 Welcome and thank you for joining the New America Fellows program for this discussion of Adam Harris is the state must provide why America's colleges have always been unequal and how to set them right. I'm Van Newkirk class of 2020 11th hour fellow and a senior editor at the Atlantic. Thank you to the education policy program for partner on this event. Before we start, we have a few housekeeping notes. If you have questions during the event, please submit them through our q amp a function at the bottom of your screen. And we'll save about 15 minutes at the end for q amp a and the event. And more importantly, copies of the state must provide this wonderful both are available for purchase through our book selling partner solid state books, you can find a link to buy the book on the event page. If you already have one that's great. If you don't have one please get one and if you already have one get another one for family members a great gift. And now for the person of the hour, Adam Harris 2021 national fellow is a staff writer at the Atlantic where he has covered education national politics, since 2018, three long years. He was previously a reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education, where he covered federal education policy and historically black colleges and universities, Adam. Well, thanks so much. I must say before we begin, you have two HBCU grads talking about HBCUs about inequality and education, and about the development of America's higher education system, Adam. My first question for you is, as an HBCU graduate, what's it feel like to have written this book. You know, I, when I set out to write the book actually even before I have the idea of writing about HBCUs I just, they were sort of the family institutions right my mom went to an HBCU my dad went to an HBCU both my sisters went to HBCU and my uncles on to these are the places where these are places that educated my family. And so, you know, to write this book about, you know, the sector of institutions that not only for my family as you know for your family, how important these institutions have been for, for black people, and you know, kind of social socioeconomic mobility in the black community. And I'm talking about the ways that these institutions have historically been, you know, underfunded and discriminated against the while still doing such yeoman's work in an educating black students, particularly in this moment. I don't know it's it's indescribable. So I've been I've known you for years now, I've known how it's been really neat reading the book and seeing a lot of these individual stories that you've been talking about for years, become part of the book. I wonder if there were things that you thought you might like to write about or things that have been on your mind, since you were in school, what are the things that have motivated or inspired you since then. Yeah, you know, at the beginning of the book I write about my experience at an M, you know, having great professors having, you know, a nurturing community around me but also seeing some of other things you know older buildings, you know, our air conditioning you know heat never seemed to be working in the winter. The buses never seemed to be running when it was coldest out you know they were, they were sort of deferred maintenance on campus and all of these sort of different things that I saw and I would drive across town, you know, Alabama Anims in Huntsville, Alabama, and there's another institution other public institution. It's about 10 minutes away University of Alabama Huntsville and I remember going there noticing one their library was open three hours longer to they had newer buildings. And I learned later that they had an endowment that was larger than my own institutions, which, you know, had been open for 75 years longer than the University of Alabama Huntsville had even been an institution. And it was, it was, it was sort of jarring to me and then as I got into covering higher education I knew that I wanted to cover historically black colleges and universities because it felt like there was a story there that was that was being untold or or, you know, a picture of what was going on with the sector wasn't wasn't being told and, and so, as I covered you know federal education policy I really learned the ways that this wasn't, you know by happenstance that that my experience wasn't anomalous. I think that going to an M and going over to you a h and seeing the difference that that wasn't an anomaly but that that was the, you know, very direct result of, of state and federal policy over, you know, over more than a century. That experience of reporting on higher education. I mean, was that kind of validating for you did that help you explain parts of your own experience. You know, and I think what I first learned is over, over the time that an M in particular right and M is an 1890 institution so the 1890s are the institutions that are land grant universities the HBCUs that are land grant university. And for so long, I knew that an M was founded in 1875, but I was like, so what exactly was it about 1890 that was such a such a big deal. And the sort of the easy explanation for it is 1890 is when HBCUs would states received money to help fund HBCUs but as I started poking around and you know you look at an institution like Auburn, which is also a land grant university when you look at an M. There's, there's this vast disparity and resources, even though both of these are land grants. And what I learned was, you know, you go back even further to 1862 when Congress passes the first morale act and so they give states land expropriated land from Native Americans taken through lopsided treaties and murder and violence. And they gave this land to states that they could sell in order to fund an institution but those institutions of course could not be attended by black students and this is, yeah, think about this is the largest investment that the federal government ever made in America's colleges, and, and it was, it was a lopsided investment and so by 1890, you know, there's this acknowledgement that well, you these institutions aren't rolling black students. And, and so, in the second morale act when predominantly white institutions wanted more money. They went back to the government and the government said well, we will give you more money, but you have to at least create a separate institution for black students or at least endow a separate institution for black students. So, you know, not only did those predominantly white institutions have that pot to start with in 30 years to build on that pot, but then they also received additional money, money when when you know the land grant the black land grants were given additional funding. And really, it solidified this idea that that, again, this was not an anomaly that it really validated the idea that that the federal government and state governments have had a hand in not only creating this unequal system that we live with but but also as I reported in the court cases dug through, you know, old records, state audits, you really learned the ways that states and the federal government defended sustain and maintained the system over the last century. I think we do a really good job of in the book is showing how, like you said the roots of this of higher education in America, and this initial investment by the federal government came at a time when it, you know, most black people in the country could have been put to death, just for reading. And that's a really stark and Frank way to put that. It is it. What was your, you know, thinking behind how you portrayed this history. I know it's billed as a history of any quality of higher education but it also doubles as just a pretty good history of higher education. I think what I what I really wanted to do was not only explain the experience of just simply like black colleges but I also wanted to explain how black students were sort of isolated in higher education more generally and the ways that discrimination manifested itself in higher education so I'm not only saying that, you know, HBCUs were discriminated against all foreign states receiving fewer appropriations, but also looking at the ways that states broke apart integrated institution so I look at Berea college you know the first integrated co educational college in the south, and the way that their mission that original mission kind of built out of acts chapter two saying God have made the one blood, all the people of the earth. And the only way that that mission was broken apart was through state action, going back even further to say, to look at the ways that even sort of abolitionist minded scholars at different institutions were unwilling to support black education, looking at the ways that philanthropy also failed black education. And so, like you say, I think too often we think of HBCUs in this way that's like this is sort of a parochial offshoot of higher education as opposed to like an integral part of it and and you know the reason why this book I wanted to make sure this is more holistic and it felt like a more robust look at higher education discrimination higher education as it stands is because it's like, no it's, they are these institutions this sector of institution is doing work and educating a population that the the rest of higher education a lot of higher education does not you know. And I also I look at community colleges because the way that stratification works now is the institutions with the most resources, have the few black students, the institutions with the fewest resources have the most and that includes community colleges in the state like North Carolina, more than 70% of black students in North Carolina, go to the five HBCUs or the community colleges in the state, and so you know I really wanted a robust look at higher education inequality and higher So, as those of you who have read and those of you who will read will probably pick up. I think if I had to identify a single main character in the book. It's actually very college. It's the story of the institution. Why was that particular school and institution and history so important for this larger in there. When I first learned the story of Berea college. It struck me as fascinating because you know, Berea and its founder john fee, you know he actually shows up and some of the, some of the slave narratives in the 1930s when people are saying, you know, formerly enslaved people say that you had john fee this was a true believer this was an actual I was already sort of interested in his story. And the more I learned about the development of that institution and it's it's current iteration right, the fact that it has been tuition free since 1892. The fact that it is, you know, trying to get back to that place you know this was a place that where its founder was literally run out of town before the Civil War by enslavers. And he came back to form an institution integrated co educational institution that was effectively 5050, you know, half white students half black students, until the late 1800s, early 1900s when the state passed the day law which which was aimed at Berea college because it was the only integrated institution there. I've always been really interested in how they clawed back that original mission how, and it hinges in large part on the fact that they had that original mission of equity of equality in the in that in the middle of the century and so, you know, the rest of higher education isn't necessarily built on those same ideals. And so they're having to learn them anew. And so you can kind of look at a place like three and say, it's possible, you know, the, what you're trying to more broadly moved if you're trying to more broadly move towards equity and equality higher education it's actually possible. You have to have that that sort of rooting mission, and I hoped to sort of take that mission throughout the full book. One thing you make really clear is just how, frankly, rare that kind of rooting mission has been in higher education. I think it stands out that very college up until I mean, maybe ever still is one of the few institutions founded on equal education on providing education to people all races at the same time in the same place. And it's one of the few that was not necessarily dragged kicking and screaming into the era of integration or in the case of lots of schools not really drag at all. And it made that kind of why was that mission so rare. Why was it something that we didn't see pop up in more places or at least that it wasn't allowed to flourish in other places. You know, a lot of it, especially for, you know, and of course the mid 19th century so 1850s 1860s you know you you have the violent pro slavery wing and that that's really suppressing any forms of integration or you know equal rights. And then you know as you as southern states start to rejoin the Union you have places like the University of Mississippi that where the professors say they would actually rather reside than to educate a single black student on their campus. And so you use you have that that sort of thread running through running through really the middle of the 19 or the 20th century, until it sort of enters the federal lexicon that you cannot discriminate against students based on based on race and then these institutions are saying, Oh, you know, you have to start looking at our student population with 1% black students 2% black students. And, and, you know, only when that federal policy start to change did institutions start to, you know, really kind of get their act together. But even even in that reality, right institutions sort of remain as segregated as conditions allow so, for instance, a place like Auburn University, which has known, you know, at least since the middle of the 1980s that it has had issues with its enrollment of black students right on the same day that Bo Jackson is named the highest is the best college football player in the country. There, the federal judge says that Auburn is the most segregated institution in the state of Alabama they had about, you know, two or 3% black students at that time, you fast forward to 2002, they have about four or 5% black students but now today they have fewer black students than they did in total number than they did in 2002. And, and so it's like this sort of complacency that states have gotten to, where they just assume that the federal government is not going to investigate these sort of vestiges of discrimination that continues to imbue these systems and, and, you know, the fact that Berea had that original mission and that most institutions did not actually plays a pretty significant role in in the reality that those institutions have today. Another thing I think the state must provide does better than any book I've written a long time is it shows the absolute levels of absurdity and contortion that white institutions had to go through to maintain Jim Crow law. And I think a lot of people as you learn it. It's, it's, you know, you think about water fountains and you think about separate interests is which themselves are absurd levels of dedication to the to the to the form but when you're reading the story of George McLauren and, and you're reading people in classes where they're building literal rails between the students, then it really becomes you see this level of almost I don't want to say comedic because it's not very funny but absurd dedication to preserving this thing. Why were they fighting is hard to preserve it. You know, it's, it's interesting and I'm glad you pointed to George McLauren story because, you know, there was one point where Thurgood Marshall comes down to Oklahoma to see where George McLauren is he's like that man was sitting that man is sitting in the hallway. And you have, you have other students in class learning and, and it really is this sort of dedication to to segregation and oftentimes like the University of Oklahoma said well, our hands are tied because the state law says that you know we have to maintain segregation so we have to, you know, figure out ways to segregate with and also abide by what the Supreme Court is telling us. But, you know, even so the first major decision the first kind of major higher education decision came down. The late 1930s in the games case and they said that states at least needed to provide a separate option for black students in the state, which is actually remarkable that you end up having, you know, able to least simple Fisher's case and George McLauren's case, because those cases are proved positive that even after the Supreme Court said you at least need to have a separate option that states weren't even creating a separate option. And so it was really, it was really this sort of commitment to to maintaining this inequality that that I think that, you know, we often sort of gloss over and and it's like, you know, okay, the slavery happened and then you have the 1314 to 15 and then things change a little bit, but then you have Jim Crow, and then you have Brown v Board of Education but but in the meantime, there were all of these little things that were happening all of these ways to preserve the status quo that institutions were not just sort of passive partners in but that they were active participants in. And, and, you know, in a lot of ways, it's sort of proof positive of this the way that these institutions need to atone for for the ways that they were active participants and in that system of segregation. Yeah, one of the things that I am was really impressed by in reading was just how in the playbook of every single institution dedicated to segregation. was such an important part of the package. And it seems to me, especially when you think about the actual instructions on the order that came with Brown v Board. There has not been, even now, a whole lot of deliberate speed in creating any sort of just or equal environment and one thing you do really well in the book is show that in every single juncture even outside of these really big cases outside of place to be Ferguson outside of Brown v Board and outside of the fight for affirmative action. It takes positive, difficult action from black folks and from advocates of black folks to force those institutions hand and forcing the move. Was it ever. I don't know frustrating for you. I mean, anytime you were, you're having to think about the levels, you know, and extent that folks had to go to, I mean, I was most affected, you know, writing about Lloyd games and researching about Lloyd games because you really see the toll that it not only that it was on people, you know, the levels that they had to go to in order to fight for basic rights, you know, he was just trying to go to law school in the state where he lived. And, you know, he, their build their places on the University of Missouri is campus named for him now, but he was never able to step foot on that campus, and it is it was incredibly frustrating. But also, like there's there's always a piece of it that's like, yes, I know that, you know, we come from a legacy of people who really fought for their rights but, you know, knowing that they should not have had to do all of that they should not have had to give up all of these years of their life fighting for something that that is a basic right of theirs. You know, he was just trying to continue his education, Ada Louise simple Fisher, which is trying to continue her education, you know, she started that fight 1945 and wasn't, you know, enrolling in the University of Oklahoma's law school until 1950. You know, the airs case right it started in 1975 you don't get to a settlement until 2001, and even that settlement is incomplete so the amount of time that people had to spend fighting for for basic rights. You know, it was her a lot of times where you know you just kind of have to stop and take a breath and go walk around the house and play with the kids because it can get incredibly frustrated. So I want to remind everybody before I ask my next question that the q amp a form is open if you have any questions, and you want me to ask them in the last 15 minutes of this event just put them down in a form on zoom. One of the. If you haven't read again, one of the things about the book that is also interesting and striking is you tell it, you tell the story of higher education through what are really a bunch of small biographies. Is it important for you to center these stories of people in this larger big, you know, clash of institutions and forces. It was in part because I think we often, we often think of higher education is like this abstract thing. And it's in the same way that people. They don't like higher education but they love their local college right because they see their local college they can connect to their local college they're the personal stories their friends their family that attended their local college. And I think that our tendency to make higher education abstract really pulls away from our ability to see the people who who make up higher education and who have fought to make higher education more equitable. I wanted people to be able to to connect with with those people with their stories right, so I could I could have written about, you know, okay the more elect past and Iowa was the first state to accept the land grant and this is how Iowa State was formed and it didn't enroll any black students and, you know, move on to the next thing but you, I can also give you the first black student who enrolled at Iowa State what the experience was like for him. For George Washington Carter is the first black student to enroll at Iowa State and and he doesn't enroll there until 30 years after they accept the land grant and only because the federal government is like, Well, you either need to create a separate school for black students or enroll black students in your university. And so, I think, you know, the importance of stories the importance of, you know, connecting that on a sort of human level with with the people. And I really wanted the humans to sort of shine through and in the book. Now I know you've been reporting on all this for a very long time. And you know all the ins and outs you probably knew the rough shape of the book would take take for a long time. But is there anything that you came across while you were researching and reporting that surprised you. Yeah. So a couple of things. I mean, we talked a little bit about like the lengths that states went to to maintain segregation. So, like the little details so when, when the state of Oklahoma and the federal government's Supreme Court's like, Well, you guys need to create at least a separate law school for a loose official or enroll her at the University of Oklahoma School of Law, the government created a law school in five days. You know, they said, Okay, we're going to use a floor of the Capitol building and we're going to hire three part time professors for what will be full time work and we're going to create a curriculum and this is going to be equal to the school that's been around for 50 years. And even when you know you sort of know intellectually that states were going, you know, as far as they could to stymie black education, it's jarring to see the kind of at a granular level, like that in practice. You know, even if I knew the broad outlines of the day law I knew the broad outlines of you know how state segregated education to see up close and to dig in the archive see what people are saying in the newspapers in the early 1900s about why they're doing something was was remarkable and then again to see the ways that states and the federal government has studied their underfunding of HBCUs in particular. For years and years. So to see that, you know, they've studied this, and they've known about these issues, and then they just sort of let them sit and let the institutions languish. And they did a study of Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute now Kentucky State University in the early 1900s. And so the fact that, you know, you still see some of those same problems today that that you know this research is coming down was identifying in the early 1900s is really galling and was jarring to see as I was researching the book. One of the people who gets a little bit of the biographical treatment in the book is Carter G. Woodson. And it made me think about the lineage, the tradition really to which this book belongs there's been a lot of scholarship a lot of work, situating black education as kind of the cornerstone, or maybe not the cornerstone but the thing around which all of the rest of the education policy is built and influenced on whether that's positive or, or in segregation negative. How does it feel for you now to be a published part of that tradition have something where your children where people who are going to be attending universities can are going to be able to go to libraries and check out for years and generations to come. Um, you know, it was, it was while I went to the bookstore on pub day, and I saw the book there it's like, you know, you know, people can buy this my, my brother went to, you know, Barnes and Noble in Ohio and picked up the book and did a Facebook live. And so that that part of it in itself is this kind of surreal but but thinking about this this more general intellectual tradition. This book would not be possible without the work of scholars of journalists of researchers, you know, past who have really cataloged and thought critically about about black education about education policy and as you say, right. If, if we are to move towards a more equitable education policy in America, not only in higher education but also K 12, you know, the foundations of that can really hinge on whether or not the most, you know, marginalized minoritized populations in those spheres are being treated equitably. So, I don't know, situating, situating this book, you know, and having it in conversation with, you know, with these titles that you know I grew up with and is is is remarkable and I think that my hope is that this book can at least you know, speak to someone so that they might want to kind of take up the mantle from here and and dig in a little bit deeper. And so to kind of continue this this conversation. Again, I don't want to give away too much about the book, although I mean I think you all kind of know where this ends. Unfortunately, the status quo is there's been a lot written about it, we know that it's not just talking about the legacy white supremacy and segregation we're talking about very real structures that still exist. And in some ways are even more powerful and intractable today so I'm sorry if you came to this session and didn't know that. But I'm sorry to spoil that for you, but I do want to point out one part of the book that did that got me to thinking a little bit. And I'm still going over and over again in my mind. During George McLaurin's fight to integrate the University of Oklahoma. One thing one of the officials in opposition to him said and I'm reading from the book. It says, he argued that desegregation would make discrimination by individuals more robust and intense. He argues and I think it's kind of, you know, it is obviously a self serving argument that the state and illegally enforcing segregation was not trying to humiliate and degrade McLaurin. Instead it was doing his black citizens a favor. Now we can toss aside the part that's obviously self serving for the state. We can toss aside, but this argument that the legal enforcement legal creation of segregation kept sort of individual level racism at Bay that seems like a sort of accidentally profound observation in some sense. So if you look at school systems today that I've created a de facto segregation that is as strong in many cases, as Jim Crow was, I don't really have a question behind that. Just an observation I thought was that got me to thank you. And it's been interesting to see the ways that the cycle. It's almost like the momentum that the system of segregation had is sort of perpetual right there. There's still several states that haven't proven to the federal government that they have desegregated their higher education systems in part because of how they treat their privileges in part because of things like unnecessary program application and all these kind of wonky things but at their at their root, you know, it kind of comes back to enrollment it comes back to finances and it's, it's, it's been interesting over the last several years to see how you've created this sort of increasing stratification, where, you know, resources and higher education like I said are sort of concentrated in these institutions that tend to have the fewest black students and, you know, until there is a concerted effort to break that cycle, you know, an effort that is strong as the moment momentum from segregation that was pushing this kind of pushing against it. You know, I fear that we won't have. There won't be that that sort of genuine equity and equality that that you know one might hope for and the higher education system. In the past few years, we have seen in the past couple years, a spike in enrollment in some HBC use we've seen things like mega donors like Mackenzie Scott, who is giving millions and millions of dollars institutions. We've seen what appears to be a moment for black college attendees and graduates in the last couple years, but that sits kind of uneasily with how your book ends when we talk about the clock that's ticking that's due next year for Mississippi for funding in Mississippi. How do you square your conclusions on the policy and the piece and what most people would say is a feel good era right now for HBC use at least. Yeah. 2020 was a record year for a lot of HBC use in terms of philanthropic giving in terms of attention this year right HBC user expecting about $3 billion and you know at a typical year across about 15 programs they get about $1 billion from the federal government so you know it is a sort of a moment that HBC user in the spotlight they have not been in the spotlight like this for a sustained period like this in the past but I also the reason I mean one of the reasons why I'm hesitant to look at last year's philanthropic giving you know this is this is fantastic. It was in part because you know an institution like my own wasn't the recipient of you know one of those large gifts there are a lot of HBC use they were not recipients of those large gifts. And on top of that, you know in 2021 the Chronicle of Philanthropy has this database of, you know the largest donations period but also to colleges and universities. If you look at that list this year, you know the top 100 gifts gifts about $5 million there, maybe one or two of them that are to historically black colleges and universities. And so, you know, the idea that that one year was going to address this historical pattern of segregation is, is, I think that we would, it would be to the sector's detriment and it would also be a sort of fallacy if we were to understand what happened last year as as changing the entire narrative of course there's some HBC use that are that are thriving in this moment. But they are thriving in spite of that historical discrimination not not sort of because things have changed so radically that everything is okay. I'm coming with the ultimate conclusions in the book because I think it what you show in the end is essentially the system is held together and moved by every couple years these band-aids right these, you get infusion of funding from a lawsuit you get a breakthrough in a lawsuit for inclusion, you get a have hearted affirmative action mandate from the federal government. On what level do you think we should be thinking as if we really want to. I guess it's a little bit too bad to say create equality, but to actually address some of these structural inequality. Yeah, I think, you know, on one level, it's important for state governments to accept sort of the responsibility for for their role in creating and fostering and equitable systems. It's also on the federal government for creating the environment that allowed right when when Elizabeth Warren was running for president. You know, I spoke with with Heather McGee, and she, she told me something, you know, that was, you know, public policy created the racial wealth gap, and only public policy can fix it. And in a lot of ways public policy is what created, or at least allowed for the system of an equitable education to exist. And so public policy is going to be necessary to fix that. And it's also the responsibility that that some of these institutions have right the institutions that were actively blocking and stymied black education while you know HBCUs were doing the work of educating black students so you look at a state like Mississippi where, you know, the air settlement sort of came and will now be going phasing out the black colleges got $500 million over 17 years between three institutions. And you know, Mississippi can make $500 million and you know five years of private donations. And if you go back to the 1800s and mid 1800s when University of Mississippi was keeping black students out and you look at a place like all corn state that was educating those black students in 1871 they're supposed to get a guaranteed appropriation for a decade of $50,000 a year. Years later when the, you know, the so called redeemers sweep in and with their quote unquote white revolution. They reduced that appropriation to $15,000 a year, then next year $5,500 a year. And so you sort of see the ways that that inequality is sort of stacked up. So you start to ask yourself, well, do not only state and federal governments have a sort of role and making this system more equal but also do, do these institutions that profited and flourished in the era of slavery and segregation do they have a responsibility to help the institutions that that served black students when they would. I want to remind the audience, I'm going to go to Q amp a shortly so if you do have any questions, please drop them in the form in zoom. Last couple questions, first of all, the state must provide where's the quote, where's the title come from. So the quote comes from the Fisher a really simple Fisher case, when they said that state must provide an equal education for as soon as it does for for any other student. And that's really the crux of this because as much as this is about, you know, a history of higher education as much as it's in history of HBC as much as it's sort of an examination of inequality. And it's really about that the students because the institutions, you know, exist to serve those those students and, you know, as I write in the introduction, you know, higher education has a dirty open secret it's never given black students an equal chance to succeed and and so the state must provide really grows out of that that notion that the state must provide an equal education for black students as soon as it does for anyone else and and that has not been a practical reality. Now, last question from me and then I will turn it to our q amp a here. One of the really elemental things that moved me when reading was seeing all these stories of going back to what we talked about before, you know, this story begins in an era when black folks could have been put to death for reading. But they read, and yet they learned and yet in the span of a couple years after the end of slavery, there were several institutions of higher education, not only run for them but run by them. You saw a really unprecedented proliferation of education of the quest for education among people from its seems so dangerous and difficult to seek that attainment. So as we go into the audience questions is, has that has seen all those stories has living and seeing through all those people's eyes has it made a mark on you. And, you know, I don't think questions about hope and optimism or a little, you know, not for me, but what is what do those stories mean to you. I think, you know, they really they really show the resilience of black people through through time I mean, and, you know, fast forwarding to now, I often think about what folks have been through. So the amount it took to sort of fight for for basic rights and and knowing that in some ways this book is a continuation of that that sort of push for for equity and equality and higher education and I think that for me. As I was reporting this book out as I was digging into the archives, I really got a sense of, you know, okay, I'm staying up a little bit late at night to finish writing but but, you know, not too long ago right you know, my grandfather's grandfather's generation. You know, this would have not this not this wouldn't have been a possibility for them. And so it's like knowing what we've been through knowing that, you know, states would literally, you know, you could literally be killed for being found with a book. And for a period of time they wouldn't even allow black people to read the Bible, because they feared a revolution, if black people were reading. And I think it for forecasting for and I think that it really shows that even after I'm gone the fight kind of continues to sort of push for for equity and equality continues. And it's almost kind of comforting knowing that but it's also a little bit knowing that it's been going on for so long is in some ways depressing so there's like this this mix of like, like, knowing that it's been going on for so long is kind of depressing but also knowing that people have dedicated their lives to this and continue to fight actually does sort of provide a form of hope. So I have an audience question that will segue directly from that response which is from Alex and it's what readings or writers inspired you the most while writing. So, a couple. I think at the root is like the boy I read black reconstruction and sort of his examination of sort of the education pieces of that and then also, you know, reading and really kind of digging in deeply to the ideas around education and how people are thinking about black education in the early night as you know, the Atlantic archives are full of, you know, the debates between the boy and Booker T Washington and thinking about, you know, on the trainings of black men and you know, casting forward thinking about the writings of Carter G Woodson on black education, and then even more, more currently, there's really great histories of HBC use that I actually have on my shelves here. So like, Bobby love it. America's historically black colleges and universities and narrative history from 1837 2009 was massive. The origins of federal support and higher education really sort of helped me kind of cement some of the ideas around the ways that the Morrill Act was structured and how the federal government got involved and has stayed involved in higher education now that sort of excluded black students so I think there were a range of folks who I was leaning on as I said it's sort of, you know, even even up to now, Catherine Wiedel's dissertation on on the second Morrill Act, you know, from the Lumina Foundation incredibly helpful and helping me think about you know, the ways that the federal government has as sort of stymied black education, even as it was sort of, you know, creaking the door open right it was never willing to kind of throw the door wide open what it would at least sort of unlock it. So now question from Vanessa Vanessa says thank you for this conversation. I am really enjoying Adam's book and wanted to ask him, given the incredible resistance to integrated higher education. How long do you think we'll be we'll be living with this legacy of stolen public resources. I think as long as in some ways right so the late 1960s early 1970s through court action, the federal government really started enforcing its policies on discrimination and higher education systems. And so, until there is an environment where where states realize that they cannot kind of continue this, this cycle that has momentum of sort of believing that the federal government will not strictly adhere enforce these laws that are on the books that bar discrimination I think that we will continue to see, you know, the state sort of be complacent right there. There are a couple of ways that states can get out of a federal monitoring and one of them is through these these settlements that we talked about a little bit earlier. So Maryland is recently settled with his HPC use. They offer $577 million over 10 years but between four colleges, and we really start to do the math it's like okay 10 years it's like all right that's, that's $57 million a year $57.7 million a year. And so when you really start to break that down you see how, you know, if that's supposed to make up for a legacy of the vestiges of discrimination that's going to be wholly insufficient. And so until you start to have a real accounting for for, you know, the damage that has been done and the fact that these institutions have been able to persist and and produce successful graduates and educate, you know, black people in spite of this this sort of regime the Jim Crow regime they lived under is is a testament to the institutions but also should be a a sort of wake up call to say that what with these institutions have been able to done if they were provided with the resources they were just supposed to receive. And I think the more we we ask these questions the more we have these conversations. You know, the better off we will be in the long run maybe the more we'll move towards it sort of equity. What are some of your favorite sources to work with in your research and your reporting. Newspapers. So I really enjoyed digging through digging through old newspapers and, you know, you always have to figure out the political bent of the new sources and you know, you would read like the Utah Wagon observer and then you would go over and read like the Utah Democrat they would have two completely different perspectives. And you really kind of had to to square it down and pair it down to okay what's what is the base roots of this where where's this paper coming from. I really liked digging into the news archives because you would always and on top of like finding the interesting thing that was relevant to the book you know you and and inevitably run across an interesting story like, you know person throws 13,000 pound boulder like across the Mississippi or you know, but you would run into these interesting stories I really liked working with newspaper archives but I also like digging through Supreme Court records that the just over at the Library of Congress and seeing like the internal conversations that the justices were having about affirmative action seeing the letters that were flying back and forth where you know Thurgood Marshall says that you know what this case hinges on when he's talking about the Bakke case is, you know, it really just on whether you think of this as, you know, we're keeping students out, or whether you're thinking about it as students who have historically been excluded, you know, getting it you know, and you know the way that he and before their justices thought about that case was, it was about people getting in. These are people who institutions have not enrolled to have institutions have actively kept out of these seeds. And so, yes, it will take some time we need to take race into account in order to get past race right exact same thing that was written in the Atlantic in 1977 right in order to get past race you must first take a counterface. And so to see that working with those archives was was really interesting and illuminating for the book. All right, we have a question from Anna, and asks, what lesson does the educational model of HPC use offer for the non HPC use that now educate a majority of black students in higher education today. I think so Jelani favors has a really great book is shelter in a storm. And, you know, he talks about the sort of second curriculum that HPC students often receive that it's not just about the, you know, learning the arts and the sciences and all of this but it's, it's about learning how to navigate in the world how to navigate the sort of dearth of resources you might receive how to navigate navigate the job market and how to navigate racism. And not from a place of okay we're going to throw you into an environment where you're just going to face racism but but really sort of nurturing the students and I think, the sort of emphasis that sort of mentorship that students get from HPC us oftentimes right I am sure you had this this experience where, you know, I remember they were days where I would just walk over to the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the time, hang out with professors and talk, and like just kind of sit in their offices, not during office hours, because it was sort of built into the mission of the institution that these were, these were places where, you know, that sort of extra mentorship was was not peripheral to the job of the HPC progress but it was it was sort of almost central to that position. And, you know, you have to think about what the rest of higher education is right now where you have a series and I mean of course this is also user issues that face HPC as well. But, you know, the sort of emphasis on, you know, getting to getting to the next level, and then also the racism that black professors are facing at their, at their institutions where it's like, you know, I'm also trying to navigate racism within within my institution while trying to help students and it becomes this additional burden. So, so I think the more work that institutions can do to make themselves, you know, more equitable not just for students but for faculty, better working environment for faculty so that they they can do that extra kind of that extra work and then also kind of compensating for that extra work. I think that the better off those institutions will be as well as the students who attend them. In addition to that, you know, a large share of black students now are at community colleges. And so the more states can do to fund community colleges provide resources to community colleges so that, you know, they can have those additional supports that students need in order to be successful, the better off students and those institutions will be. Yeah, I named my kid after one of the presidents of my PCU so I'm all in on the sort of extra extra legacy of them. Benjamin Elijah. Yeah. What's one thing you wish you knew understood better before you started the book. I think, you know, the process of writing the book or, you know, writing a book generally is advantage, you know, it's kind of like, it's an exploration. And, you know, you never know what you, what you don't know until you, you know that you don't know it, or you didn't know it. And so, you know, all of the little things as I mentioned a little earlier kind of about the extent that states went to, you know, Oklahoma rushing to law school into existence in five days. You know, what a reintegration of Berea College look like how an institution that had this original mission sort of reclaims that mission after integration. I think all of those, all of those little things. I think, I think, added to the experience of writing the book and in some ways made the experience a, you know, pretty fruitful and interesting learning experience for me too. So I hope that that readers, I hope that in my writing that readers can sort of get that, you know, it's always this was this was a learning experience for me too and I tried to pour as much of what I learned into into the book. And the last question I'll say this one for me before we wrap up. Who is your ideal reader who do you hope gets their hands on this book the most. Yeah. So I mean of course you hope that policymakers read this book you hope that college leaders read this book. But really, I hope that anyone interested in history anyone interested in understanding the ways that, you know, the machinations of slavery and Jim Crow and the systems that they created did not sort of. When overt, you know, did you're a discrimination did they did not end when slavery ended. But people who are interested in understanding how a system of higher education, the colleges higher education that that you know the founders are really talking about higher education is the place to build a good citizen. How over time, black people have been systematically excluded from the greatest benefits of that. So, honestly, anyone who was generally interested in in that sort of accounting of history, I'd hope we read the book. Well, Adam, thank you so much for joining us I know you have a very busy week so thank you for taking the time. Thank you to everyone who joined us on the zoom today, and there's still time, please go and order a copy of the book at solid state books, even if you already have a copy get another one. Thank you all for coming and see you later. Take care.