Just over four months ago, Papa John’s was Public Enemy #1 on historically black campuses across the country. Racist remarks from founder John Schnatter has just hit the airwaves, and business partners of the national pizza chain were looking for a way out of their relationships.
Schools were abandoning agreements to sell Papa John’s pizza on campus, and while the company had zero sponsorship agreements with black colleges, schools like Morehouse College also gave the chain the boot.
But Papa John’s appears to be turning over a new leaf, announcing this morning a $500,000 gift to Bennett College to help the school retain its accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges, and a pledge of support to Simmons College of Kentucky, the latest campus to earn HBCU federal designation.
“Papa John’s has supported educational institutions of all levels for years and we are a proud partner to many colleges across the country. That legacy continues through The Papa John’s Foundation’s support of Bennett College,” said Steve Ritchie, CEO of Papa John’s. “In August 2018, I committed to establishing a corporate foundation, and I’m pleased that its first grant will go to an institution that shares our values of equity, fairness, respect
The gift was sorely needed; with the $500,000, Bennett remains about $3 million short of its $5 million
On the surface, the gift appears to be a corporate boost for a college in crisis-level need of fund and friend-raising in the final days before learning its fate. But a look just below the surface of Papa John’s historic support of Bennett and Simmons shows something that has always troubled the HBCU sector, particularly in its efforts to court white wealth.
Why is bailing out HBCUs a more attractive ask then building them?
The obvious question for Papa John’s is ‘why now’ and not weeks, months or years ago? If there was a relationship between Bennett and the pizza company’s philanthropic leadership, why swoop in at literally the last minute with just 10% of the school’s ultimate goal and more than 60% yet to be raised?
If Bennett is unsuccessful in meeting its fundraising goal, what will support from Papa John’s look like into the school’s future under another accreditor? Will it be more millions, more workforce development or entrepreneurial opportunities? And if there are millions to be given in the future for a partnership with Bennett, could a case be made for Papa John’s to give it now to ensure the school can actually make good on the partnership, simply through staying open?
And how was Bennett targeted for such a large and public gift, when other HBCUs in far less dire straits could have made effective cases as beneficiaries with with far less to lose than accreditation?
Bennett has lost its accreditation and Simmons is accredited through the Association For Biblical Higher Education Commission On Accreditation. Both schools, like most HBCUs, needed major investment years ago to realize their full potential. Instead, the intent of supporting may help both schools to avoid the indignity of closure, but it is still leagues away from helping both to achieve sustainable systems for recruitment, teaching and training, and expanding.
If we take a sincere view of Papa John’s gifts, we can see them as really generous efforts that get two worthy schools closer to the finish line, but not quite over it. That’s particularly tough for Bennett, which,
If we take a cynical view of corporate philanthropy being a kinder, gentler form of marketing to potential customers, then Papa John’s HBCU Day of Support would seem to be a genius reversal of their bad fortunes from the Schnatter
And if they don’t make good on your investment, you forever have the brand of being one of the few corporate bodies who earnestly tried to save them.
Bennett deserves support today as it did 10 years ago, and Simmons deserves a chance to thrive. But they don’t deserve to be the targets of ill-timed or opportunistic philanthropy when their very existence depends on it. HBCUs which aren’t on the verge of closure
Papa John’s is trying, and for that they deserve credit. But from where a lot of us stand, it is difficult to tell if they should be credited for caring, or for having a calculated strategy on how to get back in the good graces of Black America without real investment in the same.
Lets be honest Papa trying to save face and its bottom line. Without Black people Papa will make less profit. So dont get it twisted $500k is not a lot of money for PaPa and they are clearly trying to repair the broken relationship. Bennett will take the money but what is the long term plan for Papa Johns and Bennett College and HBCUs. Scholarships, corporate jobs for HBCUs grads, and long term investment in franchising opportunites on HBCU campuses and in the African-American community is a start.
Yes, Papa John’s is saving face. But why do school administrators settle for chump change when other schools get millions. Also, the clock is ticking for Bennett and it does not look promising. Is good money thrown on a sinking ship? This school needed someone like Harris-Stowe’ President to handle business and hustle. Unfortunately, you have another issue with a president, board, and management who felt a sense of not handling business and the students suffer. Let the ship sink and this serves as another example of how not to run a school.
Don’t forget Morehouse students threw Papa Johns off campus for their white supremacist leadership a few months ago. HBCU Digest advocated other Black colleges “redeeming” Papa Johns by taking their money and bringing them back on campus — even building a campus. And now the concern is did Bennett get enough? The root of HBCU Misleadership is there is no respect for student insurgency and exposure of HBCU exploitation and collaboration with white racists. One campus movement defeats exploitation and ya’ll run behind the exploiter after they fall down and pick them up — not Black students mind you.
We students are not the tree shakers and Black college presidents the jelly makers. It is in the Booker T tradition to say these crackers are “trying and deserve credit.” What Black folk propose to go into business facilitating “cleansing rituals?”
One of the reasons why “cynical” views of corporate philanthropy are frowned upon is because those who think they are the jelly makers are used to dealing with the worst ofays all the time and becoming their friends.
The founder of Arkansas Baptist College (the current scandalously exploitative HBCU), Joseph Booker, said in response to the Elaine Massacre (1919), a lynching of Black sharecroppers and domestic workers trying to organize themselves, “where would Black people be without the friendship of the good Southern whites?” Some have an up-to-date way of basically saying the same thing. Don’t think we haven’t noticed.
Thanks for this comment. You are correct but missing the key point – none of this would be necessary if more of your fellow students enrolled in HBCUs, instead of the current “one out of every ten black students” clip our institutions currently serve. All of this is an exercise in self-preservation in the face of students making the wrong choice in colleges, not selling out.
Along with increased enrollment of quality students, individuals donate as much money to support, improve, and grow HBCUs as they give money to the corporations and industries they criticize. You cannot complain about corporate donations and sponsorship if you are not putting skin in the game. And I do not want to hear about Black Americans or student not having money. The money is there, but the priorities towards educational support is not.