Of course, the federal government cannot fundraise for HBCUs, but it can encourage them to pursue private sector grants to support endowment building.
What government can do is offer large tax reductions to corporations which build in economically depressed areas, and which donate to HBCUs to support endowment expansion, programmatic development and better social positioning. .
To support the endowment the city sold four paintings from Patricia's estate for $114 million at Sotheby's on Nov. 9, a move that caused controversy in the art world, in part over whether Still's intentions were being honored.
They can do so because their schools are supported by endowments that allow them to pursue projects as they wish.
Perhaps the most effective strategy might be for wealthy philanthropists to purchase the papers and convert them to nonprofit institutions supported by endowments that could ensure their sustainability, assuming that the IRS is likely to change its current position.
Their tenuous pretensions to succession, based on a legendary marriage to a daughter of one of the last Aksumite kings, the line they deposed, was subsequently confirmed by the church; in return for its support, liberal royal endowments were granted.
Several GOP lawmakers expressed their support for the endowments after Trump's bold proposal that they be eliminated entirely.
Instead, it's time we focus on how endowments support the educational mission of schools and meet the needs of their community and society.
In March, PEN America executive director Suzanne Nossel and Stephen Kidd, executive director of the National Humanities Alliance, each cited a February letter sent by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y). to the president advocating for continued support of the endowments.
A brouhaha that started with the 1987 photograph "Piss Christ," made by Andres Serrano with endowment support, and which then expanded over an exhibition of sexually explicit Robert Mapplethorpe photographs, led Congress in 1989 to require endowment artist grants to take into consideration "general standards of decency".
