Sacramento State's Black Honors College thrives as Trump targets DEI programs

The Black Honors College at California State University, Sacramento opened in 2024, just months before the Trump administration began a broad push against diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses. The school within a school focuses on Black history, life and culture and now enrolls more than 800 students.

Zyearre Amoah, who graduated from Sac State in 2024 and now works there recruiting students for the college, said he often felt isolated as an undergraduate on a campus of more than 30,000 students. "It just felt like we had to look for each other," he said. Now, he said, "Black students on our campus are actually showing their faces."

A school within a school

University president Luke Wood, who helped create the BHC, said the campus had historically struggled to create an environment where Black students could succeed. "So we created an intervention that was designed to meet their needs while also serving any student who was interested in being part of it," he said, adding that more institutions could easily do the same.

Most of the college's students identify as Black, African, African-American or mixed race, but Wood says the program is not exclusive and complies with federal and state law. "It's nondiscriminatory because you can be a white student, an Asian student or Latino and be in the Black Honors College," he said, noting that non-Black students apply for what he describes as an elite, specialized experience.

All courses are taught from a Black studies perspective — a math class, for example, also includes stories of famous Black mathematicians. Faculty are chosen based on their record of educating Black students, including low withdrawal and failure numbers for those students.

Dean Boatamo Ati Mosupyoe said women make up a majority of the college's enrollment, as on most U.S. campuses, and that she wants to change that by providing more male role models and mentors.

Federal pressure and student response

After the Supreme Court's 2023 decision banning affirmative action, the administration has opened civil rights investigations into programs that single out a specific race, such as a scholarship for Black students. In September, the Treasury Department proposed a rule that would strip private schools and colleges of tax-exempt status if they provide help to students based on race. At February's State of the Union address, President Trump declared, "We ended D-E-I in America!"

Many students elsewhere say they feel increasingly isolated as such programs disappear. Hayden O'Neill, a senior at the University of Michigan, was part of a scholarship program shut down last year. "It definitely feels disheartening," she said.

At Sac State, Naomi Thrower, a junior majoring in Deaf Studies and American Sign Language, wanted to attend a historically Black college, but California has none, so she chose Sacramento State and the BHC. She said classmates bullied her in middle school and called her "whitewashed," and she wanted to be around students with the same academic drive. She runs a natural hair business on campus and recalled friends helping her take down and wash her hair. "That was the community that I was longing for," she said.

Students frequently cited the South African philosophy Ubuntu, often translated as "I am because we are." Wood said Black student enrollment is up, with more of those students re-enrolling and graduating.

Source: NPR News.