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The university often touts its land grant status, but what does that mean?

What is a land-grant institution?

To put it simply, a land-grant college or university is an institution designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.

Originally, land-grant institutions were created to focus on agricultural and technical education. At the time, higher education was primarily accessible to the elite and wealthy. The creation of land-grant universities was meant to provide a broader segment of the population with more practical skills that could have direct relevance to their daily lives.

Why are the Morrill Acts important?

Land-grant legislation was first proposed in the 1850s by U.S. Rep. Justin S. Morrill of Vermont. He believed that American farming productivity lagged behind that of European countries, and that the nation, which would soon be embroiled in a Civil War, didn’t have enough workforce members with training to meet its industrializing needs.

The bill was proposed in 1857 and passed in 1859 only to be vetoed by then-President James Buchanan. In 1861 Morrill tried again with an added requirement in his bill that recipient institutions teach military tactics. That passed and was signed into law on July 2, 1862, by then-President Abraham Lincoln.

Through the act, Congress donated 30,000 acres of public land to each state to establish these land-grant institutions.

The act also offered states the ability to sell plots of federal land. Proceeds from the land sales worked to fund the creation of universities that emphasized the agricultural and engineering expertise Morrill advocated.

The act was passed one year before the Arizona Territory was created, more than 20 years before the 13th Territorial Legislature passed the act establishing the University of Arizona in 1885, and nearly 30 years before the UA, in 1891, opened its doors to students.

Were there other important factors?

Here are some laws related to the original Morrill Act that helped push land-grant institutions into more prominence:

An 1881 act of Congress, written specifically for certain Western territories, including Arizona, granted each named territory more than 46,000 acres of unappropriated public land for the benefit of a university.

The Hatch Act of 1887 granted federal funds for states to establish agricultural experiment stations operated by their land-grant institutions. This allowed land-grant universities to further expand on their agricultural prowess and continued to strengthen the relationship between land-grant institutions and their states.

There was also a second Morrill Act, in 1890. This allowed Congress to make regular appropriations for the support of land-grant institutions. The act withheld funds from states that refused to admit nonwhite students unless they provided “separate but equal” facilities, encouraging the creation of historically Black land-grant colleges such as Florida A&M University and Alcorn State University.

Arizona also passed a 1910 Enabling Act, which “enabled” the state government to acquire more than 2.3 million acres of land throughout the state, including 800,000 acres on behalf of the University of Arizona.

In 1914, the Smith-Lever Act created a system of cooperative extension services meant to further push land-grant universities’ expertise into the communities they served.

The Equity in Educational Land-Grant Status Act of 1994 conferred land-grant statuses to Native American tribal colleges.

What were the downsides?

While land-grant institutions are important for the communities they serve, they have a complicated past, especially with Indigenous people.

The UA’s James E. Rogers College of Law has a specific land-grant project in which researchers have documented 775,012 acres (so far) that have been transferred to the Arizona State Land Trust since statehood for the benefit of the university.

“As members of a world-class, land-grant university, we believe it is important to know and share the history of our institution and our state,” the project’s website reads. “Authentically doing so means educating ourselves and the people of Arizona about the Indigenous peoples whose land the university now occupies. It also means acknowledging how the university came into possession of this land.”

According to the project, “Arizona and its universities continue to reap the financial rewards resulting from settler-state colonization of Arizona’s tribal lands and people.”

The university, for its part, has tried in recent years to rectify the history of its land-grant status.

In early 2020, N. Levi Esquerra was named to a new position at the university: senior vice president for Native American advancement and tribal engagement.

The university also adopted a formal land acknowledgment and added native languages to campus signage.