SUNO/UNO merger bill goes beyond Bd. of Regents- backed plan ‘SOS’ rally set for April 26

18th May 2011   ·   0 Comments

The Louisiana Weekly Staff Reports

Lawmakers seeking to consolidate historically Black Southern University at New Orleans with predominantly white University of New Orleans are recommending a merger more that goes beyond the plan supported by the Louisiana Board of Regents last month.

The bill, filed by Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker and state Sen. Conrad Appel, both Republicans, would create a new University of Louisiana at New Orleans in the University of Louisiana System.

But while the Board of Regents, the state’s top higher education panel, voted 9-6 to support a proposal that would keep the schools with separate academic officers and accreditations, the bill filed on April 15 and supported by Gov.

Bobby Jindal would require the merged campuses to seek one accreditation and one academic chief.

“This legislation creates a new path forward for improving the higher education system for all students in the greater New Orleans region,” Jindal said in a statement on April 15. “The current system is simply failing our students, and the new system proposed in Sen. Appel’s bill will provide our students with the opportunity they deserve to gain a great education and a rewarding career.”

The bill will be considered in the regular legislative session that began April 25, amid strong opposition from Black lawmakers and SUNO administrators, alumni, students and supporters who have called the consolidation proposal racist and said it would diminish education opportunities for minority students.

In order to become law, the bill would require two-thirds approval in both the House and Senate, a steep challenge for a controversial proposal.

The new University of Louisiana at New Orleans would keep two separate colleges with different admissions criteria and program offerings. A branch campus of the nearby Delgado Community College would offer remedial courses and college transfer degree programs at the site.

“There shall be a research-centered college that will offer degree programs critical to the needs of the region, including graduate programs in the fields of science, engineering and technology, and a college that will primarily offer undergraduate degree programs and courses of study,” the legislation states.

While the institutions would maintain separate missions, the bill by the two New Orleans-area lawmakers is clear that SUNO and UNO “shall cease to exist as separately accredited institutions and shall be consolidated, along with their assets, funds, obligations, liabilities, programs and functions.”

In the statement issued by Jindal, Regents Chairman Bob Levy said the bill “substantially follows the recommendation” made by the higher education board in March.

However, the scenario backed by Regents and recommended by the Colorado-based

National Center for Higher Education Management Systems urged against a wholesale merger and joint accreditation, saying it could deny educational opportunities to thousands and could take 15 years or more to resolve the tensions that would erupt.

LSU System President John Lombardi, who currently oversees the UNO campus, said there is no such thing as separate campuses with one accreditation, and he said the two schools have such different student bodies and missions that a consolidation wouldn’t improve education.

“Merging them will not solve any of the problems that are articulated, so we don’t think merger is a useful activity,” Lombardi told The Associated Press.

The changes would take effect whenever the commission that accredits schools agrees to the governance change, a request that would have to be lodged by SUNO and UNO by July 1, 2012. Students currently enrolled at SUNO and UNO, who are in good standing at their colleges, would be allowed to continue their courses of study before they could be jettisoned in the merger.

An estimated 34,000 students attend UNO, SUNO and Delgado and would be affected by a merger or consolidation.

While Gov. Jindal has pointed to low graduation and enrollment rates at SUNO and UNO and the fact that the two New Orleans campuses are only blocks apart as the rationale for proposing a merger, he has said nothing about LSU-Eunice which reportedly has the state’s lowest graduation rate.

Randolph Scott said last week that he is not at all surprised by the legislation that goes beyond what the Board of Regents backed last month. “I think that Gov. Jindal’s goal from the very beginning was to close SUNO,” Scott told The Louisiana Weekly. “He’s hiding it behind a merger of the two universities, but in actuality he wants to totally eliminate SUNO.

“I think that the long-term goal of the Jindal administration is to attack the Southern University System,” Scott continued. “They’re attacking HBCUs because of the success these institutions have had graduating Blacks and preparing Black people for political careers. What they’re trying to do is nip it in the bud, stopping African Americans from being educated in Louisiana.

They’re trying to neutralize the Black power base since so many SUNO graduates are active in politics.”

A state judge on April 12 tossed out a lawsuit seeking to stall the possible consolidation or merger of SUNO and UNO.

District Judge Tim Kelley ruled against a group of Southern University students who challenged the constitutionality of the Board of Regents, arguing that the panel considering the governor’s proposal was unconstitutional because the Jindal hadn’t appointed any Black members.

Kelley said the governor’s all-white Regents appointments were legal, even if they might have been “politically ill-advised and damaging.”

“No matter how morally wrong, how offensive to our citizens, how damaging to this state’s commitment to eliminate perceived prejudice and injustice, nor how politically ill-advised and damaging, both in the short-term and in the long-term, any decision of this governor may be, it’s not this court’s job to tell the governor how to do his job,” Kelley said, according to a copy of his oral remarks released by the court.

The 16-member Regents board had one African-American member, a student representative from Southern University-Baton Rouge, before the lawsuit was filed. All nine gubernatorial appointees named by Jindal were white until the governor edged out one of his white appointments and named a Black Regents member after the lawsuit challenged the board’s constitutionality.

The lawsuit, filed by former state Sen. Cleo Fields, sought to delay any efforts to merge or consolidate SUNO and UNO until the Regents’ composition was changed.

One-third of Louisiana’s residents are Black. Fields and the students said Jindal violated a state constitutional provision enacted in 1998 that said the Regents “should be representative of the state’s population by race and gender to ensure diversity.”

Kelley has said the word “should” is regularly interpreted by the courts to have a permissible meaning, rather than the requirement of a word like “shall.”

Fields said earlier this month that he plans to appeal Kelley’s ruling, which declared the Southern students had “no cause of action” in the case.

SUNO alumni, administrators, students and supporters were gearing up last week for Tuesday’s “SOS” rally, which will take place at 10:00 a.m. on the steps of the State Capitol and is designed to raise awareness about the plight of SUNO, the Southern University System and all Black institutions of higher learning. “SOS” stands for Save Our SUNO, Save Our Southern, Save Our Students, Save Our State, organizers say.

“We’re going (to the rally) to fight to maintain Southern University holistically,” SUNO Alumni Association president Randolph Scott said. “We’re going there to make it clear that we do not want to merge or consolidate any services. That’s the message that the SUNO alumni association is bringing to Baton Rouge.

“We plan to meet with legislators in order to find out how we can help them and they can help us to facilitate maintaining SUNO as an HBCU.”

Scott said the SUNO Alumni Association has been conducting a Phone-A-Thon to contact state lawmakers and make it clear to them that the organization and its members are totally opposed to a merger or consolidation of any kind.

SUNO Chancellor Dr. Victor Ukpolo said last week that he is “looking forward to participating” in the SOS rally in Baton Rouge and sharing SUNO’s story with people from across the state. “I will continue to encourage our supporters to work with us on preserving this institution and its mission for the immediate and long-term future,” he told The Louisiana Weekly.

Ukpolo says SUNO supporters are meeting with legislators to gauge their support for the historically Black institution and looks forward to addressing the Louisiana Legislature during the legislative session to share his thoughts about the importance of SUNO remaining true to its historical mission.

Asked how the merger proposal has affected the SUNO family’s fight for its survival, Ukpolo said, “We’re unified in our position on this issue, and are garnering support from other interested individuals and groups from around the state.”

Randolph Scott says the SUNO alumni association has been consulting with attorneys and others to determine its legal options should the bill pass in the legislature.

“We have been in contact with the Department of Justice and have filed a complaint with the DOJ and are urging the department to intervene at some point in the process to prevent SUNO from going under,” Scott told The Louisiana Weekly.

Scott said SUNO’s potential demise would be the first of many steps intended to “turn back the clock” in Louisiana and across the country. “SUNO is just the tip of the iceberg,” Scott said. “If they move successfully on SUNO, that will be only the first phase of attacking the educational and economic opportunities that Black people have. If SUNO and its legacy of fighting for justice is destroyed, the powers that be will continue to move on all Black institutions committed to educating, uplifting and empowering Black people.

“We’re going to continue to fight to make sure that SUNO remains as a viable HBCU for the New Orleans area no matter where the fight takes us,” Scott added.

Among those who have voiced opposition to any merger or consolidation of SUNO and UNO are members of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, Louisiana Democratic Party Chairman Buddy Leach, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and New Orleans City Councilman Arnie Fielkow who called SUNO “a beacon of hope for African-American youth.”

House Bill 537 and Senate Bill 183 can be found online at www.legis.state.la.usb.

This story originally published in the April 25, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.