A University of Mississippi vice chancellor’s husband wants a federal investigation into his arrest last week for animal cruelty.
“I am asking for a federal investigation due to false facts,” Terry Pegues, 47, told a Mississippi Today reporter.
“That’s all, that’s all,” Pegues added before hanging up. “Just print that.”
Pegues bonded out on Aug. 8, a day after the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department arrested him for 10 counts of animal cruelty. Earlier that week, officers had been dispatched to an address on County Road 418, in a hilly, rural area south of Oxford proper, after a citizen complained of possible animal cruelty, according to a press release.
No one was home, but deputies observed several malnourished and deceased dogs still attached to collars and chains, according to the release. After obtaining a warrant and searching the property, officers found 10 deceased animals and rescued 20.
The sheriff’s department did not release the address in question, but Lafayette County property records show Pegues owned a couple of small parcels of land in that area with his wife, Charlotte Fant Pegues.
Fant Pegues has served as vice chancellor of student affairs at Ole Miss since 2019 when she was appointed to the role in the interim. She was not charged in connection to the allegations against Pegues, according to a statement from a university spokesperson.
“University leaders are deeply disturbed and appalled by any instance of animal cruelty,” Jacob Batte, the university’s director of news and media relations, wrote in an email. “The university is not among the parties involved in the ongoing investigation by the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department, and the university is not aware of any charges against a university employee in relation to that investigation. Given the ongoing nature of the investigation, the university will make no further comment at this time.”
It is unclear if sheriff’s deputies interviewed Fant Pegues during their investigation. The department did not respond to a request for comment.
A native of Holly Springs, Fant Pegues has earned several degrees from Ole Miss and has worked at the university since 1993. She did not return a call to her cellphone by press time.
County records show Fant Pegues and her husband have owned multiple properties in Oxford and Lafayette County since the mid-2000s. She recently sold a home in the populated Southpointe subdivision to an Alabama family that was looking to buy a place for their two kids who are attending Ole Miss.
Bobby Michael, the dad who purchased the home, said he walked through it twice and never observed any evidence of animal cruelty. He did not meet Fant Pegues or her husband as the purchase was conducted through his Realtor, he added.
“I didn’t see anything like blood splatter or dog cages or nothing like that,” Michael said. “To be honest, I didn’t even know the names of the people we bought the house from.”
In her role as vice chancellor of student affairs, Fant Pegues oversees the leaders of various offices on campus related to student health and wellbeing, such as housing and the university police department, according to a university organizational chart. Her biography on the university website notes that “my husband, Tee, and I enjoy living in Oxford and love being a part of the Ole Miss family.”
A federal watchdog report Monday laid blame on the Mississippi State Department of Health, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, for prolonging Jackson’s well-documented water woes, saying their failed oversight contributed to the capital city’s infrastructure issues lasting as long as they have.
“The MSDH’s inaction prolonged Jackson’s noncompliance,” the EPA Office of Inspector General’s report reads. The EPA OIG is an independent office within the EPA that conducts investigations and audits on behalf of the agency.
The report goes on to say that the state not documenting or raising attention to critical issues within the water system “obscured the long-standing challenges of the system, allowed issues to compound over time, and contributed to the system’s failure.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, MSDH hadn’t released a statement on the report, only telling Mississippi Today that it was still reviewing the document.
Among the many faults the report identified, the EPA OIG found that MSDH hasn’t had a proper enforcement procedure for drinking water systems since the EPA granted the state primacy — or the authority to regulate those systems — in 1977. The report criticizes both MSDH for not having enforcement procedures, as well as the EPA for not requiring MSDH to do so.
Members of the Mississippi National Guard distribute bottled water to Jackson residents at the Mississippi Trade Mart in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, September 1, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
The investigation claims that MSDH didn’t call enough attention to significant issues with Jackson’s water system, and that by not doing so it left the EPA in the dark.
“Because the MSDH did not consistently identify significant deficiencies in Jackson’s sanitary surveys, there were no subsequent violations of which the EPA would have been made aware,” the EPA OIG wrote.
Specifically, the document says: “System staffing was a common concern noted throughout multiple sanitary surveys but only rose to the level of a significant deficiency in the February 2020 sanitary survey. In addition, membrane trains, which provide filtration, failed integrity testing in multiple sanitary surveys from 2015 through 2017 but were not deemed a significant deficiency until the February 2020 sanitary survey.”
Notably, only half of the membrane trains at the O.B. Curtis water treatment plant were running when a 2021 winter storm shut down Jackson’s water distribution.
The EPA OIG also listed several instances when MSDH failed to timely communicate with Jackson over its system deficiencies, including when the city failed a lead test in July 2015. MSDH didn’t notify the city of the test results until January 2016, and, due to the delay, “for approximately six months, Jackson residents were unaware that lead may have been in their drinking water,” the report says.
“For the majority of the sanitary surveys and inspections from 2016 through 2020, the MSDH had inconsistent communication with Jackson,” the report adds. “Either the MSDH sent written notification of significant deficiencies several months after conducting a sanitary survey or inspection, or it did not notify Jackson.”
Federal law requires states to conduct “sanitary surveys” at least once every three years to make sure public water systems are up to code.
Jackson’s O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility. Tuesday, July 19, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Not only did MSDH delay telling Jackson about the city’s deficiencies, the report says, the agency also didn’t adequately reflect the severity of the city’s issues in its inspections. In an interview, an EPA Region IV employee told the EPA OIG that a 2020 diagnosis of Jackson’s water system found issues dating back to 2014 that MSDH hadn’t listed as “significant discrepancies.”
“According to a (Region IV enforcement) employee, the MSDH may have been aware of more problems than what was documented in the sanitary surveys,” the EPA OIG adds. “That employee speculated that there was a lack of ‘political will’ in the MSDH to address problems identified.”
Noting the city’s above-average number of line breaks — which were over three times the industry average from 2017 to 2021 — the report says that while line breaks are usually not reported to the EPA, the state could report the issue to the EPA if they find an “exorbitant number” of boil water notices. From 2014 to 2022, Jackson issued approximately 1,570 boil water notices. The report emphasizes the issue with a photo of a coffee mug captioned “Welcome to Boil Water Alert Mississippi.”
A screenshot of the EPA OIG’s August, 2024 report on MSDH and EPA oversight of Jackson’s water system.
The report is the third this year that the EPA Office of Inspector General, an independent watchdog agency, released about Jackson’s water system. All three stem from the near-collapse of the system in 2022, which happened after the coincidence of flooding on the Pearl River and the failure of pumps at the city’s main treatment plant. Since then, the Department of Justice, EPA and city officials came to an agreement to allow a court-appointed third-party manager to temporarily takeover the water system.
The first report, released in May, found that MSDH and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality didn’t racially discriminate against Jackson in funding the city’s water system.
About a week later, though, the EPA OIG released another report that found that MSDH failed to provide Jackson with flexible loan options that are available for economically disadvantaged cities. That report also described failures on the city level, including poor management of its treatment plants as well as gaps in communication between operators and higher-ups.
Monday’s report lists several recommended actions to prevent the agencies’ short-comings in the future, including assessing MSDH’s sanitary survey program and how it helps water systems overcome deficiencies. Another action it lists is to make sure that MSDH has a procedure for enforcing federal and state drinking water laws.
“If (MSDH) is not implementing enforcement procedures as required by Safe Drinking Water Act section 1413, consider whether procedures for rescinding state primacy for water systems should be initiated,” the recommended action states.
In an e-mailed statement from EPA Press Officer Terry Johnson, the agency said that it has “previously identified many of the same concerns raised by the (EPA OIG) and has already begun implementing actions to address their recommendations. This includes working with (MSDH) to ensure strong drinking water regulatory oversight at the state and federal levels.” The City of Jackson did not respond to a request for comment by this story’s publication.
State Auditor Shad White has taken the unusual tack for a leader of an investigative and enforcement agency of writing a book about an ongoing case — the Mississippi welfare fraud scandal.
“Mississippi Swindle: Brett Favre and the Welfare Scandal that Shocked America” hit bookshelves on Aug. 6 even as feds continue to probe and prosecute and the state tries to recoup tens of millions of federal dollars meant for the poor.
White is already drawing some fire for his tell-all from fellow officials he cast in less-than-flattering light. They question whether it’s appropriate for him to write about and profit from a case he investigated, and whether it could hinder ongoing criminal and civil investigation and prosecution.
Much of White’s new tome appears to be his defense of questions he has faced about his own role in the initial probe, his close relationship with a key figure and early decisions he made.
He also heaps criticism on Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch and state GOP Chairman Mike Hurst, who was a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney during the time on which the book focuses. White paints Hurst as too political and egotistical, Fitch as inept and uninterested in going after the misspending.
Hurst and Fitch accuse White of writing a self-aggrandizing work of fiction rather than a documentation of the welfare fraud case.
Hurst in a statement said: “It’s sad and disappointing that our state auditor would stoop to these levels of lies, rumors and innuendo in order to bolster himself politically and enrich himself financially during an ongoing criminal investigation. While fantasy and fiction may sell books, and maybe in his mind bolster his chances for higher office, it is not in the best interest of, or the right way forward for, our state.”
Hurst has also questioned whether White not involving the feds — with their wiretapping, surveillance, statutory and other capabilities — in the case until after the initial state arrests were made public hindered wrapping up all the bad actors in the fraud scheme.
A Fitch spokeswoman said of the book: “There is no question that publishing a book while a case is still active makes a complicated case that much more complicated. It remains to be seen what impact the Auditor’s recollection of events will have on the serious work that is being done on behalf of Mississippians.
“We can’t speak for others, but as far as its account of the Attorney General’s role, we consider the book fiction.”
White, an ambitious politician with eyes on the governor’s office, in his book praises himself and his staff for uncovering massive fraud after a tip from White’s majordomo, then-Gov. Phil Bryant. White in the book also praises Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, to whom White took the case for prosecution.
White initially eschewed federal prosecutors and the FBI, who had much more investigative and prosecutorial might and experience in tracking down misspending of federal money. In the book he explains that he worried the feds would not move quickly enough to staunch the misspending of millions of federal dollars by state actors. So he took the case to the newly elected Democratic Hinds DA Owens, with whom White says he already had a relationship from the two going through conversion to Catholicism together.
Criminal and civil defendants in the case, and the public, have for years questioned then-Gov. Bryant’s role in the frittering of potentially $100 million meant for the poorest of the poor in the poorest state. Mississippi Today’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Backchannel” series by reporter Anna Wolfe showed Bryant using private texts to influence his welfare director and try to broker a deal with a pharmaceutical startup that enticed him with an offer of stock in the company.
White served as policy director when Bryant was lieutenant governor and was his gubernatorial campaign manager in 2015. Bryant in 2018 appointed White as state auditor, a job that has been a launching pad for runs to higher office, and supported White in his subsequent election.
Former state auditors have said that, had they had similar connections to the governor overseeing the agency that spends welfare money, they would have recused themselves or limited their involvement in the auditor’s investigation.
White throughout the book rails against any questions of whether he feathered or sandbagged any investigation for his former boss, who has not been charged with any crime or been included in the state’s civil prosecution.
“Show some proof of this crazy conspiracy,” White writes. “If the feds can find proof on more people, then good. Everyone who did something wrong should go down. If the feds suspect Bryant of telling (a key defendant) to get rich off this money, or if they think Bryant benefitted, then tell them to do the work we’ve been doing. Investigate! Reach their own conclusions! Tell them to do their jobs!”
White, who is critical of Mississippi Today, Wolfe and “The Backchannel” — and never mentions the Pulitzer Prize — shrugs off texts involving Bryant, including one between Bryant and the head of a pharmaceutical company that received welfare money. The drug CEO recently pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud charges in the welfare case, after White’s book had already been written.
The pharmaceutical CEO texted Bryant two days after the governor left office: “Now that you’re unemployed, I’d like to give you a company package for all your help.”
Bryant responded: “Sounds good. Where would be the best place to meet. I am now going to get on it hard.”
White in his book explains: “Bryant sent these controversial texts after my office took our findings to Jody Owens, so they were not central to the opening salvo of the case. They hadn’t even been sent when we went to Jody. But the message would go on to be a focal point for every prosecutor who looked at the matter from then on. How federal and state prosecutors interpreted his messages — had Bryant agreed to accept something of value in exchange for an official act? — would determine Bryant’s future.”
White further defends Bryant, “the most salient fact … was that Bryant had never actually accepted anything of value” and says Bryant hired a new welfare agency head to get to the bottom of misspending.
Some of White’s knocks on others, particularly Hurst, appear thinly sourced, such as, “I was still hearing rumors that Mike Hurst was telling people I’d handed the DHS case to state prosecutors instead of the feds to protect Governor Bryant.” And, “The rumors were that Mike had been directing FBI agents as if they worked for him, creating animosity with FBI bosses.”
As for Fitch, White says she appeared disinterested in prosecuting the largest fraud case in state history, forcing those who misspent it to pay it back or seizing millions of dollars in property bought with ill begotten money. He questioned her relationship with famed former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, whom the state has sued to recoup welfare money paid to him.
White writes that Fitch failed to help freeze a bank account holding welfare money but, “Instead Fitch filmed a video around that time with Brett Favre (where he called her ‘Lynn Finch with an n in her last name) discussing COVID and promoting her office — all after the public knew Favre was enmeshed in the scandal … perhaps Fitch was wagering it was better for her long-term political future to align with Favre.”
Favre is suing White claiming defamation, and Fitch has refused to have the AG’s office represent White in the case in part because his book criticizes her office creating a conflict of interest. Fitch’s office has also warned White that any legal matters involving his book would be outside the scope of his job and he would be on his own legally.
In the book White writes: “Attorney General Lynn Fitch has been quiet throughout the DHS debacle, failing to even register a meaningful comment on the largest public fraud scheme in the state’s history. Whereas Jody (Owens) and I faced criticism for moving too slowly — despite being the ones to uncover and serve the first indictments in the scheme — Fitch had escaped controversy by doing nothing at all.”
White’s book has been the talk of Mississippi’s political class for months, with many questioning whether it’s proper for him to profit from a case in which he was involved as state auditor. A recent promotional video of White put out by the publisher appeared to be shot from a state office, with White sitting beneath a large state of Mississippi seal, further prompting the questions.
Tom Hood, director of the Mississippi Ethics Commission, said that generally, an elected official can write such a book.
“The Ethics Commission has advised in numerous opinions that public servants are not prohibited from taking general knowledge or experience gained through the course of their government service and using it in the private sector.”
But professor John Pelissero, director of Government Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said, “I can understand why people would question his motivations here.”
“To be directly involved in investigating the welfare scandal and then, if you will, limiting how much information his office was sharing with the public before coming out with a book, one has to look at the release of this book and ask how is the public interest served by the state auditor using his position … then benefitting personally and perhaps politically,” Pelissero said. “… Maybe in terms of the letter of the law the auditor hasn’t violated anything, but the book is based upon information he acquired in his official capacity. The ethical problem is if the public looks at it and they perceive the auditor is seeking to benefit financially and politically … That undermines the public’s confidence.”
As this article was being reported and written, State Auditor’s Office Communications Director Jacob Walters messaged saying, “I’ve heard around the grapevine” that an article was forthcoming and that he assumed “you would give us a chance to respond.” The state employee, who did not answer whether he was doing the book public relations as a state employee, then sent lengthy written statements from White blasting Hurst and Fitch. (Note: Read the full comments here.)
“The truth, unfortunately, is that Mike was not a particularly good U.S. Attorney,” White’s statement said. And for Fitch, “… she failed to prosecute a soul, failed to seize any property bought with stolen welfare money and forced the state to hire private attorneys … That decision by Lazy Lynn has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars…”
State Auditor Shad White’s publisher recently aired a Youtube video of White promoting his book. Credit: Special to Mississippi Today
Asked at the recent Neshoba County Fair by Mississippi Today why he wrote the book, White said the writing, which he started a couple of years ago, was partially cathartic.
“I really started writing at a time when the state auditor’s office and the Hinds DA were the only entities doing anything about the welfare scandal in Mississippi, and frankly I was a little frustrated,” White said. “One of the things I do when I’m frustrated is pour my thoughts onto a page … and by the end, I thought this is a story that taxpayers need to know. This is a complicated case as y’all know at Mississippi Today, and I thought I needed to put this all in one place and explain to the people not only what happened but why I made the decisions I made throughout the course of the case.”
And while the feds appear to still be active on the case, White said, “the FBI has not asked us any questions about how to dig into any more facts any time in the last year” and he believes “prosecutors have all the facts and now they’re debating whether to charge anybody else.”
White’s 236-page book, published by New Hampshire-based Steerforth Press, flows fairly well even as it gets into the weeds at times about audit details with lots of numbers. White lists no co-author.
Some of the color in the book can be off-putting, such as what appears to be an almost formulaic — and sometimes harsh — quick description of main characters as they are introduced.
White describes Phil Bryant as having “rugged looks … a thick head of perfectly coiffed gray hair.” Gov. Tate Reeves is, “rosy-cheeked with a full head of blond hair.” DHS Director John Davis is described as, “now a paunchy, balding man with a penchant for flashy ties and decor.” A younger defendant Nancy New had “big hair and a Cheshire cat grin.” Defendant Zach New “still looked like a Southern Miss frat boy … a permanent five o’clock shadow and wore some beer weight around his face.” Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe was “wearing big, horn-rimmed glasses and hair that occasionally changed colors.” An aide to Davis “was callow, still sporting his college haircut.”
White, 38, is himself a small, slender elfish looking fellow with large ears and a receding hair line.
White’s book appears to be written in the vein of c’est fini, but the feds got a guilty plea from the pharmaceutical CEO about one week before White’s book hit the shelves.
A couple of other themes in the book perhaps also didn’t age well.
After White penned his criticism of Hurst and the book was put to bed, Hurst was elected chairman of the state Republican Party. With his ambition for occupying the governor’s mansion, White would probably need the help and support of his party.
Also after the book was put to bed, Hinds County District Attorney Owens’ office and a cigar bar and lounge he owns were in May raided by FBI agents. The purpose of the raids remains unexplained, but Owens said he is cooperating with federal authorities.
Mamie Smith sang Perry Bradford’s song “Crazy Blues,” detailing the “outrage by a woman driven mad by mistreatment,” music critic David Hajdu wrote in The New York Times.
“Now the doctor’s gonna do all that he can,” she advised, “but what you’re gonna need is an undertaker man.”
The tune struck a chord with Black Americans, still reeling from the violence of 1919’s “Red Summer.” The song popularized the blues, selling more than 2 million copies, Hajdu wrote. “People were not only moved by it; they moved to it.”
The success of the song prompted major record companies to market to Black audiences and paved the way for other Black female performers. Smith’s voice “changed presumptions about what popular music was, what it could do — what kind of language it could speak to us about the depth and intricacies of our inner lives,” Daphne A. Brooks wrote in The New York Times.
A century later, the blues continues to play an outsized role in American music. “Hatred and violence have hardly disappeared from the American landscape,” Hajdu wrote. “Neither has the blues.”
A north Mississippi animal shelter caring for 27 dogs whose owners have been charged with animal neglect is hoping that the case is an opportunity to reexamine the state’s animal protection laws, which have been rated as among the weakest in the nation.
The owner and his fiance are facing misdemeanors.
“Stuff like this case is not as uncommon as people think it is,” said Meridith Perry, interim director of the Corinth Alcorn Animal Shelter. “It is happening more than people realize.”
One puppy was dead and scavenged by the other dogs.
A tip from a neighbor led the Corinth police to a Pleasant Grove Road home where several dogs were outside. Inside, police and staff from the shelter and rescue organizations found malnourished and sick dogs without food and water.
Mixed breed dogs ranging in age from a few months old to adult age hid under furniture and others stood on it, video released by the local animal shelter shows. Feces and urine covered the ground.
Perry said the shelter is over capacity since taking in the rescued dogs.
The owner of the home, Jonathan Hurst, a Corinth city employee terminated this week, was arrested July 28 and, days later, so was his fiance, Sondra Bullard. Both were charged with 27 counts of animal cruelty – a misdemeanor charge for each dog discovered at the property.
After initial hearings last week, both pleaded not guilty and were released on personal recognizance, according to the Corinth Municipal Court’s office. Their next scheduled court date is Nov. 4.
They could not be reached for comment Friday.
Authories fourn 27 dogs of varying ages and a dead puppy without food and water in a Corinth home last week, some hiding under the furniture. Two people have been charged with simple animal cruelty, a misdemeanor, and the animals have been removed. Credit: Courtesy of Meridith Perry/Corinth Alcorn Animal Shelter
Hurst, who worked for the city’s sewer department, lost his job Tuesday. Mayor Ralph Dance said the termination was unrelated to the animal neglect case, but rather issues related to his employment, the Daily Corinthian reported.
The city is also considering demolition of the home where the dogs were found because it has been contaminated and is not salvageable.
The Animal Legal Defense Funds ranked Mississippi’s animal protection laws as No. 45 in the nation in its recent report, based on statutes and categories of protection.
In Mississippi, a charge of simple animal cruelty includes the criminal neglect or intent of depriving a dog or cat of adequate shelter, food or water or confining them in a cruel manner. A charge carries a penalty of up to six months in jail or a maximum $1,000 fine, or both.
For Hurst and Bullard, that could mean up to 13 ½ years of jail time, $27,000 in fines or both if convicted of all 27 charges.
Aggravated cruelty, a felony, is intentional harm of a dog or cat. Each charge can come with a maximum three-year prison sentence, a $5,000 fine or both. Subsequent offenses within five years carry a prison sentence of one to 10 years and a maximum $10,000 fine.
“We’re not really holding people accountable to the level they should be,” said Perry, who noted that in other states, there is more of an ability to charge animal cruelty as a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
Under state law updated in 2020, a judge can prohibit someone from owning animals in the future, order the person to seek counseling or to complete community service.
Those found to violate that prohibition can be fined and their animals forfeited to the state, according to state law.
Convictions have varied for people charged with animal cruelty under the law.
In 2020, a Jones County woman was charged with 38 counts after caged and hungry dogs were rescued and five dogs were found dead at a property she owned. She was sentenced to 114 months in jail with six to serve, thousands in fines, hundreds of community service hours and an order to undergo a psychological evaluation.
Last year, a woman who ran a Harrison County animal rescue organization pleaded no contest to 10 counts of animal cruelty and was ordered to serve six months in jail. Sheriff’s deputies went to her property in 2022 and found 30 dead dogs, a dead buzzard and live dogs that were taken in by the nearby animal shelter.
A man pleaded guilty in March to aggravated animal cruelty for throwing a dog off a balcony in Hattiesburg, breaking its bones. In an order of nonadjudication of guilt, he was ordered to complete community service and remain in good behavior.
The FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System began collecting information about animal cruelty incidents from law enforcement agencies in 2016. But the agency cautions that the numbers may be underreported because not every law enforcement agency reports data and animal control agencies and humane organizations that often investigate cruelty aren’t able to report data.
Preliminary analysis of the data from 2018 found 4.3 animal cruelty incidents nationally per 100,000 people – far less than incidents of crimes such as assault, robbery and drug offenses.
In Mississippi, data from the reporting system from 2020 through 2022 showed a total of 362 reported animal cruelty incidents. As the FBI noted, the data is likely underreported because for these years, incidents were reported from 30 to 80 agencies – a fraction of the hundreds of law enforcement agencies that exist in the state.
As of Friday, the rescued dogs from the Corinth home are recovering. Eight of them were taken into the care of Guardians of Rescue and placed in foster homes out of state. The remaining are in the care of the Corinth Alcorn Animal Shelter.
Some of the younger ones in better health will be ready for adoption or transport out of state in the coming weeks, Perry said.
Through the end of the month, adoptions are $50 for dogs that have been at the shelter for a year or more, which she said will help clear up space.
The shelter staff expressed gratitude to the community and supporters from beyond Corinth who have donated dog food, cleaning supplies and money to help with medical bills.
“The support has been overwhelming,” Perry said. “We didn’t expect anything of it. We had no idea of what to expect. We just put out the call.”
For more information about how to help the shelter and updates about the rescued dogs, visit www.facebook.com/corinthalcornanimalshelter
Jackson State University at Prentiss and J.R. Lynch Streets. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Jackson State University faculty senate president Dawn McLin was placed on leave pending termination last week for allegedly abusing the power of the position, according to faculty who met Thursday night to discuss how to support her.
The accusation has sowed confusion and fear of retaliation among members of the historically Black university’s faculty senate.A Jackson State spokesperson did not respond to Mississippi Today’s request for comment by press time.
McLin, a psychology professor whose family has deep roots at Jackson State, was elected faculty senate president in 2020. She has presided during a fraught relationship between faculty and administration that has seen the senate take multiple votes of no-confidence in members of the current and former administration, due in part to a “continuous pattern of failing to respect” shared governance and other professional norms.
Though faculty do not know the exact circumstances of McLin’s leave, many expressed alarm that what happened is highly unusual. A tenured professor, McLin is entitled to certain employment protections per university policies and the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees.
But McLin was apparently placed on leave without any written warning, members of the faculty senate executive committee shared during the meeting. She was also accused of harassment, malfeasance and “contumacious conduct,” a term stemming from IHL policies that means insubordination.
This sort of treatment of faculty senate presidents rarely happens, at most once or twice every few years, according to the American Association of University Professors, a professional organization that advocates for tenure, shared governance and academic freedom.
“Such actions are generally taken in retaliation for criticisms of the administration the faculty members may have offered in the performance of their faculty leadership duties,” Anita Levy, a program officer for AAUP, wrote in an email.
McLin will receive a hearing in front of a faculty panel, but multiple faculty noted during Thursday night’s meeting that the president, Marcus Thompson, could terminate her even if the panel recommends she be reinstated.
Hearing this, multiple faculty stated that if McLin could be placed on leave without a warning, any of them could be. Many said the university’s reason didn’t matter, because as a tenured professor, McLin was owed more due process than it seemed she had received. One professor said he felt like tenure no longer existed at Jackson State and that faculty, no matter their age or length of service, were no longer protected.
Some faculty wanted more information — which led others to point out the university would have nothing to say because this is a “personnel matter.”
McLin would not comment for this story. She was not on the Zoom call to speak for herself because she had been “removed from the university altogether,” a member of the faculty senate executive committee told the meeting’s roughly 90 participants.
But the call, which was initially intended to be a general assembly to help faculty prepare for the fall semester, was briefly attended by representatives for Thompson.
The timing of Thompson’s two liaisons — Onetta Whitley, the general counsel, and Van Gillespie, Thompson’s chief of staff who used to be IHL’s general counsel — had disturbed some faculty, because one executive committee member stated the senate typically does not invite anyone from the president’s office to a meeting of the full senate unless faculty request it.
It was also unusual, multiple faculty stated, because no one from Thompson’s office had attended a faculty senate meeting in months. One executive committee member said that Thompson had been invited to attend a meeting in the spring but designated representatives to go instead, and they also failed to show.
In the few minutes that Whitley spoke to faculty, she did not address McLin’s leave but implied that was the reason she and Gillespie had not received the Zoom link, stating “we know the faculty senate has recently undergone some changes and that may explain why we did not receive such an invitation.”
Whitley added she was hoping to have a more collegial relationship with the senate going forward.
“I wanted to say to the faculty senate how much we are looking forward to working with you all,” she said. “We hope to be in a position to foster, really, a better working relationship than in 2024, a more collaborative, collegial relationship than what I understand has existed between the administration and the faculty senate in the past.”
After Whitley left, some faculty expressed confusion at her remarks, because they thought the relationship was collegial. At the same time, one member of the executive committee mentioned that the faculty senate “has not been allowed” to send a letter to Thompson and instead has been required to reach out to interact with his liaisons instead.
“He doesn’t have any communication with us,” they said.
McLin has worked at Jackson State since 2001, according to LinkedIn. Her family has attended Jackson State since the 1920s, and her mother, a former chair in the College of Education, also served as faculty senate president.
Earlier this year, McLin was the principal investigator and project director behind a $1.5 million grant the university received to support an initiative to study how the health of underserved communities is affected by social problems like climate change and structural racism. It is unclear if her potential departure will jeopardize the grant.
“JSU is well-prepared to lead this research effort,” she had said in a press release. “Like many HBCUs, JSU has a history of addressing inequities and advocating for social justice. Our faculty, staff, and students have actively advocated for equal rights, racial justice, and systemic change at local and international levels.”
As faculty senate president, McLin stuck her neck out for faculty, so it was time for them to do the same, multiple people said on the call. They also noted that McLin did not act unless the faculty senate wanted her to.
Still, many faculty on the call urged caution because they were concerned the administration would retaliate against anyone, especially the remaining members of the senate’s executive committee, who stands up for McLin, especially for the remaining members of the senate’s executive committee.
“We love JSU as much as they do,” said one faculty member whose name was not available on the Zoom. “The question we have to ask is this the best way to address the issue of faculty? Is this the best way to address the needs of students? Is this the best way to address the community?”
Jackson State “does not belong to one person or two persons,” they added. “It belongs to all of us.”
Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Mukta Joshi has joined Mississippi Today as an investigative reporting fellow through the 2024 Columbia University + INN Internship Program.
Joshi graduated with honors from Columbia Journalism School in 2024 as a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, where her master’s thesis explored the growing South Asian influence on American politics. She is also a professional photojournalist, and her work has been published in outlets including TIME, Al Jazeera, Hyperallergic, New York Focus and Autostraddle.
“We are so excited to have Mukta join our team,” said senior investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell, who oversees the criminal investigative reporting team at Mississippi Today. “She’s a talented young investigative reporter and lawyer, and we know with her help we can continue to expose law enforcement abuses by the ‘Goon Squad’ and others as well as to examine the collateral damage from such abuses.”
One of Joshi’s recent investigations into the sinister preparations for the recent G20 summit in New Delhi and their impact on the city’s poorest communities was selected by the Global Investigative Journalism Network as one of the eight best investigations from India in 2023.
Joshi is a 2019 graduate of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. She began her career as a corporate lawyer and most recently, led the legal research vertical at Land Conflict Watch, investigating and writing about land governance, environmental law and forest policy in India.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join the brilliant team at the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today, which has tirelessly been churning out deep-dive reportage on the criminal justice system. I’ve always believed that local investigations are what drive efforts towards accountability, and I’m eager to do my bit.”
