About 200 Cheyney University supporters rallied on the Pennsylvania state Capitol steps to urge officials to help save the historically Black college amid low enrollment. The school currently has 700 undergraduate and graduate students, nearly half its enrollment in 2009, according to the Associated Press.

"We are here to seek justice, we are here to right wrongs," Junious Stanton, a member of Heed Cheyney's Call, told demonstrators. "We are here to make education a priority. We are here to save Cheyney University."

The university’s supporters say the state system has been discriminating against the school for decades. A lawsuit was filed against the state in 1980 saying that Cheyney is not receiving enough funding compared to other schools in the state. The school filed another federal lawsuit last year.

However, a state spokesman says the school receives nearly four times the average per-pupil allocation compared to other universities in the state’s system.
Cheyney University is noted as the first Black college in the U.S.
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(Photo: Cheyney University)