A major landmark in our neighborhood is the University of the District of Columbia’s main campus. But UDC’s roots were spread throughout the city, and sprouted before the Civil War.
In 1975, a brand new DC Council compelled three rival and independent-minded public institutions to join together under one governing UDC board, despite their cultural differences. All were very affordable, low-tuition schools.
Congressman Charles Diggs (D-Mich.), then chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on DC, had pressed for a merger. Congress authorized it in 1974. But true consolidation was hard and slow – very slow. It was still incomplete ten years later. (Another decade beyond that, in 1996, the DC Council attached the former Antioch Law School to UDC.)…