A Prince George’s County state lawmaker wants historically Black colleges and universities to be independent of the University System of Maryland to give them more autonomy over representation and funding decisions.

Democratic Del. Julian Ivey’s measure would allow state HBCUs to decide how they want to spend money from the state and permit three state HBCUs — Bowie State University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and Coppin State University — to establish their own board of regents made up of graduates, members of the local NAACP chapter, and current students.

Ivey told DCist/WAMU Tuesday the impetus behind his proposal is the lack of racial diversity on USM’s Board of Regents, which he believes hinders its ability to support and provide oversight to the HBCUs.

“That does inherently make it more difficult for the institutions themselves to adequately lobby for the funds that they need,” Ivey said.

Tensions mounted earlier this year between Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Larry Hogan over funding for these institutions. Hogan vetoed a bill that would have settled a 13-year-old lawsuit between the state and its HBCUs and would have created a fund of $577 million to be paid to the state’s four HBCUs — including Morgan State University — over 10 years. The Democratically-controlled legislature hopes to override that veto when it meets in January.

In the lawsuit, the USM Board of Regents acknowledged their role in maintaining, what a federal judge in 2013 called, a “dual and segregated education system.”

When the USM Board of Regents was formed in 1988, all of the state’s HBCUs joined the system, except Morgan State University, which remained independent with its own governing board.

Alvin Thornton is the former president of MSU’s faculty senate and led the effort in 1974 to make MSU independent from the USM Board of Regents, known then as the Board of Trustees of the State Universities and Colleges.

Thornton said that because of MSU’s political status as the state’s largest historically Black university it was able to create its own governing board. That’s something the state’s other HBCUs have not had the leverage to do because of their smaller student population.

“What Morgan (State University) was saying, in 1974, was that the current structure is not producing equality and justice for Black students in higher education,” Thornton said. “Therefore, (the university) would have a system where it — being historically Black — would be able to do that.”

In 2016, Baltimore-area lawmakers proposed and passed legislation that would prohibit MSU from ever becoming part of the university system. Like the USM Board of Regents, MSU’s governing board members are appointed by the governor.