On April 23, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed a new Executive Order titled the White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. On paper, it may appear to be a continuation—perhaps even an expansion—of past White House commitments across political administrations to HBCUs. It name-checks prosperity. It invokes innovation. It even calls for a White House Summit.
But let’s not be fooled by the polished language and symbolic gestures.
This executive order is not a step forward for Black higher education—it’s a carefully constructed mirage. A mirage that offers optics over outcomes, visibility without power, and recognition without redistribution. It is, at best, a diluted rebrand of earlier equity-driven efforts. At worst, it is a performative cloak for political retrenchment—designed to neutralize criticism while stripping away real institutional support for the Black academic community.
In fact, it’s not policy—it’s Trump cosplay in an HBCU costume.
A Familiar Strategy: Cloaking Retrenchment in Supportive Rhetoric
Trump’s latest executive order is laced with language that sounds celebratory. HBCUs are hailed as “beacons of educational excellence,” “pathways to prosperity,” and “cultivators of tomorrow’s leaders.” But this flowery language conceals a brutal political reality: the order revokes Executive Order 14041, the Biden-era policy that centered federal action on equity, educational justice, and systemic opportunity.
In its place, we get a kind of rhetorical cosplay—buzzwords like “innovation” and “excellence” that are inspiring on the surface but strategically ambiguous. These are not policy commitments; they are PR armor. They can be co-opted to avoid any meaningful accountability to racial justice, to dodge discussions of reparative funding, and to replace action with applause.
There is no mention of systemic racism, no commitment to civil rights, and no acknowledgment of the historic underfunding of HBCUs by state and federal governments.
This is not an oversight. It’s an intentional sleight of hand.
Recognition Without Redistribution: Where’s the Money?
Perhaps the most damning feature of this executive order is what it refuses to do: invest. Despite the lofty promises to “enhance” and “support” HBCUs, the order explicitly states that these actions are “subject to the availability of appropriations.”
In other words: don’t hold your breath.
While the order calls for infrastructure improvements and programmatic growth, it outsources responsibility to philanthropy, foundations, and corporate partners. The federal government washes its hands while pretending to clap.
This is classic recognition without redistribution. It’s pageantry without power. HBCUs don’t need more ceremonial praise—they need robust, guaranteed funding. They need federal commitments that make up for generations of state and federal neglect.
Symbolic celebration without financial investment is not support—it’s exploitation. They could have simply committed to investing $500 million over four years, or offered a concrete figure to back their rhetoric.
Visibility Without Power: A Seat at the Table with No Mic
The order reestablishes the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs and calls for interagency coordination. But these structures are decorative without accountability. There are no enforceable goals, no public metrics, and no mechanisms to compel results. Just an annual report submitted to the President, with no guarantee of community review or agency compliance.
This is visibility without voice—a table set for decoration, not transformation. HBCUs may be in the room, but they’re not driving the agenda. They’re being instrumentalized, not empowered.
It’s containment disguised as inclusion.
Optics Over Outcomes: Trump’s Favorite Form of Governance
If the Trump era taught us anything, it’s this: governance is performance. This executive order is no exception. It’s a photo op masquerading as policy—complete with buzzwords, symbolic gestures, and zero substance.
We’ve seen the pattern before:
- Dismantle equity infrastructure, then rebrand the ruins.
- Eliminate DEI programs, then claim to be “leveling the playing field.”
- Defund public education, then promise “innovation.”
This executive order doesn’t advance HBCUs. It repurposes them as political props, places to stage America’s “racial progress” while quietly reversing the policies that actually made that progress possible in the same executive order.
It’s cosplay—theatrics draped in borrowed school colors, but stitched together with the threads of austerity.
Conclusion: HBCUs Deserve More Than a Spotlight—They Deserve Sovereignty
At a time when HBCUs are under attack—from state legislatures stripping them of autonomy (see Tennessee) to right-wing politics targeting their diversity and equity legacy—we don’t need ceremonies. We need sovereignty.
We need:
- Structural investment, not symbolic inclusion.
- Public policy rooted in equity, not PR.
- Leadership that listens, not cosplay players in reputation recovery mode.
Trump’s Executive Order is not a celebration of Black excellence—it’s a commodification of it. It harnesses the imagery of progress while dismantling the substance of justice.
I stand with every alumnus, student, staff, faculty member, and leader at an HBCU:
They are not props. They are pioneers.
They don’t need flattery—they need financial freedom.
They don’t need summits—they need academic sovereignty.
And to the rest of us: don’t be distracted by the appropriate costume. Watch what they defund. Watch what they erase. Watch what they fear.
Because the fight for education justice isn’t about optics—
It’s about outcomes.
Please share if able.