A proposed endowment tax targets colleges holding over 750 million dollars.

Evidence

Based on this premise—that selective colleges can afford to fix this, but choose not to—I propose an income tax levied on the institutions at the very top of the higher-ed pyramid, with endowments greater than 750 million. For decades, largely white administrators at selective universities have chosen to maintain the status quo (only sometimes tinkering around the edges). At the very least, we can make them pay for the right they’ve held, explicitly or implicitly, to maintain overwhelmingly white student bodies. Yes, the Supreme Court, with its burden of proof for racial discrimination, constrains what universities can do specifically for black students. However, they are not without options for more aggressive recruiting policies when it comes to low-income students or Pell Grant recipients. (And for perspective, in fiscal year 2017, 120 schools had endowments of at least 800 million; the highest-endowed HBCU, Howard University, had less than $700 million in its endowment.) — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 337

Categorization

• SEED: The juxtaposition of 120 schools above 800 million versus Howard's sub-700 million is a ready-made statistic for any piece on resourcing inequity in higher ed.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the constitutionality argument — she sidesteps race-based admissions by pivoting to Pell/low-income recruiting; does an endowment tax survive equal-protection review when its stated goal is racial?