By Tiffany Brockington, 4th Episcopal District
Black people and our institutions are facing the most consequential, “unprecedented” conflict of our lifetime right now. We are living through increased censorship, civil rights violations, institutional defunding, and an attack on the historical record. Some of these actions are obvious, while others are more veiled; and more covertly, some of these actions are a result of decades of institutional vulnerabilities that impacted governance, finance, and administration. In this moment, it is important that this period is interpreted in proper, historical context. The Christian Recorder is uniquely positioned to serve in this capacity because it has historically done so; it is a long-enduring, archival authority for Black institutional life under threat.
Those of us who are scholar-practitioners and institutional leaders have a duty to name our realities, critique or celebrate those realities, and perhaps most importantly: explain our realities in a manner that makes it clear for all stakeholders. We are responsible for determining what is preserved—as such, we are those who define the record.
Kentucky State University was threatened with the possibility of institutional re-classification (with an intent to close) as a polytechnic institution as a means of righting the institution. For the second time in the last five years, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has launched an intervention on the university. Kentucky State University alumni and current students mobilized quickly around campus identity and tradition—which, largely, became the focus of the movement. Within a few days, the Kentucky Legislature passed a bill that, still, redefines Kentucky State University as a polytechnic institution but it now allows fraternities and sororities in good standing to retain their charters. Thorobreds considered that a win.
This series of unfortunate events is not a win. Instead, it is a carefully orchestrated and intentional course of action planned by lawmakers—and it operates within a governance structure that does not function independently of the state.
President Akakpo’s position must be understood within that structure. His appointment is a matter of the Board of Regents and their appointment is a matter of the Governor. Both President Akakpo and the Board of Regents are accountable to the state; and their performance does not exist outside of that reality and the current intervention. It is situated within it.
In 2015, Kentucky State University was in danger of closing for budgetary reasons until unexpected, but conditional funding from the Commonwealth preserved the university. In the last ten years, Kentucky State University has been on a management improvement plan as a matter of intervention. At the onset of HB303, a new president was appointed to the university, Dr. M. Christopher Brown, II. The funding from HB303 required annual reports from the institution’s president; and in every year from 2016-2022, a report was filed. Then, the state reset the clock on Kentucky State University in 2022.
President Akakpo was appointed at the start of the ‘new’ intervention and plan; he inherited an institution already operating within the confines of state intervention. He has remained in position within that structure and continues to operate during what can be understood as the “reset” phase of this ongoing pattern. Therefore, his leadership is not occurring in isolation, but it is unfolding within a system where presidential tenure and institutional direction have already proven to be contingent on state-defined terms. Even now, President Akakpo stands to gain a ‘perceived’ clean slate and unilateral controls over daily operational functions of the university, while also vowing to not conduct financial business for matters that exceed $5,000 and without prior permission from CPE. President Akakpo’s posture and actions are not unknown to the governing structure because they are consistent with it. They are only experienced as a surprise by campus stakeholders and alumni.
As someone who worked at Kentucky State, holds a degree from the institution, and is a higher education scholar-practitioner, I intentionally withheld my thoughts until I read President Faison’s remarks about the unfolding situation at the university. I responded to President Faison’s commentary because he was the only other naming reality in real-time and he reminded me that we, scholar-practitioners, have a duty to do just that.
President Faison offered a warning and interpretation for all HBCU stakeholders who receive and depend on government funding: this is not an isolated crisis, course correction, or a state intervention that doesn’t lead to a new governance model that won’t be repackaged and implemented at your local, friendly publicly supported HBCU.
President Faison is absolutely correct—and he gave us a formula to reference:
- financial exigency;
- redefinition of institutional mission that requires a narrowing of academic offerings;
- and a hard pivot towards workforce alignment.
The adherence to these impositions is supposed to improve the institution.
Sometimes the state’s intervention, oversight, and conditional funding do not yield the expected outcome.
The state’s intervention is not within the best interest of Kentucky State University because it positions the university in direct competition with Kentucky Community and Technical College system offerings. This suggests that state intervention is allowed to fail (and maybe planned) and forgivable; whereas, the new circumstances that impact the success or failure of the university are expected to ‘just work’ and any failure is considered user-failure alone.
Because, according to President Faison’s formula, Kentucky State has been in a state of financial exigency and operating within the confines of state intervention since 2022. So, in four years, the status of a publicly funded HBCU in close relationship with its system leadership has not improved enough to be freed from state oversight. And most critically, its President, Dr. Akakpo, was appointed to lead the institution onward and in alignment with the previously passed state intervention plans. He has been very cooperative and highly communicative with legislators and still those actions were not enough to prevent Kentucky State from facing its current fate. And even now, President Akakpo explained that the university focus remains steady, to continue to advocate for itself in a manner that honors who we are, protects what matters most, and positions the institution for long-term strength and sustainability. Nothing in those presidential remarks unequivocally declares that the current bill signed without fanfare four days ago by Gov. Beshear is wrong. Instead, he is vowing to protect this next iteration of the University, not the college on the Hill that Thorobreds knew it to be. His remarks rely on that implicit understanding, but that is not, literally, the institution being discussed and affirmed in SB185.
Thirty-four years before Kentucky State University was established, the Christian Recorder existed. It existed in a time where Black Education was a punishable offense, before the formal end of chattel slavery, and before many HBCUs existed. The Christian Recorder existed in a time where Black Liberation depended on the learnedness of our people—it is the result of Black folks who had access to liberal arts education and it is an indelible indicator of critical consciousness in our community. When Black Institutions (communities, organizations, universities) perform outside of ‘acceptable’ measures and those measures threaten the balance or ‘allowance’ that the government is willing to remit, our institutions are attacked in ways that destabilize and quell momentum. As a matter of fact, The Christian Recorder has captured this kind of pattern repeatedly over the course of its existence as a publication because it exists in places that are sites for Black living and lives because wherever there has been a disruption concerning our community, at the center of it was an AME Church. And its local church history and the actions of its leadership is a matter of history and archived accordingly.
Forgetting or disregarding history and its implications, or institutional memory while falling into the same patterned experience with the state is worse than closure. It represents a betrayal to the institution itself. And those who provided this ‘solution’ as the only option forward knew to position it in a way to make it palatable. And for the record, this type of behavior has been documented before. There are examples of how to handle state-imposed disruption to Black Institutions; we only need to return to the historical record.
There are conditions worse than closure—and we are watching that unfold, and President Faison was correct: it does not stop at Kentucky State.
