ence of HBIs while they also led to some diminution in racial discrimination at southern historically white institutions of higher learning (HWIs) and some amelioration in the conditions at HBIs which resulted from past discrimination.
I. Historical and Legal Background to the Supreme Court's Decision in Fordice. In the states which comprised the old
Confederacy, it was a crime to educate black slaves. During Reconstruction, black colleges and universities, some private, and some public, were established which were funded by a combination of federal aid administered by the Freedmen's Bureau, limited funds made available under the 1862 Morrill Act, 7 U.S.C. sec. 301 et seq. (1994), for land grant colleges, and missionary and other charitable contributions. As, however, white segregationists regained control of southern state legislatures, Jones said education in the HBIs "had less to do with imparting knowledge and more with creating, maintaining, and controlling a subservient labor force." Until 1962 when black James Meredith was admitted to the formerly all-white University of Mississippi (1848) pursuant to a federal court order, it and Mississippi's four other all-white colleges and universities were designed and operated in accordance with a state-sanctioned de jure racial segregation scheme. The only HBI opened in Mississippi in the 19th century was Alcorn State University (1871) which was "an agricultural college for the education of Mississippi's black youth." Ayers v. Allain, 674 F. Supp. 1523, 1527 (N.D. Miss. 1987).
The pattern throughout the South was similar. New HBIs were opened and additional funds were appropriated for them only as a means of forestalling intervention by the federal government on behalf of black college students. HBIs were consistently discriminated against in funding, curriculum, admissions and in other ways during Reconstruction and thereafter. For example, after Congress passed the second ...