Howard U celebrates Harris on a tough night

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Kamala Harris’s election night watch party at Howard University kicked off with a boisterous sense of celebration and optimism. It ended with a pensive, tired crowd whose dreams of putting an HBCU alum, and the first woman, in the Oval Office appeared to be slipping away by the hour.

Harris returned to her alma mater, the historically Black university in Washington, D.C., Tuesday for the most important moment of her political career—a moment soured by election returns that favored her opponent, former president Donald Trump. As of midnight, the race was too close to call and will likely come down to Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But Wednesday morning, news outlets declared Trump the winner. The former president return to the White House could put more pressure and greater scrutiny on higher education. added the last two sentences/kk

But thousands of Howard students, alumni and guests were still on hand to mark a potentially historic night for Harris and the college. The vice president spent her formative undergraduate years at Howard and used the campus as headquarters during her 2020 presidential campaign. She would be the first president who attended a historically Black college or university.

In between booming dance music and performances from Howard student groups, large monitors stationed throughout the Yard switched to CNN for live election updates. As results came in and began to paint a harrowing picture of Harris’s chances, the mood shifted—though Howard attendees held on to hope throughout the night.

Harris was slated to speak at the end of the night. But at 12:40 a.m., campaign co-chair Cedric Robinson appeared instead. He said Harris would not speak that night, but would return to campus Wednesday “to address not only the HU family and her supporters, but to address the nation.”

“We still have votes to count,” he said. “We will continue overnight to make sure every vote is counted and every voice has spoken.”

A woman holds her head at an election night event at Howard University in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 5, 2024.

Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

Ravi Perry, a political science professor, attended the watch party with other Howard faculty. He said the stakes were high across the board but notably for higher education, which Republicans have attacked aggressively in the four years since Trump left the White House.

“We’re not going to see a result tonight, which means that higher ed hangs in the balance for tomorrow as well,” he said.

Shortly before midnight, he told Inside Higher Ed that he wasn’t ready to give up just yet. But whatever happened, he said the Howard community would confront the future together.

“Whether or not Harris wins, Howard is resilient,” Perry said. “Howard is where Black legends of all kinds have come … [The] names are endless. Kamala Harris is one of those legendary names. The campus will go on with our heads held high.”

A Celebration Cut Short

Before the mood dampened, the event was a party. Between the packed risers and football field floodlights, the tiara-clad national anthem singer and a stroll-off between the campus’s Divine Nine fraternities and sororities, the event felt like a tailgate with celebrities—the Reverend Al Sharpton was in attendance, and Black radio personality Charlamagne Tha God held court outside the press room.

Some students were nervous about the results and worried about the aftermath of an especially tense election, but most were excited to be a part of a historic moment.

Yasmen Edmondson, a senior and member of the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority who performed at the event, said a Harris victory would mean the world to her and her sisters. But even as her fellow Bisons danced and cheered around her, she was uncertain.

“I’m more and more emotional, because it’s definitely coming full circle. She was where we are … She’s walked in the same halls as us,” she said. “I’m very nervous, very anxious as we get closer and closer to the results coming out.”

Jelani Favors, a history professor at North Carolina A&T State University and the author of Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism, said the night was a celebration of the role HBCUs can play in empowering Black students. Harris’s choice to host the event at Howard, he added, was a powerful symbol of those institutions’ impact.

“It’s an opportunity for HBCUs to elevate their position in higher ed … [Harris] would not be where she is or who she is had it not been for the time that she spent in this incredibly powerful space, which has shaped generations of African American students who sought to find their voices,” he said. “You can consider this a second homecoming for Howard University. And if she wins, I suspect there will probably be a third.”

As of Tuesday night, the Harris-Walz campaign said it was still optimistic the tide could turn in their favor, and counting the rest of the ballots will likely take several days.

A ‘Watershed Moment’ for HBCUs

Black colleges have gone through something of a renaissance in recent years. The murder of George Floyd in 2020 sparked a national discussion about racial inequities in America and the historic role of HBCUs in educating underrepresented students. Many HBCUs, including Howard, have received record philanthropic and research funding and moved closer to the goalpost of achieving R-1 status—a coveted classification reserved for doctoral universities that demonstrate a high level of research activity. And after a year defined in part by the affirmative action ban and attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, HBCUs experienced record enrollment surges this fall.

Bridnetta Edwards, an alumna who graduated in the same class as Harris in 1986 and then went on to work for Howard as a general counsel later in her career, said the number of applicants to Howard spiked when Harris became vice president, and she expects it to skyrocket if she’s elected president.

“The university is a place of excellence and leadership,” she said. “If you attended, you knew that. But now the public knows.”

Harris’s watch party was a “watershed moment,” Favors said, not only for Howard but for HBCUs more broadly. But it wasn’t a surprise, he added, that the first election night event by a presidential campaign on a college campus would be at an HBCU.

“Historically, Black colleges have been a place where students not only learn Latin and Greek but really how to be leaders and idealists,” he said. “It’s the second curriculum of all HBCUs, a spirit of activism. It’s no accident that a pantheon of Black leaders have emerged from these institutions. Kamala Harris is just the latest.”

Howard president Ben Vinson III said hosting Harris on election night was an honor not just for Howard, but for all HBCUs.

“Her coming to Howard is so important, because it inspires our students and validates our educational mission,” he said. “I really think of this as an important symbol.”

That spirit of inter-HBCU affinity was on display Tuesday night. Kennedy Lucas, a graduate of Hampton University in Virginia—and the recently crowned Miss Black USA—was chicken-footing and sliding with Howard alums on the yard. She told Inside Higher Ed at around 8:30 p.m. that she felt “a little bit anxious,” but being surrounded by fellow HBCU alumni helped boost her spirits.

“I was just at Hampton’s homecoming a couple weeks ago, and this feels like another one,” she said. “As an HBCU grad, [Harris] coming back to go for the presidency, it just shows that your dreams are attainable.”

Adam Harris, a senior fellow at left-leaning think tank New America and the author of The State Must Provide: The Definitive History of Racial Inequality in American Higher Education, said that regardless of the results, Harris’s campaign was a vindication of HBCUs’ historical identity as strong alternatives to highly selective predominantly white institutions.

“Alabama A&T has the motto ‘start here, end anywhere,’” Adam Harris said. “You don’t have to go to Harvard, Yale or Cornell in order to be successful. You can go to an HBCU and be nurtured. You can be authentically yourself.”

Wading Into Political Waters

The announcement that Kamala Harris would spend election night at her alma mater came as a surprise to some. Up until it allowed the Harris campaign to set up shop for election night, Howard administrators had been careful not to get directly involved in the campaign, never formally endorsing their highest-profile alumna.

Howard’s restraint isn’t an aberration. Most higher ed institutions try to remain nonpartisan; some have even adopted a formal position of neutrality in an attempt to protect intellectual diversity. And for HBCUs, especially those operating in Republican-led states, taking a political stance can bring real fiscal and existential risks.

“HBCU leaders have historically had to work in states that have been hostile,” said Adam Harris. “They have to maintain relationships across partisan lines, otherwise they risk doing undue harm to their own institutions.”

Harris has made a point of highlighting her ties to the institution since she first entered the race in July—and well before then.

“There are two things that shaped who I am today: my mother and my family, and Howard University,” Harris told Harry L. Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, during an interview in 2019.

The Biden-Harris administration has shined a spotlight on historic underfunding of public HBCUs and sent more resources to both public and private HBCUs. Adam Harris said there are concrete actions a Harris administration could take that would help equalize support for HBCUs, especially in states that provide far less funding to HBCUs than predominantly white institutions, like using the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate them for effectively segregationary practices.

“Thinking about the historical discrimination that these institutions have faced, one would hope that an HBCU graduate would prioritize them,” he said.

Trump has tried to leverage his record with HBCUs as well, arguing during his first 2024 debate in June that he “got them all funded.” But while he notched some notable achievements, like permanent additions to annual federal funding for HBCUs, advocates and university leaders told Inside Higher Ed that his vitriol toward DEI spending and critical race theory showed a lack of support for their mission that made his first term a mixed bag for their institutions. They’re skeptical that a second would be any different.

Remote Classes, Safety Concerns

For students, the excitement began long before the election night event kicked off Tuesday evening.

Classes were moved online for the week and campus was closed Tuesday as the Secret Service locked down the Yard. There’s good reason for their caution: Howard and a collection of other HBCUs across the country received a series of bomb threats in 2022 that led to a congressional hearing.

The security precautions caused some minor frustrations for students, particularly those living on campus, as they cut access to dining halls and other buildings. But they say it’s all been worth it.

Taylor Beazer, a senior, said campus morale surged when Harris was appointed the Democratic nominee in August, and it’s only amplified since the election night event was announced.

“The night of her debate, Blackburn cafeteria was filled to the brim with students who were there to watch,” she said. “We’re her family and she’s ours.”  

Amid the excitement is a sense of apprehension. Students understood Harris’s victory was far from guaranteed, and after a tense campaign some feared political unrest or even violence could erupt no matter who won.

“I am weary about the amount of destruction on violence that could occur,” said Howard student Dasha Anorchie. “I’m hoping there's not a lot of violence in general. It reflects badly on us as students. We go here and election night is here.”

Michael Thomas II, a junior, said he was worried unrest could come to Howard if Harris won, considering the vice president had planted her flag there.

As the results continued to trickle in late into the night, Edwards, Harris’s Howard classmate, said she would remain optimistic.

“During our orientation they told us, ‘Look to your left and to your right. One of you could be president someday,’” Edwards recalled.

That day may yet come. But if last night’s results hold steady, it won’t be for at least another four years.