Tennessee Black Caucus fires off at comptroller over comments made about TSU

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The Tennessee Black Caucus sent a blistering letter to Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower about his comments about the former Tennessee State University president and the idea of selling its downtown real estate footprint.

The state has been back and forth about the historic Black college since November about its financial footing. Throughout the fall, TSU was quietly asking the state to help keep it afloat, especially when it couldn’t make payroll in November without extra resources. The new board met and discussed that without intervention the school would face a $46 million deficit by the end of the school year.

However, the Tennessee Black Caucus — made up of Black Tennessee state legislators — has now called out Mumpower for his dealing with the situation as it unfolded across the last state building commission in December. That is when the school and state leaders talked about turning the school’s finances in a better direction.

“TSU has faced systemic, historic underfunding and it is troubling for the State of Tennessee to spend decades diverting resources from TSU while criticizing the institution’s financial stability,” lawmakers wrote collectively. “TSU’s challenges require collaboration and equitable support, not condemnation or divisive rhetoric.”

The state acknowledges it still owes TSU for underfunding in the past. The state said half a billion was owed in 2022, while the federal government said that number is actually $2.1 billion. By the state’s own calculation, it still owes TSU $250,000. Underfunding calculations boil down to the school’s status as a land-grant school, when Black students couldn’t attend the University of Tennessee-Knoxville during segregation.

Rather than allowing Black students to openly attend, Tennessee created a racially divided higher education system until the 1970s.

Through federal law, TSU was given the same funding status as the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in that the two were given resources for land and later should have been given the same state appropriations for agriculture extension offices and expanding their academic programs.

Though not focused on underfunding entirely in their letter, Black lawmakers said they were upset by Mumpower’s comments about former TSU president Glenda Glover, who was awarded a $1.7 million contract to both leave her top position at the school and become a president emeritus to the university the four years following. The contract started in the summer but with the former board’s approval. Gov. Bill Lee vacated that same board in March.

“I appreciate all of you who are here,” Mumpower said in the December State Building Commission. “I have great appreciation you dismissed your prior general counsel and your work with AG’s office to cancel the contract of someone who has made out like a bandit on a legacy of dysfunction. No parking place, Titans football tickets. Are you done?”

The Black Caucus said they found those comments disrespectful.

“Your aggressive line of questioning regarding whether TSU has severed all ties with its former president, Dr. Glenda Glover, even down to a
‘parking place’ demonstrated a lack of respect and understanding,” the caucus wrote together. “Your assertion that Dr. Glover ‘made out like a bandit while leaving only a legacy of dysfunction’ is deeply troubling. Dr. Glover has been an asset to the university in many ways and has brought national acclaim to the institution. During discussions about the future of the university, you seem to go out of your way to disparage and disrespect Dr. Glover. Your attempts to undermine her legacy are unwarranted and unacceptable.”

In Glover’s contract obtained by NewsChannel 5 through a records request, a clause is written for Glover’s parking spot, an executive assistant and access to the school’s seats at Nissan Stadium for both Tigers’ games and the Tennessee Titans.

The Black Caucus also wrote that the Comptroller should consider discontinuing the idea of selling the Avon Williams campus, which has a downtown footprint off Charlotte Avenue. TSU received the property during a 40-year lawsuit with the state for both TSU and UTK to have equal funding and to stop having dual higher education systems based on race.

The Avon Williams was originally owned by the University of Tennessee as a continuing education center that started in 1947.

Mumpower suggested TSU leadership look into selling their downtown campus to help their financial state.

“The suggestion of selling TSU assets to developers raises serious ethical concerns,” the lawmakers wrote. “Rather than proposing solutions that could destabilize the university further, we need to focus on supporting TSU, particularly given its long history of underfunding compared to peer institutions such as the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.”

Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at emily.west@newschannel5.com.