Administration last week…

Should HBCUs Admit Prisoners?

The Obama Administration last week debuted plans to make college accessible for prison inmates – a Back to the Future-esque reinstatement of the tuition funding program scrapped by former President Bill Clinton in 1994, which data shows helps to reduced prison reentry for those who completed associates or bachelor’s degrees while incarcerated.

Currently, only a hand full of colleges offer higher education programs tailored for incarcerated students. Small, private liberal schools like Bard College and Goucher College are among that handful, giving offenders preparatory and credit-hour instruction aimed at the dual mission of rehabilitation and creating work ready citizens out of a population that is generally among the most vulnerable in mental health, racial and economic-based disparities.

While a formal list of schools which will participate in the federal program has not been produced, there is a group ready made for the task. The Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison is made up of several colleges offering curriculum to prisoners, many of which do so with private donations and volunteer instructors.

But despite the best laid plans and work of historically black colleges, not one HBCU is a part of this consortium. The campuses which most need the students, which are mission-based in the prevention and reversal of the cradle-to-prison pipeline for black men, and those campuses which are the lifeline of social justice movements dating back nearly 100 years, do not have an easily detectable program to aid inmates for community reentry.

Florida A&M University has used cooperative extension programming to aid prisoners in entrepreneurship dialog and agribusiness exposure, but it doesn’t have a structured program to aid inmates, and particularly black men, into lives of higher education and better job prospects.

Its not for a lack of prisons and jails in HBCU states and cities. Its not for a lack of vision from HBCU leaders, several of whom have traveled as far east as China, as far south as Brazil, and back home to African nations to recruit students. But can they, and will they, be willing to extend opportunities to Americans emerging from the penal system?

HBCUs are not strangers to admitting students whom have served previous time in prison, but how do black institutions make the case for a program that simultaneously destroys stereotypes in black communities, while feeding them beyond our borders? Would Grambling State get the same feedback in media, among alumni and students, and among donors for admitting prisoners as Goucher receives from its stakeholders? Would Morehouse College get the same reprieve?

For Goucher’s predominantly white, predominantly rich constituency, recidivism may be a moral burden birthed from fear. For HBCUs, the effort could prove to be economically, socially and politically just as heavy, and avoided for the same reasons.

Are HBCUs positioned to deploy and sustain human resources to teach on site in prisons, when most are already looking to cut already-thin ranks of adjunct and full professors from regular academic operations?

The economic and cultural layers are many, but the goal is clear – HBCUs must be positioned to act upon every opportunity to get more students, and proactive about every chance to save the lives of black men and women.

And besides – it may be the only way to get any real money from the Obama Administration to HBCUs.