The Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland wants to ensure the state’s lone land-grant Historically Black University, the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, is fully funded every year going forward. It comes after the Biden Administration found that 19 public land grant HBCUs were underfunded for three decades by their respective states to the tune of $12.6-billion. Maryland-Eastern Shore is one of those schools.
Land-grant colleges and universities have a specific focus on agriculture and engineering, fields that leaders wanted more graduates of following the Industrial Revolution. The 1862 Morrill Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, set aside federal land for such states to start such schools. The second Morrill Act, passed in 1890, mandated state’s create land-grant schools specifically for Black students if they refused to integrate the original ones.
Maryland’s original land-grant school, the University of Maryland-College Park, did not integrate until 1951. In the meantime, Maryland-Eastern Shore became Maryland’s lone land-grant HBCU. Others across the country include Virginia State, Florida A&M, Prairie View A&M and North Carolina A&T, which has the highest enrollment of any HBCU in the country.
Like the other 18 schools, Baltimore City delegate Stephanie Smith says Maryland-Eastern Shore saw lower funding that the Biden Administration discovered. “In Maryland, because we only have one institution, over the past three decades that’s approximately $320-million,” Smith said at a press conference January 18th in Annapolis. She went on to say Governor Wes Moore’s budget proposal for next fiscal year includes $5-million for Maryland-Eastern Shore to begin to repay the lost funding. The Legislative Black Caucus included equity funding for the school as part of its legislative priorities for the 2024 session of the Maryland General Assembly.
Correction: Stephanie Smith represents Baltimore City, not Prince George's County, in the Maryland House of Delegates. This story has been updated to reflect that.
