Statement of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education on Supreme Court Decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. vs Harvard; and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. vs University of North Carolina, et al.

CONTACT: DR. C.A. PAGE, CRLPG@AOL.COM
(202) 552-3300

Today’s decision by the US Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et.al., prohibiting the use of race as  one of many factors in college admissions to ensure an excellent, diverse student body, and a robust exchange of ideas and experiences, is a major setback for higher education, democracy, and justice in America. It was anticipated, however, in this climate of ultra-partisanship and increasingly un-democratic actions.

It defies logic that one would have a disease, and try to cure it but be prohibited from focusing on the disease itself . If someone has cancer, for example, focus must be on a cancer-specific remedy.  De jure or intentional race discrimination is the disease that has resulted in vestigial impacts of the disease today, in the form of race deficits in education, employment, socio-economic strata, wealth, health, housing, environments, justice, and so many other arenas. Since race exclusion is  a major cause of  the racial deficits in America, the problem must be attacked by considering race. among a host of other factors the Supreme Court has found acceptable under the U.S. Constitution,  time and again, under right-leaning-majority Courts and left-leaning-majority Courts. To remedy the race deficits flowing from the race-based intentional exclusion of African Americans,  and the  vestigial impact on their progeny requires a race-based remedy.  To cure race and ethnicity-deficits in America, we must root out its causes and cut down its branches. We must consider race in remedying the race deficits in America.

The Court argues anew that which the High Court addressed, and provided an exception decades ago in Bakke and  succeeding cases. The High Court found in those cases in  which an entire race of people was denied access to the opportunities and bounty of America based solely on their race,  remedial actions that consider race among other factors, could be considered in remediating the de jure discrimination and its lingering vestigial impacts if the remedy is narrowly tailored to meet a compelling governmental interest.

It defies logic to suggest that the race deficits in America should be addressed on a case-by-case-basis, by the thousands of Black students who seek admissions to colleges that understand the educational value of a richly diverse student body and take affirmative steps to seek out, enroll, and retain a diverse student body. Such an approach is as counter intuitive as it was to attempt to address coronavirus on a case-by-case basis, months on end, while tens  of thousands of Americans were being compromised by the disease, and worse.

HBCUs are equal opportunity institutions and were founded for those who were left out of the American higher education systems because of their race. They are non-racial, non-MSI, mission-based institutions that have been educating Blacks and disproportionate percentages of others who were locked out of participation in American education institutions based on race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, and other non-bona fide criteria. They have also become the institutions of choice for increasing numbers of students and families who believe in the values of HBCUs: excellence, faith, family, fortitude, service and leadership. With no race or no ethnicity criterion, HBCUs on average have student bodies that are more than 30% non-Black.

Many universities have more students drawn from the top 1% of the income distribution than the bottom 40% of the income distribution, e.g., example, University of Virginia, Washington University- St. Louis, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. HBCUs have the highest share of students from families with incomes in the bottom 20% of the income distribution and do better than average for American colleges of moving those students to the top 20% of the income distribution. HBCUs are the best return on higher education dollars. Just 3% of American colleges are   graduating I on 5 Black engineers, 42% of Blacks with advanced degrees in STEM, and 1 in 7 Black medical school graduates, and more than 50% of Black law school graduates. See Blacks in STEM: Understanding the Issues, by Dr. William E. Spriggs, NAFEO Senior Economist.

As the nation’s only national membership and advocacy association for all HBCUs and PBIs dubbed “The Voice for Blacks in Higher Education,” NAFEO, for more than forty years has represented the HBCUs in litigation, to encourage more equitable resource investments in HBCUs aligned with their missions and return on investments. It has provided voice for the HBCU Community in diversity cases, challenged the disparities in funding between public historically White higher education institutions and public historically Black institutions.  NAFEO deplores the Court’s action today and recommits to continuing to educate, agitate, collaborate,  motivate and forge ahead with the modification of policies that are inimical to diversity and democracy. Having fostered diverse student bodies without consideration of race or ethnicity for more than forty years, NAFEO vows to continue providing  guidance to the higher education community, policy makers and shapers with regard to best practices.   NAFEO will use today’s set-back as a set-up for a come-back  and a restoration of the law as it existed  prior to today’s Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., Supreme Court decisions, threatening excellence and diversity in higher education, threatening to retard efforts to close the racial deficit in higher education, employment, socio-economic status wealth, health, housing, and justice.

NAFEO is intrigued by the notion of using “lineage” as an immediate non-racial substitute for “race consciousness,” to root out the disease of  race deficits primarily resulting from  de jure or intentional race discrimination.

NAFEO thanks and aligns with the extremely thoughtful and compelling dissenting opinion of the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Jackson, also the first Black female Supreme Court Justice. NAFEO will immediately lead its members, policy shapers,  and others in discussion about how to broadly position and leverage much of what Justice Jackson included in her dissenting opinion. It aligns  with that which NAFEO included in its Supreme Court amicus curiae brief  in the Bakke case, on behalf of NAFEO, the HBCUs and PBIs,  National Black Caucus of State Legislators, and the National Bar Association, referenced  in the opinion of Justice Thurgood Marshall. We will also lead discussions about the pros and cons of advancing the notion of using “lineage” as a substitute for race in diversity cases.  Stay tuned, and join us!

Lezli Baskerville
President & CEO
National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO)
Member, Biden-Harris Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans
20-plus years as Constitutional Justice Lawyer; Equal Educational Opportunity and Equal Employment  Opportunity Litigator
(202) 552-3300
LBaskerville@nafeo.org

Juneteenth 2023 Call to Action
to Clarify What HBCUs Are and Are Not

NAFEO Nation, America’s HBCUs and PBIs, Salutes and Bids Farewell to Dr. William E. Spriggs, Its 30-Year Pro Bono Senior Economist, and America’s Quintessential Justice Economist

Lezli Baskerville, President & CEO of NAFEO, John Pierre, Chancellor of the Southern University Law Center and Chair of the NAFEO Policy, Advocacy & Law (PALs) Presidential Work Group, and the HBCU and PBI communities, extend our deepest sympathies to Bill’s wife, Jennifer, and his son, William, who frequently attended the annual NAFEO Presidential Peer Seminar where Bill spoke, and became part of the “NAFEO Nation.”

Armed with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College cum laude and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bill became a Justice Economist par excellence, a champion of HBCUs, people of color, working people, and people marginalized by American systems, including economic systems, theories and approaches that kept those of least advantage as second class citizens. The majority of the policy documents NAFEO advanced and supported were influenced by his keen eye, his knowledge, and insight as the best justice economist in the world.

Dr. Spriggs served as a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute where he used his position, voice and passion to keep the economic plight of those of least advantage central in the discussions. From 1988 to 2004, he served as Executive Director of the National Urban League’s Institute for Opportunity and Equality, where among other duties he was editor of the State of Black America 1999, the nation’s seminal publication on the economic and social status of diverse segments of the African American community, and the opportunities to further strengthen Black America. While serving at the Urban League, Dr. Spriggs led research on pay equity that won the NUL the 2001 Winn Newman Award from the National Committee on Pay Equity. Bill represented the NUL on various boards including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Black Leadership Forum and the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation. His research and strategic thinking were so valuable that he was asked to serve on the Black Leadership Forum, a national association of the presidents and CEOs of the nation’s leading black advancement associations, even though he was not a president or CEO of a kindred association. Bill gave congressional testimony on behalf of the NUL, on how various policies would affect Black and low-income communities, and participated in the UN World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance. He contributed language adopted in the Programme of Action relating to documenting racial disparities and incorporating closing racial disparities within efforts to achieve the Copenhagen goals for World Social Development.

Bill was our dear friend and Brother, a brilliant justice economist, who used his all to level the playing fields in America, with quantifiable favorable results. Bill walked humbly through life, loved justice, and meted out mercy.

Farewell Dr. Spriggs, we thank you. We love you and we’ll see ya on the other side. Good night Sweet Prince, and bands of angels sing thee to thy rest.

With profound gratitude and appreciation,

Lezli Baskerville, Esquire
President & CEO
NAFEO
Work Group

John Pierre, Chancellor
Southern University Law Center
Chair, NAFEO Policy, Advocacy & Legal (PAL)

Juneteenth Letter From Dr. Lezli Baskerville, President & CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education to the 700,000 HBCU & PBI Students 2023

Today, June 19 (known as Juneteenth) , as we celebrate the abolition of slavery in Texas, fully two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, four months after passage of the Constitution’s 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, and two months after Robert E Lee surrendered, we are lifting those of you who are continuing to advance the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Lose the Noose Movement, any movement for educational, economic, employment, environmental, housing, health, justice, or to protect First Amendments rights, the reproductive rights of women, and the rights of others to go an come as they please unhindered or interfered with because of their religion, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, self-identity (others). We are lifting those of you who are working indefatigably to protect democracy in America against tremendous odds, and especially to protect the most fundamental of our rights, the right to vote and to have every vote duly cast, counted.

As President and CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, NAFEO, I am so proud that in every state, HBCU and PBI students have joined with other students and young adults in leading or supporting the launching of the Twenty-first Century revolution that is being televised, and “social media-rized,” thereby swelling and internationalizing the ranks of those on the right side of history as never before. Your HBCU and PBI education and training grounds are well equipped to arm you with what you need to move the Nation closer to realizing the Egalitarian Ideal, and making the world more peaceful and just.

HBCUs and PBIs remain at the creative forefront of American education, offering the tools and skills necessary to prepare students to promote peace at home and abroad; secure our communities and our homeland; meet pressing global and community health care needs; fight injustice with the power of ideas; close the achievement, economic, wealth, and health gaps; and open doors of opportunity to those who are ill-served by many of the systems in our communities and the Nation.

You, my Sons and Daughters, knew where and how to lead today’s revolution because at your college or university, you are receiving not only vital academic preparation, but you are being trained in education, liberation, economics, theology, technology, and justice. Your faculty are preparing you to leverage your discipline to move individuals and communities of least advantage to higher ground. No matter what you are studying, faculty on your campus want you to understand that the degree you receive must not only be used to improve your quality of life and that of your families, but must also be leveraged for the good of the whole.

Since their inception, HBCUs have been fertile germination, organization, and training grounds for every Twentieth and Twenty-first Century movement for civil rights, social and economic justice. Recall the “Mighty Men of Morehouse” who rose to lead the national civil rights movement and international movements for peace and justice; Medgar Evers, for whom Medgar Evers College, CUNY, is named, an alumnus of Alcorn State University who helmed the Mississippi NAACP and was gunned down while organizing voter registration campaigns in the State; Ella Baker who as a student at Shaw University in 1960, founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the precursor of the student justice associations of today, and one of the most influential organizations of the Civil Rights Movement.

There were the North Carolina A & T students whose sit-in at the segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter launched the national sit-in movement; the “Legal Eagles” from Howard University worked around the clock without the benefit of computers, dictaphones, the Internet, or sleep to prepare compelling district, circuit, and Supreme Court briefs in every landmark civil rights and social justice case since the period just after the Civil War. The University of the District of Columbia students swelled the ranks of protesters at the South African Embassy until Apartheid crumbled. Countless other HBCU students, faculty staff, and alumni have been shaping, advancing, and supporting the efforts to prod the creation of a more just, equitable, and peaceful world. Today, Attorney Justin Hansford, CEO of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University School of Law and an elected member of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent for 2022-2024, just used that international forum to raise the issues of reparations and racial justice.

HBCU/PBI students, I am so proud of you every day, but especially today as you continue to be the heart and soul of the movements for civil and human rights, economic justice, and a peaceful and just society. Do not grow weary of fighting for justice ‘for in due season, we will reap the harvest if we don’t give up.’ The organized and strategic actions of HBCUs and PBI students who preceded you in leading the movements of their time, yielded among other things: the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the Fair Housing Act of 1968; the crumbling of Apartheid; the passage of environmental justice laws; and just recently, the protection of the employment rights of LGBTQ workers, and the protection from deportation of our brown and black Brothers and Sisters who are also DREAMers. Remain focused, determined, strategic, courageous, optimistic, resilient, passionate and persevering. NAFEO and I are here to support you in any manner of means.

Biden Appointee, Education Leader Addresses Medgar Evers Grads

Lezli Baskerville, a renowned attorney and education advocate, addressed Medgar Evers College’s 860 2023 grads

Emily Rahhal, Patch Staff
Posted Thu, Jun 1, 2023 at 4:19 pm ET

CROWN HEIGHTS, NY — Attorney and renowned education advocate Lezli Baskerville addressed Medgar Evers College’s 2023 grads, who moved their tassels Thursday and prepared for post-grad life.

Some 860 students walked across the Ford Amphitheater’s stage in Coney Island Thursday morning, reminded by their president of their school’s rich history — “birthed out of the Black community of Central Brooklyn with social justice in its DNA,” said President Patricia Ramsey.
“Graduates, we must remember from whence we come, because we didn’t get here all by ourselves,” Ramsey said. “We must remember to reach back and help others along the way.”

Baskerville, an attorney consistently ranked among the country’s most powerful education advocates, addressed the graduates, pro bono — and left with the school’s Presidential Medal of Distinction.
Baskerville in April was appointed to a Biden-administration advisory commission on increasing educational and economic opportunities for Black Americans.

She helms the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education — which represents historically and predominantly Black education institutionsacross the U.S. including Medgar Evers College.

“As you get ready to receive your final paper from Medgar Evers and move beyond this to your next journey, you’re walking into a challenging environment. You’re walking into a nation which is spiraling downward, it’s in moral decay, unraveling.”
Baskerville too reminded students of the legacy of the school’s namesake, Medgar Evers, known for his powerful civil rights advocacy protesting segregation in education, Jim Crow laws and investigating the lynching of Emmett Till.

“You must continue the work that Medgar Evers began,” Baskerville said. “You must find your love, you must find your passion and meld your passion and your profession… [and] you’ve got to do something to continue Medgar Evers’ dream.”
Baskerville shared with students her love of Central Brooklyn. An advocate for the area, Ramsey said Baskerville was responsible for Medgar Evers’ inclusion in a Congressional hearing on education.

“Life is about the journey, not the destination and you cannot sit it out,” Baskerville said. “If you stay focused and you walk deliberately and collaboratively — you focus not on success but on the significance of your work to others, you will realize a distinguished journey.”

Many speakers, including valedictorian and Senior Class President Sharifa Clarke, addressed the impact of COVID on students’ experience.

“We did not waver in our pursuit of knowledge,” Clarke said. “Here we are. Today we stand here not just as students who completed our undergraduate journey… but as warriors, who faced a challenge unlike any other in recent memory.”

But the many trials of their undergraduate years only better prepare the class of 2023 for a powerful future, she said.

“We have the power to shape a future filled with hope, progress and compassion,” Clarke said.

Eric Edwards, a Brooklyn-native and prolific African art collector, joined students in receiving an honorary doctorate degree. His collection includes over 2,500 artifacts ranging from weaponry to art and instruments.

Thank You, “Doc!” Asante Sana.
Good Night Sweet Prince, and Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest.

Prince Adewole Adebayo, Social Democratic Party (SDC) Candidate for President of Nigeria Convenes Meeting with Top African American Leaders About the Future of Nigeria

(JULY 12, 2022 – WASHINGTON, D.C.)

Nigerian Prince Adewole Adebayo, Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate for President of Nigeria, convened a meeting last week at The Ven Hotel in Northwest, Washington, D.C. to discuss the future of Nigeria with top African American leaders in education and media. Adebayo met with Honorary Ambassador Reverend Dr. George E. Holmes, The Honorable Lezli Baskerville, Esquire, HBS and President and CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), Christina Royster, President and CEO of Big Media Agency, Dr. Ky Dele, Public Relations Liaison, and others to discuss how future opportunities for the people of his country could be created by greater exposure to education.

President Baskerville opined that her views for growing an expanded and enhanced cohort of Nigerians who are educated, innovated, and using their abundant gifts, talents, and other resources to close the economic, wealth, health, sustainability, and justice gaps, address climate change, and grow a stronger more just nation aligns foursquare with that of Prince Adebayo. “The future of Nigeria, Africa in general, and the African diaspora is contingent upon an interdependent and inseparable collaboration among African-Ancestored people worldwide,” she said.

“As institutions of education, innovation, liberation, scientific research, workforce preparation, entrepreneurship, service corps diplomatic, and peace corps preparation, HBCUs are the ideal institutions for moving African-Ancestored people forward, globally. From their inception HBCUs have prepared great African leaders. President Nnande Azikiwe, the first president of Nigeria, and President Kwame Nkrumah, the 1st president of Ghana were molded by Lincoln University, the first degree-granting HBCU.”

“I am especially interested in the wealth development vision of Prince Adebayo,” she continued. “Imagine how we could improve the lot of African-Ancestored people worldwide, if we better leveraged technology, our institutional resources, national and human resources, scientific research, and made more strategic use of our expendable income– $1.3T among Black Americans and the $4T GDP of the countries participating in the Africa Continental Free Trade Area.”

While President Baskerville recounted a very compelling story in the area of collaborative education and economics, others were focused on how to deploy those stories to make them resonate with audiences in dynamic ways that call them to action.

NAFEO SPOTLIGHT: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Takes the Oath of Office to the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022

NAFEO receives generous contribution from the “Tithe the Tithe” program of the Alfred Street Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia.

Alfred Street Baptist Church “Tithe the Tithes” Program:

Alfred Street Baptist Church is in a class of its own in “Walking the Word.” Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley and the Alfred Street Baptist Church have unparalleled children, youth, family, entrepreneurship, and education ministries. Alfred Street Baptist Church has grown its education ministries and service entities into national models, and established a comprehensive pipeline for preparing, inspiring, and connecting students and families with college and opportunity. The focused, strategic hard work, sacrificial giving, and love of Alfred Street is moving hundreds of thousands of both traditional and non-traditional students, thorough college preparation, entry, retention, and completion. Alfred Street has always been an important sustaining benefactor of many HBCUs, but at especially tremendous levels during Katrina, the Great Recession, the Parent Plus Loan debacle, during the height of state disengagement from investments in. higher education, and during this season of coronavirus and its attendant losses. In this year alone, Alfred Street supported NAFEO, Dillard University, Paul Quinn College, Virginia State University, Howard University, other colleges and universities, as well as associations lifting children, youth, students, and adults, and supporting entrepreneurs in many and varied transformative ways. In several instances Alfred Street paid off the student debt at HBCUs to free students to complete, and compete in the marketplace, labor force, service corps, educator corps, entrepreneurship corps, diplomatic corps, and public safety corps, unhindered by student debt. Reverend Dr. Howard-John Wesley and the Alfred Street Baptist Church of Alexandria, VA are engaged in northern Virginia and around the globe in untold strategic, affirmative actions to supplement their faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge. The NAFEO Nation/HBCU Family and extended Circle of Friends are inestimably grateful to Alfred Street Baptist Church. of Alexandria, Virginia.

The Campaign Against Affirmative Action 1998 MLK Day Speech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
–Attorney Lezli Baskerville

The Same Old Bone-The Campaign Against Student Diversity Programs in Higher Education

2020 Letter to the Students for Fair Admissions, their Sponsors, and Supporters

Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard

Lezli Baskerville, President & CEO of NAFEO for The Alliance for Equity in Higher Education