michael lomax, president and ceo of the united negro college fund. let me go to you first, dr. williams, put in perspective how serious of a threat is this to the colleges you represent and what are you hoping can be done? >> well, first of all, i want to say thank you, reverend al sharpton, for putting this before the country today. this is a very important topic. thurgood marshal was founded 33 years ago with a sole purpose and focus to support our publicly supported historically black colleges and universities. our founder had this vision because he saw back then the need and the fact that our schools were not getting their adequate resources. with this pandemic, it has created a major, major problem for our institutions. we have been working around the clock with our elected officials, reverend -- dr. lomax and i, we have been working with congress to secure resources and we've been very fortunate that they heard our cry. and just here on friday it was announced by the department of education that $1.4 billion will go to our institutions to support them during this most cri