Latest news with #1890NationalScholars
The Guardian
27-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
An uncertain future for agricultural students at Black colleges after Trump cuts: ‘a clear attack'
Dr Marcus Bernard was shocked to learn last week that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had suspended the 1890 National Scholars program that funds undergraduate students' education in agriculture or related fields at about 20 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Bernard is dean of the college of agriculture, health and natural resources at one of those institutions, Kentucky State University. At Kentucky State, close to 40 of the scholars have enrolled since the project's inception in 1992. Nationwide, the program has supported more than 800 students, according to the USDA. The 1890 scholarships have created a pipeline for rural and underrepresented students to pursue studies in fields such as animal science, botany, horticulture, nutrition and forestry. Upon graduation, they're placed in USDA positions around the nation. The news of the program's suspension – explained in a single sentence that briefly sat atop the program's USDA page – sparked a flurry of inquiries at Kentucky State. Bernard said the university had been notified that incoming fall 2025 scholarship selectees would not be funded. Without the federal funds, Kentucky State couldn't pay for those students' education or continue current students' scholarships. Bernard, anxious students and families got some small relief late Monday when the program reopened – a change noted on the website. It said that applications for the scholarship, which gives full rides to the institutions created from federal lands, would be accepted until 15 March. However, the future of the scholarship remains unclear as much of the funding that supports the students' research and fieldwork has been halted. The reopening of the scholarship program also does not necessarily mean it will be funded, said a USDA representative who requested anonymity. The newly reopened application period was 'probably something to appease the public from all the fires that have been lit in the last week', the official said. The move to suspend the scholarships drew criticism from various sources, including the 1890 Foundation, the Association of 1890 Research Directors and the Association of Public Land-Grant Universities. In a statement, the representative Alma Adams of North Carolina called the suspension 'a clear attack on an invaluable program that makes higher education accessible for everybody, and provides opportunities for students to work at USDA, especially in the critical fields of food safety, agriculture, and natural resources that Americans rely on every single day. This program is a correction to a long history of racial discrimination within the land-grant system, not an example of it. I demand USDA immediately rescind this targeted and mean-spirited suspension and reinstate the 1890 Scholars Program.' The participating universities had been founded as part of the second Morrill Act that in 1890 gave federal lands to establish historically Black colleges that specialized in agricultural and vocational education. Alvin Lumpkin was an 1890 South Carolina State University scholar who graduated in 2012. He started as an education major but switched during his sophomore year to study family and consumer studies under the department of agriculture and environmental sciences. He then became eligible to participate in the 1890 program. While he had various experiences as a scholar, one of his most memorable experiences was being a student firefighter. The 1890 Land Grant Institution Wildland Fire Consortium convened students from across the land-grant universities to obtain basic firefighting training skills and were placed in small towns across the south. 'It was students from Alcorn [State University], Fort Valley [State University], South Carolina [State University], and we all went down to [Florida A&M University]. And it was just a beautiful thing to have people from all different fields of study come together and train together,' said Lumpkin. Lumpkin worked for a month with the National Forest Service in Mount Rogers national recreation area. He gained skills in water sampling and treatment; rescue efforts; and strategic field burns, an Indigenous practice of controlled, intentional fire. 'We were on four-wheelers and torched sides of the mountain to burn vegetation so that when lightning strikes, it would not cause a fire,' said Lumpkin. For Kermit Shockley, being an 1890 scholar at Florida A&M broadened his understanding of what was possible for him. As an engineering major, he prepared trails and bridges across the Appalachian Trail during his summers. Alongside Lumpkin, he learned how to lay gravel, clear paths, administer first aid and patrol the forest to act as the first eyes for law enforcement. Lumpkin and Shockley responded to natural disasters such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest accidental marine-based spill in history. 'It was not a 'stand back and watch' moment. It was a 'let me show you, make your mistakes, and let me teach you,'' said Shockley. With the recent mass termination of thousands of National Forest Service and National Park Service workers, 1890 scholars may be relied upon again to help fill the gaps. Both men went into public-service careers. After graduation, Shockley went to work for the Department of Defense at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, decommissioning buildings used to enrich uranium during the second world war. Lumpkin's exposure to law enforcement as an 1890 scholar led him to become an officer with the South Carolina department of juvenile justice. He is now an assistant principal in the Sumter, South Carolina, school district. Lumpkin stressed that the impact on the larger 1890 ecosystem will be profound. 'There's so many programs that are going to be affected by not having 1890 scholars doing research in these communities,' he said. Other education programs have been affected by cuts. Across the 19 land-grant universities, agricultural research and urban agriculture grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and workforce training funding from the USDA's Next Generation of Agriculturalists (NextGen) program have been paused. 'All of this is going to be affected until grants have been unfrozen or until we know whether the grants will be cut completely,' said the USDA official. Aside from the scholarship program, Kentucky State is grappling with another huge loss. Last month, the university was awarded a $1.2m research grant from the 1890 Foundation with funding through the National Forest Service to launch a comprehensive project to increase the tree canopy across Louisville to reduce the impacts of urban heat stress. The funding also prompted the university to launch a robust urban-forestry program. Last week, the university was officially notified that the grant had been terminated. Defunding the 1890 National Scholars program stands to hurt Kentucky and the larger southern region, where most land-grant universities are located, said Bernard: 'We are in communities across the state doing programs that are helping farmers, helping our rural communities, and providing assistance to disaster victims and more.'
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kentucky State student vows to fight for scholarship stopped by Elon Musk, Donald Trump
Editors Note: A few hours after this story was published, the U.S. Department of Agriculture web page on the 1890 National Scholars Program was updated to say the program had been reopened and applications will be accepted through March 15. Growing up on the north side of Lexington, Anthony Jackson Jr. didn't have an agriculture background, but his education at Carter G. Woodson Academy and the Locust Trace AgriScience Center soon changed that. He started in veterinary science, but soon turned to food systems, like how to wrestle with the food deserts in rural and urban America. He was such an exemplary student —with a 4.0 GPA and ACT score of 27 — that as a student at Kentucky State University, he won an 1890 National Scholars program award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Only 94 students at 19 schools currently have the prestigious full-ride scholarship, all of them attending 1890 land grant institutions, sometimes known as Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In his three-and-a-half years at Kentucky State, the program allowed Jackson to intern with the USDA, travel to Rwanda, meet politicians and policy makers and research food systems all over the world. Then this weekend, he was alerted to a message on the USDA site: 'The 1890 Scholars Program has been suspended pending further review.' 'I was shocked,' Jackson told me. He was relieved to find out that USDA authorities believe his scholarship, and those of other current students, will be honored. But now he's worried the program that has supported so many students into important agriculture work will be axed. He's starting a social media campaign to get the program reinstated. As he said in one statement: 'I have promoted the possibilities of my scholarship to so many that I cannot imagine not passing the baton to the next eager scholar ready to feed the world.' Like so many other things right now, the program is a victim of an unelected South African billionaire's slash and burn rampage through the federal government. It's all a game to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, part of what looks like an attempt to purge women and people of color — and the programs that might help them — out of the government. 'Throughout history, African-Americans have been significantly cut out of agriculture,' Jackson said. 'This program gives people who have equal qualifications this platform they need to be successful. I would say that I feel as if every single person who has the scholarship has qualified for the opportunity at hand.' HBCUs were created as part of the Morrill Act of 1890 to force Southern states practicing Jim Crow segregation to offer educational opportunities to Black citizens, who in the post-Reconstruction South, were treated as second-class citizens. Aaron Thompson, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, said it's important to remember that over time, those schools have widely opened up to everyone, along with the 1890 Scholars. 'It's a prestigious scholarship, and these young people are going into essential places that USDA felt were important to nation and the state,' Thompson said. 'So those scholarships have helped tremendously to get more kids interested in agriculture, to be scientists and business leaders.' The USDA website describes the program as being aimed at 'increasing the number of students from rural and under-served communities who study food, agriculture, natural resource and other related sciences. 'Scholars attend one of the 1890 land-grant universities and pursue degrees in agriculture, food, natural resource sciences, or related academic disciplines. The scholarship may also include work experience at USDA.' The Kentucky General Assembly is still trying its own path of eliminating diversity, of course. So far, the bills that failed last year and are back again this session, are mostly aimed at organizational structures like DEI offices in public higher education. But at the federal level, it appears that the DEI purge could be significantly more dire. On Feb. 14, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to get rid of any programs that even might be related to helping historically marginalized groups. The letter said 'Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon 'systemic and structural racism' and advanced discriminatory policies and practices.' Some have concluded these policies and practices could include Black fraternities and sororities, or an Asian club. Or they could start to come after curriculum, like classes in the history of the civil rights movement, which is, in fact, predicated on the very real premise of 'system and structural racism.' 'We want all students to be able to come on our campuses and explore the opportunities we offer to see themselves belonging there,' Thompson said. 'I would not want any law or bill to stop closing gaps, or stop us from the ability to move our state, and all of our students, forward as a whole.' In a way, it's brilliant. Take programs that were aimed at helping historically marginalized people and say instead the programs are discriminatory, not the world itself. In Trump World, there's only room for white men, men like Darren Beattie, a Trump hire in the State Department who wrote on X: 'Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.' That's why we end up with mediocre white men like Pete Hegseth, the least qualified Defense Secretary in U.S. history who just fired the Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Navy's top officer, who is female. But why stop there? If you want to go after expensive programs that get federal funds and help minorities, why wouldn't you go after historically Black schools themselves? It's not hard to see what's going on here. As writer Adam Serwer noted in The Atlantic this week: 'The nostalgia behind the slogan, 'Make America Great Again,' has always provoked the obvious questions of just when America was great, and for whom. Early in the second Trump administration, we are getting the answer.' And the answer is that young people like Anthony Jackson, Jr. are going to pay the price for this cruel war on imaginary demons. Jackson himself will be OK. He'll graduate, get a great job and be an asset in our world by trying to fix food deserts. He's worried about everyone else. As he said, 'DEI doesn't hand out opportunities to the unqualified. It ensures that the qualified individuals, who have historically been excluded, get the recognition, access and opportunities they have rightfully earned. 'I stand firm in my request for Secretary Rollins and President Trump to reconsider this abrupt suspension.'
