Page 7 - Florida Sentinel 3-3-17

Trump News
HBCU Presidents Get Impromptu Meeting With President Trump
About 100 Historically Black College and University leaders met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, just before he signed an executive order that will provide aid to HBCUs under his “New Deal for Black America.”
Trump was joined by Vice President Mike Pence, who told the visiting HBCU presi- dents how much he and President Trump “admire the contributions of histori- cally black colleges and uni- versities.”
Trump signed an execu- tive order on HBCUs late Tuesday, which has been a tradition among U.S. presi- dents since Jimmy Carter. While on the presidential campaign trail, Trump, who African-American voters overwhelmingly opposed, promised to “ensure funding” for historically black institu- tions. His White House aide, Omarosa Manigault, re- portedly helped spearhead
About 100 HBCU presidents and chancellors meet with Presi- dent Trump.
the drafting of the executive order, which was expected to be signed Tuesday.
But while some see Presi- dent Trump’s outreach to HBCU leaders as an olive branch and legitimate at- tempt to address the con- cerns of the African-American commu- nity, others are skeptical, and some, downright outraged.
Some have even expressed shock and dismay at some
HBCU presidents to meet with President Trump, and subsequently take a group photo in the Oval Of- fice.
Some of the HBCU presi- dents were upset because their meeting was originally to be with the Sec. of Educa- tion, Betsy DeVos, how- ever, some felt it was hijacked by the President, and many did not get to address the is- sues that HBCUs face.
Donald Trump’s First Speech Since Taking Office Was Tranquilized
Donald Trump gave his first speech since taking office 40 days ago, while V.P. Pence and Paul Ryan look on.
During President Trump first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, he defended his tumultuous presidency.
He said he was eager to reach across party lines and put aside “trivial fights” to help ordinary Americans.
He called on Congress to work with him on overhauling health care, changing the tax code and rebuilding the na- tion’s infrastructure and mili- tary.
But he raised new questions about his policy priorities and how he plans to achieve them, especially on immigration.
Only hours before his ad- dress, Mr. Trump had broken from his tough immigration stance in remarks at the White
House, suggesting that legal status be granted to millions of undocumented immigrants who have not committed seri- ous crimes.
Many of Mr. Trump’s core supporters had denounced that approach as “amnesty” during the campaign.
For those that sat down to watch, More than three in four Americans reacted positively to President Trump’s speech, according to a CNN/ORC poll.
Among those who watched the speech, 57 percent said they had a very positive response, while another 21 percent de- scribed their reaction as "some- what positive.”
Only 21 percent of those polled said they responded negatively to the address.
Day Exec Order Signed: Secretary Of Education Makes Statement About HBCUs Deemed ‘Ignorant’
Trump Blames Obama For Leaks... Protests At Town Hall Meetings
President Trump in an in- terview with Fox & Friends early Tuesday blamed former President Obama for protests against him and Republican lawmakers at recent town halls, as well as for leaks from the White House.
A report emerged over the weekend that White House press secretary Sean Spicer checked staff members’ phones in an attempt to crack down on leaks.
CNN reported Monday that Trump had signed off on the leak investigation. During the interview broadcast Tuesday, Trump said he was would have instead gone one-on-one
President Trump meeting with then, President Obama.
with staffers, but supported Spicer’s method.
Trump earlier this month blamed holdovers from the Obama administration for leaking details of his phone calls with leaders from Mexico and Australia.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to bolster relations with historically black colleges erupted in con- troversy Tuesday after Edu- cation Secretary Betsy DeVos released a statement equating the history of the schools — founded during an era of racial segregation — to
“school choice” policies. “HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice,” DeVos said in the statement, released Monday night in advance of Trump’s planned signing of an execu- tive order giving the schools
more clout.
“They are living proof that
when more options are pro- vided to students, they are af- forded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options
Betsy DeVos made a state- ment about HBCUs now being called ‘ignorant’ and racist.
help students flourish.” Some experts on histori- cally black institutions panned the statement as ig- norant, while others said she was inadvertently praising
segregation.
DeVos later acknowledged
racism as an important factor
in the history of historically black colleges in an address to the school leaders on Tues- day, according to prepared remarks.
According to POLITICO, Marybeth Gasman, direc- tor of the University of Penn- sylvania's Center for Minority-Serving Institutions and an expert in historically black colleges and universi- ties, the statement is "inaccu- rate and a whitewashing of U. S. history.”
Robert Palmer, an edu- cation professor at Howard University, said the schools weren’t a matter of choice. They were mostly created in a segregated education system after the Civil War and were for decades the only choice for black students — espe- cially in the South, he said.
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