Black Honors College at Sacramento State enrolls more than 800 students

Wood says the college is open to students of every race

Sacramento State’s Black Honors College is a school within a school focused on Black history, life and culture, and more than 800 students are currently enrolled. The majority of the more than 800 students identify as Black, African, African-American or mixed race, according to the college. President Luke Wood, who helped create the college, said, “Historically, the campus struggled to create an environment of success” for Black students. He said the intervention was designed to meet Black students’ needs while also serving any student interested in taking part, and he described it as a vital part of a university’s mission. Wood also said, “I think that more institutions could be easily doing the same.”

Wood says the program is not exclusive and that it complies with federal and state laws. “It’s nondiscriminatory because you can be a white student, an Asian student or Latino and be in the Black Honors College,” he said. Wood said non-Black students apply because they want an “elite, specialized experience.”

Every course in the college is taught from a Black studies perspective. A mathematics class, for example, also includes stories about famous Black mathematicians. Sacramento State selects faculty for their track record in educating Black students, and low withdrawal and failure numbers for those students are among the criteria.

Now in its third year, women make up a majority of the college’s enrollment, according to Dean Boatamo Ati Mosupyoe. She said that pattern is also the case on most U.S. campuses and that changing it is one of her priorities. Mosupyoe plans to provide more male role models and mentors, both to convince more men to enroll and to support them when they do.

Wood said the college’s efforts to build identity and community are paying off: enrollment of Black students is up, those students are doing better, and more of them are re-enrolling and graduating.

Amoah and Thrower describe belonging and support at Sacramento State

Zyearre Amoah was a Sacramento State student in 2023, when he sometimes felt like the only Black student at a sprawling state university with more than 30,000 students. “There were African-American students on our campus,” he recalled, but at the university with more than 30,000 students, “it just felt like we had to look for each other.” Amoah graduated in 2024, just as his university was launching the Black Honors College, and he now works there as a staff member helping recruit students. He said, “Unfortunately I didn’t have the luxury to be part of it as a student,” adding that the university’s effort to elevate and celebrate the scholarship of Black students changed how he perceives his alma mater. He also said, “Black students on our campus are actually showing their faces,” and said the change is “really helpful for everyone here” because “We’re finding each other relatively easier.”

The Black Honors College headquarters, housed on the first floor of Sacramento State’s library, serves as a hub and a home within a home. The bell above the door rings often: a sophomore arrives to meet with an advisor, a first-year student has a question about tuition, and over in the corner a professor has come to ready his notes before class. On a recent day, one of the students in the office was Naomi Thrower, a junior majoring in Deaf Studies and American Sign Language.

Thrower wanted to attend a historically black college, but she said California doesn’t have any, so Sacramento State with its BHC felt like the closest alternative. Growing up in the East Bay, she had what she calls a very multicultural experience, going to school with kids of all different races. While she gained a lot from that, she also felt she was missing a deep understanding of Black culture and identity. “The kids used to bully me in middle school and say I was whitewashed,” she said. When it came time for college, she said, she wanted to be surrounded by students who looked like her and also had that same academic drive.

Thrower runs a natural hair business on campus as a side hustle, and she says it has helped her develop a creative expression. She said washing and brushing out her hair took an entire day, and that friends in high school did not understand the process. “In high school, when I’d say I have to do my hair, my friends wouldn’t understand it’s an all day thing. They’d be like, ‘Why does it take so long to wash and brush out your hair?’” But when she made friends in the honors college, it seemed everyone understood. “Two of my friends helped me take down my hair. We detangled it, washed it. We were just listening to music and hanging out, and that was the community that I was longing for, just someone who understood.”

She and others NPR talked with often quoted the saying Ubuntu, which comes from South African philosophy. It describes an interconnected way of living, often translated as “I am because we are.” Many students said the concept is central to their educational experience.

Federal DEI actions and O’Neill’s account of a shut-down scholarship

The initiative at Sacramento State, formally known as the California State University, Sacramento, began just months before the Trump administration began targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses. NPR reports that, in the last two years, dozens of colleges and universities have rolled back or eliminated such offerings to avoid accusations of racial discrimination that have led to lost research funding and other sanctions.

NPR reports that, following the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action, the Trump administration has launched civil rights investigations targeting programs that single out a specific race, such as a scholarship program for Black students or an office designed to celebrate multiculturalism. In September, the Treasury Department proposed a new rule that would strip private schools and colleges of their tax-exempt status if they provide help to students based on their race. At President Trump’s State of the Union address in February, he declared, “We ended D-E-I in America!”

The report describes many students around the country as feeling increasingly isolated and let down as diversity programs have disappeared, and says understanding identity, especially as it relates to race, is a high priority in college. Hayden O’Neill, a senior at the University of Michigan, was part of a scholarship program that was shut down last year. “I was pretty sad just at the fact that our university would comply with those federal guidelines,” she said. She added, “It definitely feels disheartening,” and said, “I don’t feel as comfortable as I thought I would at a school like this.” O’Neill is among the many students who say understanding their identity, especially as it relates to their race, is a high priority in college, and she feels she is losing some of that opportunity. Students in the Black Honors College say they are being given that chance.