DELAWARE – History has been made as Delaware State University has become the first HBCU to own and distribute a clothing line and private label merchandise brand.

DSU’s private label will expand the opportunity to control the products that students and the community wear and purchase. Dr. Dawn Mosley, Senior Associate Vice President of Marketing and Communications says right now if you want to buy collegiate apparel, you have to click “other” to find an HBCU and that should be. She says their partnership with Everything Collegiate, LLC, a black-owned business based in Atlanta, Georgia, is another way to support black entrepreneurship.

Dr. Mosely says because they own their own merchandise, they have power over the proceeds, and they will be using that for their Lift scholarships dedicated to media-driven students. She says many may not even understand what an accomplishment this is.

“We haven’t owned it, and we should own it. It’s a business model, it’s not known to the collegiate space, but for HBCU’s it’s time for us to own the front of it and the back end of it. and that’s why it’s so significant… I’m seeing a lot of scholarship opportunities for other degree spaces, and I just didn’t see enough for our space, those of us who tell the stories.”

DSU apparel and items will be available on Amazon Marketplace, Walmart.com and on their website. Dr. Mosley says the first round of student scholarships from initial product sales will be awarded in spring 2025.

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This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Delaware has expanded access to abortion after two pieces of legislation recently became law.

One of the bills signed last month by Gov. John Carney requires Medicaid, private health insurance and state employee insurance plans cover services related to termination of pregnancy. Coverage is capped at $750.

The measure, sponsored by House Majority Leader Melissa Minor-Brown, also bans most insurance plans, including ones covering state workers, from charging copays, applying deductibles or adding cost-sharing requirements for abortion-related services. Religious employers can get exempted from having to offer the coverage.

Speakers at Friday’s press conference celebrating the bills noted that women’s ability to access abortion care depended on the state where they live. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for reproductive rights, 13 states have total abortion bans with limited exceptions. Another six states ban the procedure after six or 12 weeks.

Minor-Brown said Delaware’s protections are important because women in other parts of the country are dying. She pointed to reporting by ProPublica about a Georgia mother who died after a hospital delayed care under the state’s abortion ban.

“For years, medical professionals have warned us that access to abortion is literally a matter of life and death. There are states right now that have abortion laws in effect that date back to the 1800s,” she said. “These outdated, dangerous laws were written at a time when women had no voice, no rights and no agency.”

Stacey Haddock Hassel, board chairperson of Planned Parenthood of Delaware, said the bill is a huge step for abortion access because it will help more patients, including those eligible for Medicaid, afford the procedure.

“When we talk about the impact of this legislation, the size, the limit, we don’t know the number of women who would have been able to access abortion care had they been able to use their Medicaid coverage,” she said. “And we don’t know how many women didn’t have the $500 to come to Planned Parenthood and gave up not knowing their options.”

For Planned Parenthood Delaware’s last fiscal year, 24% of its total patient population were Medicaid recipients and 35% had commercial insurance, a news release said. More than 40% of patients used Planned Parenthood’s self-pay system due to being underinsured or uninsured. Of those, half reported incomes below 250% of the Federal Poverty Level — meaning many of them would have likely qualified for Medicaid.

Murray isn’t basing that assessment on polling within Delaware, but rather on anecdotal accounts from candidates and volunteers who are knocking on doors and meeting with voters, including Democrats who might have previously slammed the door on the GOP canvassers.

“People are leaning more toward the center right than they have been historically,” she said. “So yeah, we do have a shot.”

She also noted the strife in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, which Meyer won over Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, whom the party endorsed, and former state environmental chief Collin O’Mara. The campaign featured political action committee-funded attack ads against Hall-Long because of her yearlong campaign finance scandal, and against Meyer because of two unrelated sexual harassment lawsuits against a county police leader and a tax assessment supervisor since Meyer took office.

“The gubernatorial primary was very, very contentious on the Democrat side,” Murray said. “I don’t think the Bethany Hall-Long voters and the Collin O’Mara voters are automatically going to become Meyer voters.”

Beyond whether Murray’s party has any chance to win a statewide office, the GOP boss echoed Katz in saying “there is dissatisfaction with the one-party rule” in Delaware.

“If you were to ask a [state] representative or a senator, particularly a state senator, the majority is so strong that there’s just not even a conversation or a different point of view,” Murray said.

“That’s a danger. When you’re a republic, you want to have different viewpoints on things, and the one-party rule has taken over so much that it’s difficult to even get the moment at the microphone to say. ‘Hey, can we think about this from a different perspective?’”

On the Democratic side, party executive director Travis Williams seems untroubled by the perception that one-party rule could stifle dissent and ideas.

“We are elected to these positions, right?” Williams said. “It’s not like we’ve taken them. The Delaware voters have elected Delaware Democrats. They’ve chosen to vote for us and they haven’t chosen to vote for Republicans. So I think we’d be a little more worried about losing those seats if Republicans put forth some actual policies that people agree with.”

Williams also said that despite the party’s unsuccessful endorsement of Hall-Long, leaders have pivoted to supporting Meyer as well as the rest of the Democratic ticket. Outgoing Democratic Gov. John Carney also backed the lieutenant governor, recording an advertisement for her candidacy. While Hall-Long’s political career appears over, Carney will remain a prominent player in Delaware politics as mayor of Wilmington after winning the Democratic primary for that seat, with no GOP foe.

“We don’t have a lot of time to get stuck on what happened in the primary,” Williams said. “We’ve got to come together and work to elect Democrats in the general election. We’ve met and are continuing to work with all of the nominees. And now that we have them and things are going well, we’re united and working together.”

He’s also guardedly optimistic that once the results are in, Democrats will retain all nine statewide seats, and perhaps even have that House supermajority.

“We are confident in the conversations that we’ve been having with voters,” Williams said. “We’ve been getting good responses from folks as we’ve been out and talking to people about the issues. So that bodes well for us.”

“But there’s still a lot of work that has to get done right? It’s a constant conversation. There’s work that we’ve got to do so while it does look good, we’ve still got to get over the finish line.”