We know Republicans hate diversity. We see attacks on everything from voting rights to DEI initiatives to teaching accurate American history in schools. Education is, of course, a favorite target for the GOP. In the state of Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee just dissolved the board at the state’s only HBCU, Tennessee State University. The narrative Lee and his fellow Republicans are pushing is that TSU has been suffering from major financial mismanagement. Their only solution is to replace the board of trustees of the state’s  only public historically Black college. However, there claims are not accurate.

A recent audit revealed that NO fraud or malfeasance occurred under the school’s leadership. In actuality, the school has been criminally underfunded for decades. According to the Biden-Harris administration, TSU has been underfunded by about $2 billion, the largest amount of any HBCU. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement, “Unacceptable funding inequities have forced many of our nation’s distinguished historically Black colleges and universities to operate with inadequate resources and delay critical investments in everything from campus infrastructure to research and development to student support services.”