Attorney Antonio Moore has guest President of HBCU Simmons college, on to discuss the Howard 1 million dollar financial scandal, and the power of the HBCU. Moore looks at Tyrone Hankerson, Howard Administration, and a fashion culture in digging into the topic. The two also talk about Simmons College the last HBCU led by Dr. Kevin Cosby.
Six employees of Howard University were fired for “gross misconduct and neglect of duties” after school officials discovered that financial aid money had been misappropriated, school leaders confirmed Wednesday.
A university investigation discovered that for nine years — from 2007 to 2016 — some employees who received tuition benefits to cover the cost of taking classes were also receiving university grants. That double dipping exceeded the actual cost of attendance, signaling that the workers appeared to be embezzling.
News of misappropriated university funds and the subsequent firings mark the latest blow to Howard’s reputation. The school’s president, Wayne A.I. Frederick, came under fire earlier this month when he criticized a student for her tone when she expressed concern about whether she would get housing. And six women have accused the school — an iconic historically black university — of mishandling sexual assault allegations.
Frederick released a statement Wednesday about the financial aid misdeeds and promised that measures had been instituted to prevent a recurrence of the misappropriation.
“While this has been a very difficult and disappointing situation, I know our campus community deserves better and I am committed to ensuring that each of our campus offices operate with integrity and are the best that higher education has to offer,” Frederick said in his statement.
University officials did not immediately reveal how much money was involved in the matter.
“We don’t have a final amount but we are working with our outside experts to ensure every dollar is accounted for and the university will exercise all of our options to recoup the funds,” Howard spokeswoman Alonda Thomas said in an email.
Frederick’s statement came not long after an anonymous item was posted to online blogging platform Medium this week that alleged an “office-wide scandal” involving officials in the university’s financial aid department. Frederick’s statement did not directly mention the Medium post, which was later no longer available online.
In the statement, Frederick said he learned in December 2016 that financial aid money might have been misappropriated, a revelation that prompted an internal investigation. An outside auditor was brought in to dig into the concerns, and Frederick said he received the results of the audit in May 2017.
The university said the misappropriated grant money was not from the federal government, nor was it money that donors had designated for grants. Frederick said in the statement he reported the findings to the Education Department. That agency’s inspector general would neither confirm nor deny whether officials are investigating.