When hundreds of Morgan State University students descended on Annapolis this spring to protest a delay in state funding for a new library, the rally inspired comparisons to the 1960s, when students marched on state capitols to demand fairness for black colleges.
But those comparisons obscured a crucial fact: Morgan State has, in the past dozen years, been highly successful in winning state funds for building projects, according to a new survey of state spending.
The university has been so successful in drawing state support that some state officials say Morgan State might soon reach the point where it will no longer need such a high level of capital funding.
Also, a debate is emerging among the state's African-American leaders over whether Morgan State can claim - as it did in the library dispute - that it continues to be shortchanged in comparison with the state's majority-white campuses.
"I would not say it has caught up from its history of underfunding, but I would say it has been treated fairly in my tenure in the assembly," said Del. Salima S. Marriott, a Morgan State graduate who taught at the university for 24 years and has represented Northeast Baltimore since 1991.
Del. Howard P. Rawlings, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was more critical of Morgan State's claims.
"It's part of the victim mentality that's prevalent in the mindset of so many people today," said Rawlings, a Baltimore Democrat and Morgan State alumnus.
Morgan State President Earl S. Richardson denies that the university's claims of unfair treatment are unjustified, saying the campus still lags far behind the state's leading public campuses.
"Though things seem to be going well here, because the neglect was so long, the urgency of the need is still compelling," said Richardson, now in his 18th year as president.
A survey by the Department of Legislative Services at the close of this year's General Assembly session shows that Morgan has received $185 million in state capital funding since 1989. This places it in a virtual tie for third among the state's 13 public campuses, behind the College Park flagship and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, which includes such professional institutions as the state's medical and law schools.
The tally puts Morgan State, with an enrollment of slightly more than 6,000 students, almost equal with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, with 10,000 students, and well ahead of Towson University, with about 14,000 students.
