Executive Order 13779: Historically Black Colleges and Universities

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13779 is entitled "White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities" and was issued on February 28th, 2017.  It has 5 sections.

Section 1

This section outlines the rationale why this EO was written.

Section 2

This section establishes a White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU's).  This initiative will be led by the Department of Education.  This initiative's goals are to strengthen the HBCU's and also ensure that they are fully able to take advantage of all of the Federal government's support to educational institutions.  Those agencies that regularly interact with HBCU's will need to provide a plan on how their customer service can be improved.  Further there is an interagency working group that is established to coordinate the work.

Section 3

This section establishes a Board of Advisors and defines the mission and functions of that board.  It directs the Department of Education to provide the necessary funding to the board and mandates that the board reports annually to the President.

Section 4

This section revokes EO 13532 which was the Obama era EO that had established a similar advisory committee.

Section 5

This section includes a definition for "historically black colleges and universities".  Subsection (b) directs chosen departments to provide "timely" reports on the work they have done to support the advisory committee.  Finally, it includes the usual legal fine print necessary to assure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

For the perspective of the time that has passed, this EO was clearly lip service.  The EO moved the structure around somewhat as opposed to doing anything new.  It seems like it had been done simply for a photo op.  Even at the time, there were many that expressed cynicism.