 Students and alumni from Maryland's historically black colleges and universities have been engaged in a lawsuit against the state for criminal treatment of its four HBCUs, Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University, and the University of Maryland, Easton Shore. It was filed in 2006 and a judge ruled in 2013 that the state was guilty of duplicating programs between the black colleges and the state's predominantly white institutions, a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution. Now the state and supporters of the HBCUs have less than three months to reach an agreement on a potential settlement, or judges in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court will rule on how the state will make the HBCUs whole for generations of discriminatory treatment. Some estimates suggest that a settlement could be as high as $2 billion in new programs and facilities, faculty, technology, and marketing support to recruit students to the HBCU programs. So why haven't you heard about this landmark federal lawsuit that some have called Brown v. Board of Education 2.0? Here's three reasons why. The Baltimore Sun newspaper has written 53 articles on the lawsuit over the course of 13 years. The Washington Post, only eight. That's less than five articles per year on a landmark federal lawsuit. To put it in perspective, University of Maryland president Wallace Lowe was featured in 28 articles in the Baltimore Sun newspaper regarding the death of a freshman football player in November 2018 alone. Aside from being state employees who probably shouldn't talk about their employers being sued for segregationist practices, three of the four HBCU presidents involved in the litigation following the 2013 verdict have retired in the last two years, but will retire this year. The only president remaining? This guy. Morgan State University president David Wilson, the same HBCU president who organized this video shoot on the same day that hearings were being held in the state capital of Annapolis regarding legislative support for the HBCU lawsuit. Everyone never knows what they're going to walk into until they walk into it, so I believe going into today's hearing that we were going to have a larger crowd than what we had. Why didn't Resonator permit? I don't know. We've been talking in the legislative blackhawks about this since the beginning of session. I letting people know that we're going to have some legislation that the legislation was going to be coming, and what happened is I don't know. Well, you're a far more distinguished brother than I am, so I don't have any problems saying part of the issue is that this is something that has to be driven by our campus leaders, and it's regrettable to say that the president of Montmartre, David Wilson and Morgan State was rapping today, rapping in the yard when we should have been getting students down there to talk about what matters most. About 100 students from Maryland's historically black colleges, Coppin, Morgan, Bowie and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore gathered in front of the federal courthouse where closing arguments are being heard. It's no secret that HBCU students and graduates are hardwired for protests, but you have to wonder if in Maryland the size and scope of the protests for the HBCU lawsuits have been as effective as those at counterpart institutions have been for a variety of issues over the years since the lawsuits filing. We need more conversation around this lawsuit. We need more energy. We need more protests. We need more massive social media engagement. People yelling in front of the halls of legislature and national support from HBCUs around the country, because if this kind of discrimination can happen here in Maryland, it can happen anywhere before anyone bothers to pay attention.