Terryl Calloway runs a small, Black-owned graphics and printing firm on Newbury Street in the heart of Boston — a short distance from about a dozen colleges.
“We print anything from business cards, flyers, banners, signs — anything print,” he said.
Though his business is surrounded by colleges, Calloway said it’s hard to arrange contract work with them. “Colleges have been pretty challenging. I call it the good old boy system. It’s the easy way out,” he said.
The murder of George Floyd two years ago prodded colleges across the country to pledge they’d increase contracting with businesses owned by people of color, in keeping with the value they place on diversity.
But supplier diversity appears to still be more of an aspiration than a reality in higher education — a nationwide industry that spends more than $630 billion each year.
“Most of that money is going to the…
