National activists, TSU student leaders call for lawsuit against state of Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The majority of Tennessee Republicans voted to vacate Tennessee State University’s Board of Trustees last week.

The move comes after multiple scathing audits alleging major financial mismanagement. But TSU leaders and supporters say the state has been underfunding Tennessee’s only public HBCU for decades, leading to serious financial issues.

“If you’re only investing in us a quarter of the way, then maybe you still see us as three-fifths of a human being,” TSU SGA President Derrell Taylor said.

Several different versions of the bill to vacate the board bounced back and forth between the House and the Senate. But ultimately, the House folded and accepted the Senate’s version to cut the entire board, including former Student Trustee Shaun Wimberly Jr.

“We’ve done enough begging in my opinion. I’m going to say this right now. Now is not the time for begging, now is not the time to be requesting,” Wimberly Jr. said. “Now is the time to take what is ours. I want you all to understand that. 2.1 billion here, 2.2 billion there, 1.5 billion, whatever. We cannot beg anymore.”

It’s also something TSU supporters say has been happening all across the country to historically Black colleges.

“We need it in Tennessee! We need it in Mississippi! We need it in Virginia! We need it in Maryland! We need it in Arkansas! We need it in Missouri! We need it in Oklahoma! We need it in South Carolina!” Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign Bishop William J. Barber II said.

Republican state leaders slammed the school’s leadership last week, calling it a prime example of mismanagement.

“Being chronically underfunded has nothing to do with the inability to appropriately put numbers into ledgers,” Sen Bo Watson (R-Hixson) said. “That has nothing to do with that.”

The Civil Rights leadership didn’t limit their criticism to Republicans, though that’s where they leveled the majority of it. But they also went after Black Democrats at some level, too.

“I challenged Representative Harold Love on my show last week. They should be filing a suit if this legislature will not spend the $2 billion, they need to sue the legislature and take them to court and put them on the depositions and then say, ‘Why won’t you give them the funding?’” Commentator Roland Martin said. “When you do that, now you can examine how they fund every other public institution.”

News 2 did ask Rep. Harold Love Jr. (D-Nashville) if he intended to help organize a lawsuit. He says he’s not opposed to doing so, but currently, he’s collecting data and research on the state’s history and other HBCUs around the country before making any further decisions.

Love Jr. did point to a toolkit he helped build through the E Pluribus Unum Fund that details the steps behind trying to secure more funding for HBCUs across the country.