Philanthropists Patty Quillin and Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, are donating $40 million each to Spelman College, Morehouse College, and the UNCF, which advocates for the success and financial stability of HBCUs and their students. The philanthropists have been donating millions of dollars to impact issues of educational equity for 20 years. The gift of $40 million to the Morehouse College Student Success Program will establish a fund that will allow at least 200 students to graduate debt-free.
Spelman will use its allocation to fund a scholarship named for Spelman alumna Dovey Johnson Roundtree, a civil rights and criminal defense attorney whose groundbreaking 1955 bus desegregation case helped dismantle the practice of separate but equal. Annually, the gift will provide 20 talented, first-year students with full scholarships, which include tuition, and room and board.