Inside Higher Ed55%
Will a Data Center Bring Risk or Reward to Fisk? 32%
By Kathryn Palmer0%
8/7/2026, 12:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Framing Effect, and Negativity Bias, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 19.8% saturation with 272 hits. Analysis detected 1,074 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,376 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 34.5% and a BS Rank of 32% (19,690 of 28,846 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 68.30% of the article peer group.
When Agenia Clark took the helm of Fisk University in late 2023, she made it her mission to secure financial stability for the 160-year-old historically Black institution, which has seen its share of financial struggles and accreditation challenges.
That led her to spearhead the development of Quantum Leap, a $900 million master plan whose details were first unveiled in May.
It aims to grow enrollment at the Nashville campus to 1,500 students—up from a little more than 1,000 now—as well as spend $500 million on renovations and another $400 million on a 100,000-square-foot technology and innovation center, which will house a massive, high-powered data center.
The university says the innovation center “is intended to bring critical technology access to North Nashville, enhancing our curriculum and research capabilities and ensuring our students are prepared to enter the increasingly tech-driven workforce.”
But it’s also become one of the latest flashpoints of the mounting nationwide backlash against the rapid expansion of data centers.
Some critics say the proliferation of these centers is following historic urban development patterns that have disproportionately hurt marginalized communities.
“We understand that our beloved institution is in need.
We also understand the serious health impact / implications of data centers built for generative AI on communities,” reads an online petition calling on Fisk to halt the project, which had nearly 18,000 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.
“We understand that throughout history, Black and working-class neighborhoods across the country have repeatedly been the desired location for developing harmful infrastructure for the sake of profit.
This current era we find ourselves in is not new.”
Founded in 1866 to educate Black people newly freed from slavery, Fisk University’s roster of famous alumni includes the late civil rights activist and congressman, John Lewis, and celebrated poet James Weldon Johnson.
But, like many historically Black colleges and universities, Fisk’s history has been marked by financial hardship, at times landing the small, private university on accreditation probation and even threatening its closure.
In 2024, the university narrowly averted a projected $3 million deficit after city officials allowed it to repurpose pandemic relief funds.
A Lifeline or Risk?
The new data center represents another potential lifeline for Fisk—though some believe it will do more harm than good.
The university, which only installed campuswide Wi-Fi a few years ago, says its proposed data center has the potential to generate new revenue and academic opportunities, as well as bridge the digital divide facing many HBCUs in the age of AI.
“We are living through the most significant economic and technological shift of our lifetimes.
Artificial intelligence is not a future conversation, it is happening now,” Clark said in a video announcement about the data center.
“What powers it is becoming the infrastructure of everything—how economies grow, how knowledge moves, how opportunity gets built.
Fisk is positioning itself to be an owner of infrastructure, not just a beneficiary of it.”
Although data centers have been around for decades, they’ve rapidly expanded in volume and capability during the AI boom of the past few years.
According to Pew Research Center, as of April, more than 3,000 data centers were operating across the United States—with high concentrations in the South—and at least 1,500 are more in development.
A growing number of colleges and universities—including the University of Michigan, the University of Alabama and Oakland University—have announced plans to open their own data centers to support campus infrastructure, AI research and industry collaboration.
Although Clark has promised that Fisk’s center—which will also house a 30,000 square-foot academic space—will be eco-friendly, create no cost increases for nearby residents, operate independently and “do no harm,” that hasn’t spared it from getting caught up in swelling public distaste for data centers, which have come to symbolize AI’s swift encroachment on the environment, workforce and information ecosystem.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 70 percent of Americans oppose the construction of data centers in their area, citing concerns about strained natural resources, cost-of-living increases, noise pollution and job losses, as well as general negative views about AI.
And if all of the current hype around AI deflates, as some experts predict it will, universities may be among the investors most harmed by the fallout, according to Michelle Martinez, director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability.
“The big question around AI and data centers is, ‘Who is holding the risks and who is holding the benefits?’
Each university, township or city that is adopting data centers as a development plan may be holding that risk.” she said.
“Who pays if the AI bubble bursts?
Without a transparent process in which community members can give input and meaningful dialogue, those poised to hold some of the greatest risks are our schools, educators, students and knowledge economy.”
National Backlash
Across the country, people have protested the development of these data centers, including those springing up at other universities.
But the epicenter of data center pushback is only about 200 miles southwest of Fisk’s campus, in Memphis.
There, tech mogul Elon Musk has moved fast to build a compound composed of some of the world’s largest data centers—powered in part by dozens of unpermitted natural gas turbines—near predominantly Black neighborhoods.
It was against that backdrop that Fisk started developing plans for its own data center near the edge of campus.
“I paid very close attention to [Musk’s] hyper-scaled center in Memphis.
We’re not looking at anything at that scale or form partnerships that would ever do anything like that within our community,” Clark told Inside Higher Ed “[Fisk’s data center] is not that at all.”
Instead, Clark said that many of the details about the project—including who its revenue-sharing partners may be and how much of its 30 megawatt capability will be used—are still up for debate.
“If you look at these other models, they came, built, and went into operation before the community even knew anything about them,” she said.
“We have announced a vision for our future that is allowing everyone, those who believe and those who don't believe, to be a part of the conversation.”
But so far those conversations have been tense.
Although the center has garnered some community support, including from nearby Meharry Medical College, a swarm of alumni, lawmakers and other community members have called on Fisk to halt the project.
“Data centers seem like a big get-rich-quick scheme,” Winston Wright, the Fisk alumnus who launched the opposition petition, told Inside Higher Ed.
“This is negligent and wouldn’t solve the long-term financial need, especially if it’s a bust.
… HBCUs have an obligation to maintain their legacy [of activism] which means not siding with corporate power.”
As a result of the pushback against Fisk’s data center and another near the Nashville Zoo, Nashville’s Metro Council last month passed a moratorium on all new data center permits until Dec. 1, along with new environmental and zoning restrictions, including a ban on any data centers bigger than 500,000 square feet.
Clark said she wasn’t surprised by the negative reaction to the project, but welcomed the new regulations as an opportunity to bring the vision for the innovation center into reality.
“We can now step back and see what are the ideal types of partnerships that Fisk University can enter into, because it’s not just about having access to 30 megawatts,” she said.
It’s about “identifying what this academic building can be, what the academic experience of our students can be, and the educational opportunities and engagements we can bring to our community.”
Moving those conversations forward will require Fisk to balance acknowledgment of the community’s fears with the data center’s potential to bring the university into a new era of stability, said Terrell Strayhorn, an education professor at Virginia Union University, who specializes in HBCUs.
But what Fisk—or any other HBCU—can’t afford to do is sit on the sidelines as AI’s reach grows, he said.
“If they’re absent from this conversation, the communities they serve risk being underrepresented in developing, controlling and benefitting from AI,” he said.
“HBCUs don’t just educate students; they help ensure that technology and innovation reflects the needs and aspirations of all Americans.”
Speakers
5speakers32%attributed speech939writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageWinston Wright
55 attributed words13% of attributed speech62% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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