By Dr. Sharon H. Porter | Wednesday, May 31, 2023 | 5:30 PM ET
Lodriguez Murray serves as the Senior Vice President for Public Policy and Government Affairs at the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), a role he has held since 2019 after joining the organization in 2017. In this capacity, Murray develops and drives strategies to influence and mobilize action in the U.S. Congress and executive branch on the public policy priorities of UNCF, its 37 member historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and the 50,000 students they serve.
A first-generation high school and college graduate, Murray's journey to becoming the youngest vice president in UNCF's history is noteworthy. Before his tenure at UNCF, he spent over a decade in government affairs, representing institutions such as Meharry Medical College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Howard University Health Sciences. His efforts have been instrumental in securing significant federal support for HBCUs, including the passage of the Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education (FUTURE) Act in December 2019, which provides $255 million annually for minority-serving institutions.
Murray's leadership continues to strengthen the position of HBCUs within the higher education landscape, ensuring that these institutions receive the recognition and resources necessary to thrive.
Enjoy this interview...
SHP: What are your responsibilities as Senior vice president of Public Policy and Government Affairs. What are your day to day responsibilities?
LM: Wow, my day to day responsibilities. If you boil it down to a nutshell, I am to ensure that the institutions, our member HBCUs, and then I end up impacting pretty much all HBCUs, our institutions and our students get their fair share of federal resources.
Now that's a really big deal because the number one supporter of HBCUs financially is the federal government and then the number one supporter of our students is the federal government. You add in the support that HBCUs get from the Title three Strengthening HBCUs Grant, that's the number one federal request of HBCUs. You add in all the other grants in other programs that positively impact the institutions, and then you also add the benefits to students like the PELL grant and even the Student Loan program, which is arguable if the benefits are positive or not, but all of those are federal resources, and so my job is to ensure that Congress and the executive branch are responsive to the needs of the institutions and the students. And that's a really big deal for us, because now that people are getting more in tune to politics, they're getting more in tuned into government in the post Barack Obama, post Trump and current Biden eras.
With that level of involvement, then people wonder, how do you get involved and how do you stay engaged? And the number one thing that I like to remind people of is the fact that we have to make these asks of the federal decision makers routinely. Even if they aren't the Congressmen that we really like or we're preferred, they're not the Senator that we like or really prefer, or the president that we really like or prefer, we have to stay engaged with them because the needs of our students and our institutions are so great that we can't wait on the perfect congressmen, perfect senator, or the perfect president. I need to use and convince whoever the voters put in place, convince them of the needs of our institutions and get results because those needs are so great.
SHP: So what would you consider as your greatest accomplishment since you've started, either from the beginning or since you've been Senior Vice-President?
LG: I've had a few really kind of serendipitous events that have impacted my career and have impacted the institutions in a big way, and each of these that I'm going to name, or really career defining events were in the other lobbyists I'm a registered lobbyist, any other lobbyist in my position were really hanging their hat on this. Back in 2018, you may remember early 2018, Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, was really in the news. They were being threatened in terms of their accreditation, and they also had a federal loan that looked like the debt the institution had and so the president of Bennett College at the time, Dr. Phyllis Dawkins came to Washington at the end of January 2018, and she said that if she got relief from this particular federal loan, that she thought that she could meet her obligations and keep the institution afloat. So she and I went to the Department of Education and we asked them if they have a way to alleviate this particular loan program. They said that they didn't.
I told them in that meeting that this meeting is over. They said, “what are you going to do, Lodriguez?”I said, I'm going to go to the people who give you all the authority, since you don't have the authority to do what we want. We're looking for forgiveness, we're looking for deferment. We're looking for some kind of relief for the institution.And since they didn't have it, the same day we left, she came that morning, we went to Education that afternoon, and the same day we went over to Congress. In less than 60 days from the day that she came to Washington, we got Congress to pass into law and put the funding there, which is a big deal because usually they'll pass a bill and then fund it later. We got them to go from idea to law and fund a deferment program, which initially impacted about seven HBCUs that allowed their loans to the federal government for this particular program to be deferred, so that meant that no interests could accrue on the loans. That meant that the principle remained exactly where it was, so it was like putting your mortgage in the freezer and just letting it be frozen for a while.
They were going to have those loans frozen for up to 6 years. That was in early 2018. Then in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, for the December Appropriations Bill, instead of impacting initially seven or eight institutions and then that program, the deferment program grew to 13 institutions. Eventually we were able to convince Congress in the December 2020 timeframe to forgive the loans not to seven, not to 13, but to 45 HBCUs. So that means up to 1.6 billion dollars of debt was taken off the books of 45 HBCUs. That was a game changer for those institutions that look like an institution likeTuskegee University, 100 million dollars off your books, that looks like an institution like Morehouse College 55 to 56 million dollars of loans off your books and more all across the country.
Another one that I considered to be a real career driver is the fact that we were able to convince Congress at the very beginning of the pandemic to include HBCUs very specifically in all three huge relief bills. So that's the March 2020 Cares Act, that's the December 2020 Appropriations Bill, and then that is the March 2021 bill. Those were big numbers for HBCU specific.
It's a big deal because if you look it must pass pieces of legislation, HBCUs are almost never included. So to get them in the bills, to get HBCU their own if set aside, so that the institutions got a little bit more than they would have received otherwise, so that the institutions could thrive through the pandemic, not just survive, was a really big deal. It showed that we are operating at a different level at UNCF now than we've ever been in terms of government affairs, in terms of convincing policy and decision makers, and that we're a bigger brand in this space. There have been other things that I thought were pretty big, but those are the ones that became law and had an immediate impact on schools and students.
If you want to talk about some others that are kind of languishing or still being worked on, you can look at the fact that in both the American Rescue Plan and other large Biden era plans that he's put forth, there's been a significant emphasis on HBCUs. We were the ones to help convince him of that. If you look at the student loan debt forgiveness plan in the Biden era, the fact that he wanted to do $10,000 for everyone was the worst kept secret in Washington. But we're the ones that convinced them to do twice as much for students with PELL grants, because 75 percent of all students at HBCUs have a PELL grant.
And so a rising tide doesn't float all boats. If you're already caught at the bottom of the stream. What you needed was a concerted effort to lift up those that need to help the most, and we were able to convince the Biden administration to do that in their student loan relief effort, and we're hopeful by the time of the publication of this article that it gets a favorable decision in the U. S. Supreme Court.
SHP: You are a first generation college graduate as well as a high school graduate and that you were a recipient of a UNCF scholarship. You actually shared that it was that scholarship. It was$10,000 that wiped out the debt that you had which was instrumental in you graduating from Morehouse College. How, in your opinion, do we get families and students to become aware of all of this assistance and scholarships that are out there? What can we do to help people understand that there is money out there?
LM: I think that's kind of the biggest question for students coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. You mentioned the UNCF scholarship I received. It was $10,000 a year, so it really made a big difference. And I was a PELL grant recipient like so many of the students for whom I fight on a daily basis, I come from a lower socioeconomic background, and so when I make the case to policy and decision makers, I'm making it from an authentic point of view because I've lived it. And I also lived the life of not knowing how to navigate higher education because I didn't have anyone in my sphere that had and so I had to figure out the difference between loans, grants, and scholarships and figure out which ones were good because you didn't have to pay them back. And the time that I was going through was a very different time period. I had to check the scholarship book out from the public library and write letters on a typewriter to get the scholarships that I received. Students in this day and time are coming from a completely different perspective. All of them have a computer in their pocket, and so now it is the shift of the mind from using your phone and your iPad and your laptop to scroll IG, TikTok and Twitter to using those same devices and that power in your hand to apply for scholarships and be consistent about it, because you have to apply for multiple, in hopes of getting all that you need and maybe a little bit more to sustain you for higher education. Students need an extra push to actually get this accomplished because so many of them don't understand, and then so many of them also need to be further convinced of the need for deferred gratification or delayed gratification, where you work hard on something now in hopes to get something greater in return. Our society has a lot of emphasis on the right now, and so we need to continue to push into the minds of our students the need to work hard on the scholarship applications and get what you believe that you deserve.
It's not enough to just accept the packages that a school or an institution gives you. With a high volume of loans, you have to do the extra work to get the loans off of that piece of paper, and it can be done. There are more scholarships today than there ever have been, but the need is still great, and so it's now up to our students to take their own education into their own hands. When I was going to Morehouse, I never let my mother sign for a loan. I never put a loan agreement in front of her.
I knew that I was the oldest of four siblings. I had a sister and a twin brothers who were coming after me, and they needed every advantage that I received, and so I couldn't take food or money off of their plates. I had to go out and get it for myself. And plus, it's my education, and so I have to make my education happen for me.
And so it was that kind of attitude that I carried into Morehouse that allowed me to graduate with very little debt and to be debt free from college before the age of 30. And then to bring that same kind of get up and go mindset to UNCF and the policies and the decisions that are happening on behalf of the institutions and students every day to try to make something positive happen for the type of student that I was.
SHP: Does the organization work with PreK-12 institutions, high schools and professional school counselor departments?
LM: Absolutely, we have a K-12 advocacy group at UNCF, my peer, Mr. Sekou Biddle, works with a lot of K-12 institutions as well as UNCF has an empowerment tour and so out of the school year, the first semester may be focused on K-12 and then the next few months of the school year and the second semester may be focused on current college students. So it encourages high school students to apply for HBCUs number one and then number two. It encourages the college students to apply for more scholarships, which is so necessary, and that allows involvement with counselors. It allows direct involvement with students, with parents, with faculty, with staff, and pushes the thought process that you should not just accept the loans that you were given.
SHP: So let's talk about the FUTURE Act. I know that you were very instrumental in this and in 2019 was passed into law and it was designed to support your HBCUs, your Tribal colleges and universities and other minority servant institutions.Can you share a little bit more about what the FUTURE Act was all about.
LM: Sure, So the FUTURE Act is an important piece of legislation because the mandatory funding to HBCUs had expired. That mandatory funding supported the STEM programs at HBCUs and because that funding had expired, it was UNCF’s number one priority to reinstitute that funding. Now, it's important that it's mandatory, which means Congress doesn't have to pass it again every year. Mandatory is mandatory, like Social Security is mandatory, like Medicare and Medicaid are mandatory. So is the Future Act money for HBCU STEM programs. And once it expired, we developed a plan and wrote the bill, the FUTURE Act, to get the money reinstituted. Now, this was a very precarious time period because you had flux in the Congress in terms of which parties were in control. In addition to that, you had a Trump White House. But yet and still the needs of the institutions and students were so great that we had to work with all the players that were already in place to get it done. And we were successful.
On one day, one single day, the House and the Senate both passed the FUTURE Act and got it to the President's desk and we were fortunate enough to be in the room when the President signed the bill into law. And it shows the power that HBCUs, their graduates, and their students can have because we did something that was kind of first of its kind and black legacy organizations, first of its kind, and higher education, and first of its kind kind of for the group that we, at UNCF are, meaning that we got a letter writing campaign organized where well over 60, 000 people were able to send pieces of correspondence to Capitol Hill and let them know that we want to pass the FUTURE Act.
We reached out to people via social media via the alumni list of our institutions, got them to sign onto our site, and in less than 15 seconds they could send three letters a piece to Congress, one to their member of the House, one to each of their senators. And it really worked well, and we were able to convince Congress to get this done and to get it done quickly.
We had some resistance, but we were able to battle through the resistance and get it accomplished. And you know, there's going to be many STEM graduates with promising careers coming up because of the funding we were able to pass and we won't have to fight for it on an annual basis because it's mandatory funding, and so once we did it, it's in perpetuity.
SHP: You were a legislative aid. Did this experience help you in your role today?
LM: That experience has been huge because it allowed me to understand the ebbs and flows of Congress in a very intimate way, meaning that I know what Congress is doing in January and how that's different from February, and how that's different from March, and how that's different from April. And because I know what Congress should be doing at each of these times, I'm able to place UNCF, place the institutions and the students that we advocate on behalf of in the right position every month, every week, every day to get the results that we want.
There's an old adage that in Washington, if you're not seated at the table, then you're on the menu. I have an understanding, based on my career, of what should be done and when, so that those that I represent are seated at the table and not on the menu. You know, if you look at the federal budget like a pizza pie, it has to be sliced up, and if you're not doing your job, your slice is either going to be smaller or nonexistent because somebody else is going to get it. And I'm just not in the position, and neither are the institutions or the students in the position to have our slice to be smaller or for someone else to get what we should have.
And so it's my job to fight to make sure they get everything they deserve.
SHP: How long did you serve as a legislative aide?
LM: Two and a half years. After that, I was a lobbyist at a contract firm for about a dozen years, and then I came to UNCF and I've been here for about 6 years.
SHP: How does that young man from Augusta, Georgia make his way to the nation's capital as senior Vice president of UNCF?
LM: A lot with a lot of prayers and support. I still talk to the people who inspired me along the way. So in fifth grade there was a teacher that said to me, you look like a Morehouse Man, and that inspired me to look up in my families hand me down World Book encyclopedias, Morehouse College, and Dr. Porter even you know from back then, the top of the line was the Encyclopedia Britannica. We had the World Book and then mine were hand-me-downs. We didn't even get them directly from the salesperson. And I looked up Morehouse in the M section and decided that night I wanted to go to Morehouse College. Sight unseen, not knowing anything about college, and I decided that's where I wanted to go.
That teacher was at my Morehouse graduation. That teacher was invited and because of COVID, could not come, when I got my honorary degree from Talladega College. And I still talked to her today. Mrs. Barbara Pulliam.
In addition to that, the lady who was in charge of our Upward Bound program, Mrs. Ernestine st Bell. I still talk to her and keep up with her and share my accomplishments with her and know what's going on with her. And so those programs, those individuals back then, that provided me a source of inspiration that I would not otherwise have. I still keep them very close, near and dear today. I know when I'm doing well because I hear it from them. And I know what I can do better because I hear it from them.
SHP: I believe in telling the story of your HBCU experience. Please share a little about your experience at an HBCU at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
LM: So it was really an experience that helped me become the man that I am. I learned to be independent at Morehouse. I learned that actions have consequences. I learned to be responsible. I learned that you can make friends that last a lifetime and brotherhood that last a lifetime. And so it really was an experience that prepared me for the rest of life. There are things that we go through as black men that no one else will go through. And one can choose to be downtrodden and sullied by those experiences, or one can be inspired to make change and make things better for those that come after them. My time at Morehouse inspired me to do the latter, and I will forever owe a debt of gratitude to the college. It's a very special place because everywhere you turn, you see what you could be. You look at the King chapel, and Dr. King is pointing into the future. You can look at him and be inspired by the past, or you can wonder what it is that he sees that he's pointing at.
You can look through his chapel and see the African American Hall of Fame and all the oil portraits of these famous black men and women and be inspired by them. You can look at the president of the college and say, you know, I want to grow up and be like that, or the chair of your department, or some awesome speaker that's going to make their time to come to campus. And you can be inspired by even your peers or sometimes their parents. I went to college with some guys whose parents were pretty awesome and you know, in career fields that I didn't know anything about, and you know, they gave me a new way of looking at things. So my experience in Morehouse is a book all by itself.
SHP: You were working for a congressman. You had asked someone not to smoke in front of him because he had recently been discharged from the hospital with an illness. Please share that story.
LM: That story that you mentioned was not just any congressman. That was John Boehner, right before he became speaker.
So how that story goes is that my employer at the time, my hometown Congressman, Charlie Norwood, I started working for him and he had a lung condition called Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis or IPF. IPF is a gradual hardening of the lungs. It has no cause, has no cure. All you can do is get a long transplant, which he did. And so one of his first days back at work, he went to a committee hearing and John Boehner was the chair of the committee at the time. John Boehner was and is a cigarette smoker and Congressman Norwood had an oxygen tank with him and he had just walked through the room and Congressman Boehner lit up a cigarette and I said to him, Congressman, would you mind, Mr. Chairman, at the time, would you mind putting out the cigarette. Congressman Norwood was just about to come through… oxygen tank cigarette. You don't want to mix the two, and he just kind of looked at me, thought for a second. Then he ran into another room and all the other staffers had begun this whisper campaign that this is going to be this young man's last day. They didn't even really know my name. And so by the time I got back to Congressman Norwood’s office, all the other staffers in his office had heard from the people there at the committee's site and they basically said, Lodrgiuez, this is going to be your last day. You need to just pack your desk up. We're so sorry, it's been good having you. It hasn't been long, but it's been good. You should just go ahead and thank your lucky stars for this opportunity.
So later on that day, I went to the floor with Congressman Norwood when he went to vote, which is something that most staffers never get the opportunity to do. The floor is reserved for members only, with very few exceptions, and I was one of the exceptions. And so Chairman Boehner, at the time, future Speaker Boehner, says, “Hey, you're the young man from earlier today that told me to put my cigarette out?” I said, :yes, sir”, He said, "Come here.”So I walked over there. I was kind of resigned to it. I don't know how another member of Congress is going to fire me from another member's office, but everyone said that that's what was going to happen. And so when I went over, he said, I want to thank you because I shouldn't have been smoking around Charlie anyway. And then he persisted to say who are you, Where do you come from? He wanted to know if I was in the military because of how I carried myself. I told him that I wasn't. Congressman Boehner kind of fancies himself as a very neat and nice dresser and so we began to kind of chitchat "where'd you get that tie from? I told him, and I asked him where he got his from, and we had a nice conversation, and the same staffers that were gung ho that I would be fired, the next time we were in the committee room together, we were talking about our neckties again, and they were floored because they're trying to figure out how did this young black guy go from certain banishment to being Ace Boone Coon with the chairman of the committee, the future Speaker of the House, and it's by doing what you're supposed to do and not being scared to speak truth to power.
SHP: Let's go to this 100 influential individuals, three times in a row, and that's from the Washingtonian. How does one do this three years in a row?
LM: Well, I don't think you could start out with the goal of being on the list, because I never did. I didn't even know that a list existed. The first year I was on it, I woke up and someone sent it to me, and I was very surprised. The second year I was on it, I was very surprised it just got sent to me. They reached out a little earlier this time and chatted with me about some thoughts to add to the publication. But it's really a big deal for not just me, but also for UNCFfrom for HBCUs overall, because my inclusion is a sign of the upward mobility of HBCUs, the fact that HBCUs are more of a hot topic, the fact that HBCUs are more much more of players in the policy and decision making game than we ever have been.
And it also is a sign to all the graduates and students that we have more work to do, because if we are recognized like this, then we should be getting more out of the process. And I'm hopeful that it inspires more people to get involved in the political process, get involved in the process of getting the resources to our institutions, because that's what we need. We have great students, we have great faculty, we have great staff, we have great presidents. UNCF is a great institution.The only thing we need is more resources for our students and our institutions.
SHP: What advice would you give the freshmen at Morehouse College?
LM: Wow, that's a good question. I tell them to study. I'll tell them to explore things and find themselves. I tell them to be your real self, not what you think people want to see from you, but to be your real self. That's the only way you're going to be free, and that's the only way you're going to be able to help somebody else be free, is to be your real self. I’d tell them to pray, and I tell him to apply for a lot of scholarships.
SHP: So what do you see for yourself down the line? What are your aspirations now?
LM: Now, Dr. Porter, that's a question I will never answer because the sky is the limit and I don't have dreams, I have goals, and things can change and things can get better. I don't want to put any more limitations on the big HIM in the sky because he can do whatever he wants to do whenever he wants.
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It has been my pleasure to have this conversation with Mr. Lodriguez Murray. He is Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs of the United Negro College Fund and he is on a mission.
About Lodriguez Murray
Lodriguez Murray joined UNCF in 2017 as vice president of public policy and government affairs. He was made Senior Vice President in 2019. In this role, he develops and drives strategies to influence and mobilize action in the U.S. Congress and executive branch on the public policy priorities of UNCF, its 37 member HBCUs and the 50,000 students they serve. Murray is also a member of the advisory board of the HBCU Capital Finance Program, has served on the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking on borrower defense, and leads UNCF’s social and criminal justice portfolios.
Murray has had extensive previous government affairs experience representing academic centers, patient rights organizations and private companies. He began his career in Washington as a special assistant for the late Rep. Charles (Charlie) W. Norwood, Jr. (GA). It was in Norwood’s office that he learned the congressional authorization and appropriations processes as well as the importance of customer/constituent services.
A native of Augusta, GA, Murray is a first-generation high school and college graduate, having received a UNCF scholarship while attending Morehouse College. Recognitions for Murray include the original Congressional Black Caucus “40 Under 40” award in healthcare, a special award of recognition from Xavier University’s Health Disparities Conference, and named as one of Washingtonian Magazine’s “Most Influential People” (Education) of 2021. In 2021, Lodriguez received a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from UNCF-member institution Talladega College.
About UNCF
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships, financial assistance, and support to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States. Founded in 1944, UNCF is one of the largest private scholarship providers for African American students, having helped more than 500,000 students earn college degrees.
Mission & Impact
UNCF’s mission is to increase access to higher education for underrepresented students by offering scholarships and strengthening HBCUs. Their well-known motto, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” highlights the importance of education in advancing economic and social opportunities for Black students.NCF was founded in 1944 to help more African American students attend and graduate from college.
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