Ignoring any ideologues-by-the-numbers who have made a fetish of racial integration instead of just doing what's best for Arkansas' already hard-pressed college students, this state's governor and educational patron-in-chief, The Hon. Asa Hutchinson, dipped into his emergency fund to the tune of $150,000 in order to help students who certainly deserve helping--those at three historically black colleges in this state: Arkansas Baptist, Philander Smith, and Shorter College.
But why describe them as historically black colleges when historically white ones are simply called colleges? For no good reason at all. A deserving school and its deserving students shouldn't need to be tagged black, white or with any other ethnic/racial label. At a time when college tuition rates in Arkansas are going up in tandem with their administrators' pay, it's a nice change to see the governor allot some of his tax-paid emergency fund to colleges such as Arkansas Baptist ($80,000), Philander Smith ($55,000) and Shorter ($15,000). Object: to help their most deserving students. Here's wishing the best to them all. And this state has every reason to believe that in return they'll give Arkansas their best.
Editorial on 06/22/2017