Remedies Under Statutes Granting Federal Aid to Land Grant Colleges

The purpose of this article is to examine the statutory basis of the Federal government's financial assistance to the Grant Colleges and Universities and to suggest legal and legislative remedies, at both the Federal and State levels, to cure the gross inadequacies between the benefits which Negroes receive, and those which other groups receive in that minority of States, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahomna, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, which still persist in the myth of separate but educational facilities for Negroes. The purpose of the Federal land grant program has been to aid in the mitigation of the inequalities of educational provisions for rural and urban communities by the development of institutions designed to contribute to the improvement of rural life through first, resident instruction at the colleae level; second, research in agriculture and home economics; and third, extension in agriculture and home economics for beth adults and youth. The resultant institutions are referred to as Land Grant Institutions. There has always been a tremendous gap between the educational facilities offered to the rural and those offered to the urban populations. Facilities for the education of farm people are on an average, not so good as facilities provided for people in urban areas. This is a condition of which educational leaders have been aware for two or three decades. 1 It is ironical, to say the least, that a program designed to eliminate inequality of educational opportunities between the rural and urban populations should through its operation serve to widen the gap of inequality of educational opportunities between Negroes and whites. Tables I and II, based on the expenditure of Federal funds for the year ending June 30, 1946, clearly establish the premise that Negroes receive far less than their rightful share of benefits in those seventeen states.2 Since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is settled that Negroes are citizens and therefore are entitled to the same benefits of public education under the equal protection clause of the Constitution of the

Land grant · Political science · Statute · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Diverse Educational Innovations Studies · Law · Public Administration

• Lawyers v. Educators

  Jean L Preer, Jean Preer•The Journal of Higher Education•1982

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