HBCUs Fight State Funding Disparities in Federal Courts

The Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Fordice (1992) that Mississippi had not adequately desegregated its university system and retained policies traceable to the segregation era. The ruling affected public HBCUs in Mississippi including Jackson State, Alcorn State, and Mississippi Valley State. Settlement negotiations continued through the decade; states across the South faced similar suits over decades of underfunding public HBCUs relative to predominantly white institutions.