Vel Phillips Papers (Correspondence, Box 6)

[Letterhead: Congress of the United States Periodical Press Galleries] Washington, D.C.

March 10, 1964 L plus 156

Dear Vel:

I just thought you might enjoy this.

Watch out for doors and seat belts.

Rags

[Newspaper Clipping] Howard Gets $1.8 Million Ford Grant

The Ford Foundation yesterday gave $1.8 million to bolster Howard University's law school.

Half the grant will go into a scholarship fund to attract more students to the school and the remainder will be used for the faculty, library, research projects and a summer orientation program for incoming freshmen.

"Probably the most urgent need is the scholarships," Law School Dean Clarence Clyde Ferguson said, "Historically at Howard our students have tended to show a greater need for financial aid than in other schools around the country."

Ferguson said he hoped the grant would attract outstanding students who have had to go to other schools able to supply sufficient scholarship funds.

The grant also will help bolster the senior faculty which "has been hurt because of the social development," Ferguson said. The need for skilled Negro lawyers in civil rights casses across the Nation has siphoned away many of Howard's top men.

Beginning in February, the law school will introduce a program of visiting professors. The first will be William L. Crofskey, of the University of Chicago, an authority in constitutional law.

The grant will provide funds for further expansion on the regular professorial level, projects in institutional research, development of service functions such as legal aid and to improve the library.

"The grant is a recognition of the particular and atypical role Howard has played in bringing about a legal revolution in the area of civil rights," Ferguson added.

Howard President James M. Nabrit Jr. said: "It is the beginning of a recognition by the big foundations that something good and advantageous is going on in these schools which haven't been recognized."

The grant to Howard was not part of a national program, a spokesman for the Ford Foundation said, but was given because of "special problems" at the University.

[Letterhead: Congress of the United States Periodical Press Galleries, Washington, D.C.] December 28, 1964.]

Dear Vel:

An item from the Baltimore Sun that you might be interested in; also, copy of a little talk I allowed myself to get roped into making. If they have no interest for you, I am sure that you have a good, large wastebasket.

Incidentally, you promised to send me a copy of the speech you made, and to point out some things you said I was uninformed about.

With all good wishes to you and yours for the new year.

Rags