The Geier Agreement
The Geier Consent Decree, established in 2001, was intended to create a unified and equitable system of public higher education in Tennessee. Over the course of its implementation, it spanned five decades, seven governors, 10 attorney generals, numerous legal challenges and prolonged mediation. The agreement’s primary goal was to ensure Tennessee State University, the state’s sole public Historically Black University, would have the necessary, “resources and support “, to serve African American and Middle Tennessee students ably while simultaneously ensuring that all Tennessee higher education institutions were providing equal educational opportunities and access. Ultimately, one of the overarching outcomes of the agreement was to provide, “a system of public higher education that preserves and enhances access and educational opportunity for black and white students in Tennessee's public colleges and universities.”
Despite these commitments, the provisions outlined in the Geier Agreement have been largely unmet and invalidated by the State of Tennessee and our state’s higher education community in more recent times. This oversight has had detrimental impacts on TSU, hindering its ability to recruit, retain, and support students, faculty and the community it has historically served, thereby undermining its mission as a center for educational opportunity and excellence.
Key Provisions of the Geier Agreement
The Geier Agreement established several key provisions aimed at improving outcomes for African-American students in Tennessee’s public higher education system, such as:
1. Graduate Recruitment and Enrollment
The agreement required the state to implement strategies to enhance African-American enrollment in graduate programs, particularly in high-demand fields such as STEM. Yet, TSU has struggled to attract and retain African-American students due to limited resources for graduate recruitment and outdated practices that fail to compete with other institutions. This has hindered TSU’s ability to expand its graduate programs and support students in critical academic areas.
2. Closing the Persistence Gap
TSU was tasked with closing the gap in retention and graduation rates between African-American and white students. However, a lack of adequate funding has left TSU without sufficient academic support systems—such as digital literacy and emerging technologies; tutoring; mentoring; and expanded resources—necessary for African-American students to succeed. This has perpetuated disparities in retention and graduation rates.
3. Institutional Collaboration
The agreement also mandated increased collaboration between TSU and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in areas such as agricultural research and Cooperative Extension, and with Tennessee Board of Regents institutions, particularly those in Middle Tennessee. However, limited collaboration has restricted TSU students’ access to hands-on learning opportunities, research experiences, and career advancement in STEM fields.
Also, in addition to numerous administrative enhancements, which included strengthening the effectiveness and outreach of its Admissions Office, Financial Aid Office and Registrar's Office, the Geier Agreement likewise included focus areas for recruitment strategies; increased public relations; facilities review; and community service and outreach to further support TSU in achieving its goals of inclusion and educational equity. The agreement also tasked TSU with strengthening its outreach to the local business community to support its role as a major state-supported urban university. It is also important to note, both the UT System and Board of Regents were charged with conducting studies on minority student, faculty and administrative recruitment.
Avon Williams Campus
One of the key outcomes of the original Geier lawsuit was the merger of TSU with UT Nashville in 1979, which was the first time a PWI merged into a HBCU, and with it the downtown UT Nashville site, now referred to as the Avon Williams campus. The Geier Agreement emphasized the revitalization of TSU’s Avon Williams Campus to serve as a hub for focused academic programming targeting nontraditional students, particularly working adults pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees.
This revitalization involved offering classes at nontraditional hours, such as evenings, weekends, and summer terms, while ensuring programmatic integration with the main campus in terms of faculty and resources. The goal was to create an educational environment that accommodated the needs of nontraditional students, enabling them to earn degrees while balancing work and family commitments. Additionally, essential institutional services such as registration, admissions, financial aid, and library services were to be available at the Williams Campus during evenings and weekends to further support nontraditional students.
To ensure the success of this initiative, the state was responsible for providing capital funding for the renovation of the Williams Campus and for creating a new scholarship program exclusively for residents of the Nashville Metropolitan Area. This $750,000 per year scholarship program was designed to support nontraditional students who enrolled in evening and weekend classes. TSU was also required to establish a high-level administrative unit dedicated to coordinating nontraditional student programming.
While the responsibility for addressing student recruitment has been largely directed toward Tennessee State University, there has been minimal discussion about the enhancements charged to the state’s other Board of Regent’s universities. The Geier Agreement stated how each institution played a critical role in fostering diversity and inclusion. It noted how It was essential for all universities to assess and improve their recruitment strategies, campus climates, financial aid offerings, and community outreach initiatives to create equitable opportunities for minority students.
Notwithstanding, the points outlined in the Geier Agreement demonstrate that the success of Tennessee State as an institution of higher learning is a shared responsibility of the university and the State. That’s why when we hear some officials cast counterproductive aspersions, or hear terms such as mismanagement; tear down to the studs; and fiscal exigency; one must wonder do the current officials in Nashville even know what is in the Geier Agreement? While they were applauding staff cuts and the TSU logo being stricken from the Metropolitan Airport, increased faculty and staff and more visible marketing and branding are some of the very provisions found within the agreement itself.
Similarly, there are other aspects of recent directives given in Nashville that are unnerving, especially the maligning and belittling of university administration. We have heard numerous allegations of mismanagement and yet have no clear indication of what was specifically mismanaged. And yet, seeing multiple presidents of the university treated in such an undignified and unbefitting manner was disturbing. While such assertions should be given serious attention, it did harken back to a time three decades ago when Dr, James A, Hefner was treated in a similar manner despite being one of the university’s ablest presidents.
Tenure of TSU President Dr. James A. Heffner
Under Dr. Hefner, TSU achieved significant milestones, including the launch of the "Students Matter Most" campaign, creation of endowed chairs like the $1.5 million Chair of Excellence in Banking and Financial Services, and a rise in research productivity from $7 million to over $41 million. Dr. Hefner helped increase the university's endowment from $500,000 to over $25 million; oversaw extensive campus renovations and new buildings; and guided TSU to record enrollment of over 9,000 students and OVC Championships in basketball and football.
However, he was much maligned over the misclassification of out-of-state students as in-state for tuition purposes. This led to a $1.6 million funding discrepancy, and tensions with the Tennessee Board of Regents over the honors program. There were also discrepancies over the usage of the date the scholarships could be used altogether. Nevertheless, what we do know is that more than 200 out of state student scholarships were granted to some of the highest achieving minority academic students in the country, many who brought national recognition to the university.
Tennessee’s Outcomes-Based Funding Formula
In regards to the assertion of financial exigency, there does need to be a discussion on the adequacy of funding for all the State’s higher education institutions. Compounding these challenges is Tennessee’s Outcomes-Based Funding formula, which has historically failed to address racial disparities in higher education, much less adequate funding in any capacity.
While the formula provides incentives for low-income and underprepared students, it does not adequately prioritize the success of Black and Latino students. Consequently, institutions like TSU are disadvantaged, with insufficient resources to support their predominantly African-American and student bodies. This results in lower enrollment, retention and graduation rates for students of color.
To rectify this, the state should revise the OBF formula to ensure that it promotes racial equity, incentivizes the success of historically underrepresented students, and provides institutions like TSU with the necessary resources to fulfill their mission.
Policymakers in Tennessee should review the state's outcomes-based funding formula, and include students of color as focus populations, as recommended by The Education Trust in numerous reports including “Tennessee: ‘Segregation Forever’” report (The Education Trust, 2020).
Likewise, the latest SCORE Report on Higher Education in Tennessee also highlights the need to be more attentive to the needs of Tennessee higher education students as a whole, including students of color. Two of the reports key findings detail: (1) First-to-second-year retention rate at Tennessee public community colleges and public universities has increased for White students, but decreased for Black, Hispanic, and Pell-eligible students; and (2) Five years after graduating, the median annual wage for Black students is around 12 percent less than the median annual wage for White or Hispanic graduates.
Proposed Merger of Nashville School of Law and TSU:
A Historic Opportunity That Fell Through
Middle Tennessee State University recently announced, in collaboration with the Nashville School of Law, that it is launching a new Master of Science degree in Legal Studies program, designed for students and working professionals looking to advance their careers in the legal field. The program will be primarily online, with some classes available at the Nashville School of Law campus. As we congratulate MTSU and NSL on this new endeavor, it must be noted that the lack of a public law school at TSU remains a glaring example of yet another unfulfilled promise of the Geier Agreement.
In revisiting Dr. Hefner’s tenure as TSU president once more, the proposed merger between the Nashville School of Law and Tennessee State University was a crucial point of emphasis as laid forth in the Geier Agreement. In November 2001, Dr. Charles Manning, chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents, called the merger “a historic opportunity for Nashville.” The proposed merger, at least according to TSU’s merger plans that were accepted by the Tennessee Board of Regents, would have provided the law school with better facilities including access to the downtown campus; a full-time day program, increased staffing; an upgraded library; and would have helped it meet accreditation requirements so they could provide Bar Association licenses outside of Tennessee.
Despite these efforts, the merger fell through in 2002 when the Nashville School of Law’s board chose not to proceed, citing lack of financial commitment from the State amongst other things. Many were attune to what university advocates like Senator Thelma Harper were saying pertaining of the missed opportunity then, that it was a potential gamechanger for the university on a variety of levels that needed to be pursued further. We can’t help but wonder that if she was now before us, in her elegant attire with her trademark hat in hand, what would she be saying on this issue now?
A Call for Accountability and Actions
Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan emphasized in his dissent during the Civil Right Cases of 1883, "It is not the words of the law but the internal sense of it that makes the law. The letter of the law is the body; the sense and reason of the law is the soul."
We say that the Geier Agreement may no longer be the legal recourse that mandates equal educational access and opportunity in Tennessee, but it must still be the applicable standard. This is particularly true in regards to how we aid, assist and support the future vibrancy and sustainability of TSU as a premiere institution of higher education excellence. This principle of equal access and opportunity must guide the state of Tennessee in addressing the ongoing disparities faced by TSU.
The Geier Agreement was a critical step toward dismantling a dual system of higher education and ensuring fair access for African-American students. In fact, this was precisely what the State conveyed during the final judgement of dismissal before the Court of Judge Thomas Wiseman, that they, “represented they do not intend to reinstitute or reestablish any practices or policies of its prior dual system that would foster or encourage the resegregation of the Tennessee system of public higher education, nor dismantle the unitary system they have achieved.”
In addition to committing to the Geier Agreement being the guiding principle in relations with Tennessee State, we should also remember the example exemplified by former Governors Bredesen and Sunquist, who stood together in a bipartisan manner to announce the case had reached a conclusion. Governor Bredesen noted that the difficult work of providing educational opportunity should continue beyond the conclusion of Geier because it was the right thing to do.
In the final estimation that is the great lesson we can draw from Geier. Through some 38 years; five decades; seven governors; 10 attorney generals; a federal mediator; dozens of litigants, numerous legal challenges; and prolonged mediation; we are far better off when we are working together than apart. The seeds of doubt and walls of dissension witnessed in recent months are as disarming as it is counterproductive because it is sowing resentment and divisiveness in our state that is counterintuitive to the foundation laid forth in the Geier Agreement. It is our hope, that through a cooperative and collaborative spirit, with Geier as the applicable standard, we can press forward towards a just outcome that will benefit TSU, our system of higher education, and the citizens of the great State of Tennessee as a whole.
Eric Atkins
TSU Class 2002