As Americans across the nation revolt against the construction of costly, resource-reliant data centers, one budding story out of Tennessee appears to epitomize the exploitation many people have warned about.

Tennessee is just one of several states across the rural South where technology companies have looked to host their data center dreams. This thirst from Big Tech has spurred lawsuits on behalf of Tennessee residents, including one filed by the NAACP over pollution claims involving data centers operated by Elon Musk’s xAI.

And a new fight appears to be brewing over Fisk University’s plan to build a massive data center on its Nashville campus. Capital B reported that some of the project’s backers see it as a means of raising needed revenue for the university, but that rationale doesn’t seem to have assuaged concerns. Per the outlet:

Tennessee already has 60 data centers. In fact, the Fisk project is coming on the heels of another proposed data center near the Nashville Zoo, upsetting residents across the city.

In the weeks since Fisk’s announcement, students and residents have come out in droves to several public hearings opposing the data center.

On June 10, state Rep. Justin Jones stood with residents and fellow Fisk alumni to call out the potential harm the data center posed. He asked other Nashville residents to oppose the center with the same urgency they are using to oppose the one near the city’s zoo.

“If AI data centers are not good for a zoo, then it’s not good for an HBCU,” Jones said.

The NAACP has taken a stand against harmful data centers with its “Stop Dirty Data Centers” initiative. In a statement to MS NOW, the organization’s director of environmental and climate justice, Abre’ Conner, sided with critics of Fisk’s plan:

We stand in solidarity with the earth justice groups who recognize that Black and other frontline communities have borne the brunt of the environmental and climate injustices from data centers. We are pro-innovation, but not at the expense of shortening the lifespan of Black people. This must be the priority when building a dirty data center at a renowned HBCU. 

In a press release announcing a community town hall, state Sen. Charlane Oliver tried to strike a balance.

“I do not believe Black and underinvested communities should keep absorbing the environmental cost of other people’s progress,” the Tennessee Democrat wrote. “The pollution, the strain on our water and power, the health burden that always seems to land on the same zip codes. Those harms are real, and I will not pretend this is a tidy debate with two equal sides. It isn’t.”

Oliver framed the decision on whether to move forward as a potentially dire one:

And yet I owe you the full truth of where I sit. I represent Fisk University — one of the oldest and most sacred HBCUs in this nation and the oldest institution in Nashville — and I have real relationships with its leadership, as your senator is supposed to. Fisk is facing a genuine financial reckoning. Like so many of our HBCUs, it has been asked to do generational work on starvation funding. I am fighting this exact battle over the historic underfunding of Tennessee State University.

Here, we see how the crisis of underfunded historically Black colleges and universities can leave communities — and students — vulnerable to exploitation. Despite President Donald Trump’s repeated falsehoods about having“saved” HBCUs from financial ruin, many of the schools continue to struggle with funding, as Capital B recently reported.

And those budget shortfalls can sometimes lead universities into desperate situations — like, say, an on-campus data center — that may have harmful impacts on the students they’re tasked with teaching.

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From MS Now.