Rawlsian Justice and the Ayers Settlement

Abstract

In 2004 a near 30-year legal battle over higher education desegregation in Mississippi was settled with the state’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to receive US$503 million over the course of 17 years. Nearly 65% of this funding is directed toward the recruitment and support of White students, with a significant share of endowment funding tied to the attainment and maintenance of 10% non-Black enrollments. To analyze the fairness of this settlement, I use the theoretical framework of justice as fairness and apply the tenets of Rawlsian theory. I find a mismatch between settlement terms and justice as fairness. Thus, as Rawls predicts, while the settlement is final, it fails to bring closure.