Seven current and former students of Lincoln University in Missouri are suing the state over what they allege are decades of unequal funding that left the historically Black institution struggling to maintain its campus, academic programs, and student services.
The federal lawsuit, filed Oct. 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, seeks nearly $550 million in damages and a court order requiring Missouri to provide equitable funding to Lincoln, a historically Black 1890 land-grant university. At the center of the case is a $361.6 million funding disparity federal officials identified for fiscal years 1987 through 2020. The plaintiffs argue that Missouri treated Lincoln differently from the University of Missouri, the state’s predominantly white 1862 land-grant institution.
Between 2000 and 2016, Lincoln diverted $43.5 million from its core operating budget to support agricultural programs after the state failed to provide the required matching funds for federal grants, according to the lawsuit. From 2000 through 2007, the state provided no funding for Lincoln’s land-grant programs, while from 2008 through 2021, it provided between 11% and 51% of the required match. That diversion came at a cost to the institution’s broader operations
.“Missouri’s failure to appropriate the required state match did not merely leave a gap in Lincoln University’s funding,” attorneys wrote in the complaint, according to Missouri Independent. “It forced Lincoln to cannibalize its own core institutional operating budget to survive.”
Students also say they felt the impact personally. Former Lincoln student Makhi Joseph Berinyuy Jaff documented deteriorating conditions in Perry Hall, including a plumbing failure that he said left fecal matter exposed.
“Perry smelled disgusting, and they still left this dormitory open,” Jaff wrote in a presentation cited as evidence in the lawsuit.
Current student Jaydan Monee Ware said she noticed visibly dirty ventilation in her dorm and experienced respiratory and allergy symptoms. She also compared Lincoln’s resources with those available to a cousin attending the University of Missouri.
“I can see how much more funding they have than us,” Ware told her attorneys.
The lawsuit also challenges Missouri’s performance-based funding formula for higher education, alleging that Lincoln faces funding conditions that are not imposed on the University of Missouri in the same way.
The case is the first brought by the 1890 Project, an initiative focused on addressing funding disparities affecting historically Black land-grant universities. The organization has said Missouri is the first in a broader legal effort involving other states.
For Lincoln, the lawsuit places a decades-old funding dispute squarely in federal court with potentially significant implications for the institution’s finances, infrastructure, and ability to compete for students and research opportunities.
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