The third-party manager of Jackson’s water system introduced a proposed new tiered billing system on Friday that would raise rates for most in the city and reduce bills for low-income residents.
The change comes after months of Ted Henifin, the head of JXN Water and the federally-appointed manager of the system, saying that the future of the city’s infrastructure largely relies on creating a steady funding stream from Jackson’s ratepayers.
“We’re all in this together, that’s really the message,” he said at a press conference. “There will be some people who see their bills go up, there will be some people who see their bills go down. At the end of the day, we need to pay for water. It’s valuable.”
The city has struggled for years to bill its residents for water, an issue that dates back to a failed contract with Siemens that Jackson entered into in 2010. The collection rate for the city’s water bills hovers around 60%.
JXN Water’s Ted Henifin going over an example of his proposed new billing system, on Nov. 17, 2023.
The new system, which would begin at the start of 2024, would increase the water and sewer bills for all customers, except for the 12,875 of those who are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Most customers, according to a breakdown JXN Water provided, would see a monthly increase of about $10, or 13%, on their combined water and sewer bill. Most SNAP recipients would see their bills drop about $20, or 31%.
Henifin said the new tier separating SNAP recipients would be the first of its kind in the country for a water bill structure. About one in four of the city’s water customers fall into that category.
JXN Water said the plan will go before the Jackson’s City Council this month for approval. But, with the authority granted by a federal court last year, JXN Water can implement the plan even if the council votes against it. Henifin said he has yet to show the plan to city officials, but did meet with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann to avoid another push back from the Legislature.
A breakdown of how JXN Water’s billing proposal would change monthly payments for Jackson residents.
Henifin’s first choice, which he proposed earlier in the year, was a property value-based rate structure. Henifin argued that moving away from water meters would help earn the trust of residents, who have had to deal with faulty and inconsistent billing for the last decade. But state lawmakers quickly fought the idea, passing a statute last session that requires consumption-based billing.
In hopes of getting customers current on their bills, JXN Water sent out a notice in September reminding them to pay their balances or reach out for assistance. Henifin, who warned that JXN Water would soon shut off connections to homes not paying their bills, said they’ll wait until after the holidays before disconnecting any residents. He added that there may be as many as 5,000 properties getting water without an account, and that JXN Water will be less lenient with them.
The same day the governing board of Mississippi’s public universities appointed one of its own to lead Jackson State University, a lawsuit filed in federal court by a former female vice president alleges she was discriminated against when Thomas Hudson was elevated to the position in 2020.
When the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees picked Hudson to lead the state’s largest historically Black university, the lawsuit alleges it discriminated against Debra Mays-Jackson, who at the time had been the school’svice president and chief of staff since 2017. The lawsuit claims she had supervised Hudson, a special assistant to the president.
IHL appointed Hudson interim president in early 2020 when William Bynum Jr., the university’s 11th president, resigned after he was arrested for procuring the services of a prostitute. Then IHL cut the search short that November to hire Hudson permanently despite promising, the lawsuit says, it would look for national candidates.
Thomas Hudson Credit: Jackson State University
Had IHL conducted a full search and vetted Hudson, the lawsuit alleges, the board would have knownat the time that he had sent “unwelcomed and uninvited photographs of his genitalia” to a JSU student and employee and that he had “demoted another JSU employee who complained about Hudson’s unlawful conduct.”
“Upon information and belief, before naming Hudson President of JSU, Rankins and other IHL officials knew or should have known Hudson had engaged in conduct unbecoming a college president,” the complaint states.
Three years later, Hudson became Jackson State’s third permanent president in a row to resign after he was placed on administrative leave by IHL for reasons that still have not been made public.
IHL did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today, and Hudson did not return a call by press time. A Jackson State spokesperson wrote the university had no comment on the litigation.
The lawsuit names 11 current and former IHL board members, and the commissioner, Alfred Rankins. It asks a jury to award damages and make Mays-Jackson the new president of Jackson State.
On Thursday, IHL named Marcus Thompson, a deputy commissioner, the new president. He is slated to start Nov. 27. Thompson did not return a call from Mississippi Today by press time.
Thompson’s appointment was applauded by many on social media, including Hudson.
“Extending a very personal and sincere Congratulations to Marcus Thompson on being named 13th President of @JacksonStateU,” Hudson wrote. “As a proud alumnus I am proud to stand in support as you work for the betterment of my Dear Old College Home.”
After Hudson resigned, IHL allegedly planned to make Thompson the president earlier this year until, the lawsuit states, Elayne Hayes-Anthony “garnered more support … during the executive session to discuss the matter.” She became the temporary acting president.
Before Hudson was a special assistant to the president, he had been the university’s chief operating/diversity officer and Title IX coordinator, according to an IHL press release about his appointment. The lawsuit alleges he did not supervise any employees in his capacity as diversity officer.
Credit: Courtesy of JSU
As vice president, Mays-Jackson oversaw several key areas at the university, including enrollment management, student affairs and governmental relations, according to a post about her on Jackson State’s website. She had also served as vice president of Hinds Community College’s Utica and Vicksburg campuses.
It is unclear if Mays-Jackson ever got a chance to apply for the job.
On Feb. 10, 2020, the day Hudson was appointed interim president, the lawsuit alleges that he approached Mays-Jackson and told her “he was not qualified or prepared to serve as interim president” and gave her a $25,000 bonus so she would stay on board.
Three days later, Rankins met with Jackson State employees and told them that Hudson would not be permitted to apply for the position, the lawsuit states, claiming a national search would be conducted.
That was cut short after multiple speakers said they wanted Hudson to become permanent president after IHL conducted a virtual listening session in late October 2020. The lawsuit alleges that was the product of a campaign by Hudson for the job.
According to the lawsuit, IHL also already knew that Hudson, as diversity officer, and other Jackson State officials had “concealed complaints of sex discrimination and sexual harassment that female employees suffered at the hands of a male dean.” The female employees filed an anonymous complaint with IHL after Hudson allegedly failed to investigate the allegations.
After IHL apparently launched its own investigation, the lawsuit states the dean retired.
Mays-Jackson left Jackson State in August 2021, according to her LinkedIn.
U.S. Rep. Michael Guest, a Republican who represents Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District, introduced a resolution Friday morning to expel New York Congressman George Santos from Congress, thrusting the Mississippi lawmaker into the national spotlight.
Guest is the chairman of the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which investigates misconduct among House members. The committee released a damning report on Thursday concluding Santos, a Republican, likely violated federal campaign finance law.
Guest said in a statement that the committee decided to finish the Santos investigation without going through a lengthy process that would be used to make a recommendation to the House on the appropriate form of punishment for the New York congressman.
“The evidence uncovered in the Ethics Committee’s Investigative Subcommittee investigation is more than sufficient to warrant punishment and the most appropriate punishment, is expulsion,” Guest said. “So, separate from the Committee process and my role as chairman, I have filed an expulsion resolution.”
Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds vote, an extremely high bar. The form of punishment has occurred just five times in the history of the House chamber — three times during the Civil War for disloyalty to the union and twice after convictions on federal charges, most recently in 2002, according to the Associated Press.
Santos survived two prior attempts to expel him from the chamber, but the Ethics Committee’s recent report appears to have given Guest’s expulsion motion an added boost that could materilize into a successful push to oust the New York congressman.
If the House votes to expel Santos, then Guest, serving his second term, would be the main contribuor of a historic congressional action.
Santos, a freshman lawmaker, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the committee’s report was biased and was an attempt to smear him and his legal team.
“It is a disgusting politicized smear that shows the depths of how low our federal government has sunk,” Santos wrote. “Everyone who participated in this grave miscarriage of justice should all be ashamed of themselves.”
The committee also voted unanimously to refer its findings to the Department of Justice, saying that Santos’s conduct “warrants public condemnation, is beneath the dignity of the office, and has brought severe discredit upon the House.”
House members are expected to address the resolution after they return from the Thanksgiving holiday.
Santos is facing a slew of federal charges, including wire fraud, falsifying records, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and theft of public fundst.
The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees named Marcus Thompson, a deputy commissioner, the 13th president of Jackson State University. He will start on Nov. 27.
Thompson, who has worked at IHL since 2009, has no experience leading a university, and his appointment is reminiscent of IHL’s decision to hire Glenn Boyce to head the University of Mississippi, even though Boyce lead IHL’s search for that university. Both decisions eschewed search candidates in favor of an internal hire.
Thompson would not say if he had applied for the job, but he did complete an interview.
“That’s a hiring issue for the board,” Thompson told Mississippi Today. “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about the internal process.”
There’s much at stake with this hire: Thompson will be watched closely by a university community that doesn’t want this presidency to end in resignation like the last three. The decision comes about a month after IHL was scheduled to make this hire and was made during executive session at the board’s regular meeting Thursday.
“I don’t even think of this in terms of the title of ‘president,’” Thompson said. “In my heart, it’s about being a servant leader for all of our stakeholders.”
Trustee Steven Cunningham, the only Jackson State alumnus on the board and the chair of the presidential search, did not attend the meeting in person to take questions from the media. He did not answer a call from Mississippi Today.
“The Board selected a leader who knows the unique historic importance of the university who will articulate a bold vision for the future and will be indefatigable in the pursuit of excellence for Jackson State University,” Cunningham said in IHL’s press release.
The leadership turnover at Jackson State, the largest historically Black university in Mississippi, has also affected progress on key issues that have hurt enrollment, like campus security, housing shortages and an aging water system. Other ambitious goals, like a new football stadium, have fallen to the wayside.
“One of the things I’ve gained over the years is a lot of knowledge of all the working areas of the university,” he said. “Because of my work, I know about the institutions. I’ve worked with a lot of state officials, legislators. There were already a lot of good relationships there.”
That means Thomspon will have to hit the ground running for the legislative session.
“Marcus Thompson has a deep understanding of the vital role HBCUs play in higher education,” Sen. Sollie Norwood said in IHL’s press release. “His proven leadership will serve him well in taking Jackson State University to new heights.”
Thompson will also need to work to increase trust between IHL, administration and stakeholders like faculty and staff who supported Temporary Acting President Elayne Hayes-Anthonyandcriticized the presidential search process as lacking transparency.
“Obviously, I’ll spend a lot of time listening to all of the stakeholders on campus,” Thompson said.
Though Jackson State’s financial position has largely recovered from Carolyn Meyers’ tenure, Thompson is also facing concerns that have been raised this year about possible misspending of restricted dollars by the cash-strapped Jackson State Development Foundation.
At listening sessions earlier this year, the community asked the board to bring someone new to the university — a point that multiple trustees took note of.
“Stop hiring your friends,” said Carrine Bishop, a faculty member whose family has deep roots at JSU. “ We need to vet every individual.”
Thompson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and Spanish and a Master’s degree in Education from Mississippi College. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Jackson State University in urban higher education.
IHL made the decision during the executive session at Thursday’s board meeting, the last meeting of the year. Trustees were increasingly under pressure to choose a president to lead the historically Black college in Mississippi’s capital city.
“We definitely need to make a decision,” the current board president, gastroenterologist Alfred McNair, said before executive session. “That’s the biggest thing we need to do.”
McNair added that the board was aware of the community’s feeling that Jackson State could have avoided the past three resignations if IHL had done a better job of looking into candidates’ backgrounds.
“We’re doing our best job to get all the information we can as far as background checks,” McNair said, shaking his head. “We’re doing the best job we can to make sure we choose the right person. We’ve taken a long time – longer than usual – because we’re really trying to make sure we cover all areas A to Z.”
Jason Johnson, the Jackson State student body president, said his biggest question is what will the university’s next permanent president do to address campus security in the wake of an unsolved shooting that killed one student leader in an on-campus apartment complex.
If he had the chance, Johnson said he would have asked candidates “what are your intentions as far as student public safety?”
Johnson added it was important to him that Jackson State’s new president have experience in higher education.
After the meeting, most trustees refused to take questions. Alfred Rankins, the IHL commissioner, escorted trustee Jeanne Luckey in her wheelchair through a gaggle of TV reporters, repeatedly saying “no comment” before going into a sideroom.
In a memory quilt by Hystercine Rankin at the Mississippi Museum of Art, National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson found a touchstone for a phrase that echoed throughout her recent Jackson visit: “the opportunity to live an artful life.”
“It’s always available to us,” Jackson said, and not limited to designated places but alive in opportunities to make, teach and learn, and even in traditions handed down in families. “That quilting tradition, and how it shows up — from a living culture to something that is hung with so much pride on the walls of an esteemed cultural institution — there’s something in that, that demonstrates the breadth of what can encompass an artful life.
“If we have artful lives, and we’re able to see each other’s humanity, it’s such a pre-condition for all of the other things we say we want to do as a nation of opportunity and justice,” Jackson said.
National Endowment for the Humanities Chair Shelly Lowe, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, found a welcome grounding at the Choctaw Chahta Immi Cultural Center in Philadelphia, the first site in her first visit to Mississippi. Conversations about the Choctaw dictionary project, and the importance of maintaining their language and cultural teachings, resonated. As did the commitment of smaller organizations she visited, such as the Smith Robertson Museum in Jackson, to confront and share histories that can sometimes be hard to face.
“This is what the humanities does,” Lowe said. “It helps us take this information, take difficult histories, and it allows us to pause and really think about those histories. To process that. The humanities, and I would argue the arts, give us the strength to move forward.”
Their recent visit, in company with leaders of other national and regional arts and culture groups, offered a firsthand look at work in Jackson and central Mississippi that fosters creative pursuits, cultural celebration, connection, conversations and community cohesion.
The 50th anniversary reconvening of the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, Nov. 1-4, was the core attraction, with its roster of illustrious Black women writers, including Alice Walker and Sonia Sanchez, who were also part of the original conference Margaret Walker organized at Jackson State University in 1973.
The 2023 conference at JSU and the Jackson Convention Complex pulled in the next generation of prominent Black women writers, with Jesmyn Ward and Angie Thomas among a host of keynote participants. With intergenerational conversations a big draw, the festival tapped elder wisdom and contemporary voices and vigor, to inspire and energize listeners in the continued uplift of Black excellence, and as a force to reckon with injustice and trauma both past and now.
The convening amplified arts’ and humanities’ central role in daily life in Jackson and far beyond, said Phoebe Stein, president of the Federation of State Humanities Councils. “Not a luxury, but central to how we understand ourselves, and how we relate and live in community with others.”
Difficult histories — unpacked, discussed and shared to unite and strengthen — were as much a thread as celebration and support during leaders’ jam-packed itinerary. Both endowment chairs were part of the poetry festival’s closing panel, a tribute to Margaret Walker, and their twin presence in Jackson offered a prime chance for show-and-tell by Mississippi’s cultural leaders.
Mississippi Arts Commission’s David Lewis and Mississippi Humanities Council’s Stuart Rockoff built out “Chair-a-paloosa,” as they informally dubbed the gathering, with a robust schedule highlighting grantees in action.
Arts and humanities visitors hear about the history of the Utica Institute from Jean Greene, co-director of the Utica Institute Museum. Credit: Photo by David Lewis
In addition to the poetry festival, tours and stops took in Sipp Culture in Utica, the Utica Institute Museum, the Choctaw Chahta Immi Cultural Center in Philadelphia, and in Jackson, JSU, the Two Mississippi Museums, Smith Robertson Museum, Mississippi Museum of Art, Tougaloo College, the Asylum Hill Research Project and more. At Tougaloo’s historic Woodworth Chapel, they saw a preview of New Stage Theatre’s “Anne & Emmett’ Arts in Education production, a “meeting in memory” between Anne Frank and Emmett Till.
It’s rare to get that many national arts and humanities figures together, and rarer still to host them in such a small-town setting, noted Carlton Turner, co-director of Sipp Culture, which harnesses food and story to reimagine their community and outfit it for the future. “For them to take an interest in a small, rural community and the work that we’re doing there, is remarkable, but it’s also remarkable for the state of Mississippi, because it just shows that there are a lot of things happening here that don’t necessarily show by the way that people think about the state from a national perspective.”
South Arts President and CEO Susie Surkamer praised the “incredible amount of really substantial work going on, and in all types of settings” in Mississippi, “and such high quality.” In much of it, the importance of involving the community also stood out. “That doesn’t always happen with every institution or organization, so that is wonderful to see.”
For the cadre of arts and humanities leaders, it was a chance to connect outside of a Zoom room or formal meetings, have cultural and historical experiences together “and really sit with the arc of American history and Mississippi’s place in that, and really consider the implications on our own work today,” said David Holland, co-chair of the Creative States Coalition and deputy director of WESTAF (Western States Arts Federation). “It really puts it into context … the significance of arts and culture to people’s lives, to healing, to understanding our history, to moving forward in a more just future together.”
“It is a treat for them and an opportunity for Mississippi to be a backdrop for larger conversations about our nation,” Lewis said. Plus, the showcase of daily arts-related work in both rural and metro settings in Mississippi can “really be a beacon … for the rest of the country.”
As well as the profile boost, it can bring benefits later on and inspire organizations to apply for funding, Rockoff said. “We hope, down the road, that it results in more grant funding coming to Mississippi.
“We’re a poor state. … In other states, there are plenty of other funders for these types of cultural activities. So, to have that support from the national endowments — that relatively small amount of money goes a long way here.”
There’s payoff, too, in the favorable impressions festival participants and visiting leaders pack up, take with them and spread back home.
National, state and local arts and humanities leaders pose with cast and crew members of “Anne and Emmett,” a New Stage Theatre production in partnership with NEH’s United We Stand initiative, at Tougaloo College’s historic Woodworth Chapel. Credit: Photo courtesy of the Mississippi Arts Commission
On Lowe’s flight from Atlanta to Jackson last week, it was clear half the plane was bound for the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, she said. “This festival brought in so many young African-American women — scholars, artists, poets, writers — who are all across the country, but they’re here in Mississippi,” sharing the impact of the people, the place and the program here.
“And, they’re all going to leave here, right? Talking about how they were here in Mississippi and how Mississippi is playing such a big part in their lives,” Lowe said. “Things like that are a very good way to say, ‘This is our history. This is the power of what we’ve done. This is where we’re going to continue to keep doing it.’”
Correction 11/16/2023: This story has been updated to reflect that Carlton Turner is the co-director of Sipp Culture.
A law enforcement officer shot and killed two students at Southern University in Baton Rouge after weeks of protests over inadequate services.
When the students marched on University President Leon Netterville’s office, Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards sent scores of police officers in to break up the demonstrations. A still-unidentified officer shot and killed two 20-year-old students, Leonard Brown and Denver Smith, who weren’t among the protesters. No one was ever prosecuted in their slayings.
They have since been awarded posthumous degrees, and the university’s Smith-Brown Memorial Union bears their names. Stanley Nelson’s documentary, “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities,” featured a 10-minute segment on the killings.
“They were exercising their constitutional rights. And they get killed for it,” former student Michael Cato said. “Nobody sent their child to school to die.”
In 2022, Louisiana State University Cold Case Project reporters, utilizing nearly 2,700 pages of previously undisclosed documents, recreated the day of the shootings and showed how the FBI narrowed its search to several sheriff’s deputies but could not prove which one fired the fatal shot. The four-part series prompted Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards to apologize to the families of the victims on behalf of the state.
Spencer Woods wanted to fight a crime that didn’t exist.
As a sheriff’s investigator in Monroe County, Mississippi, near the Alabama border, he would occasionally receive reports from his state’s child protection agency that a baby had tested positive for illegal drugs at birth.
To Woods, the mothers had endangered their fetuses and should face criminal charges. But unlike some other southern states, Mississippi law doesn’t define a fetus as a person; in fact, voters had rejected a ballot measure to do just that more than a decade ago.
So when Woods would receive these referrals, he had to effectively place them in the trash.
“We were coming across those type [of] things that I considered to be child abuse, but as far as the statute, the state wasn’t recognizing that as actual child abuse,” Woods said in an interview.
That’s until 2019, when Woods decided that his office would take matters into its own hands and pursue child endangerment cases against the women anyway. He argued that child abuse can, in fact, take place inside the womb, challenging anyone to prove otherwise.
Through news reports and court records, Mississippi Today identified 44 cases in which law enforcement officers in Mississippi have arrested women for a crime that, based on existing state law, they may not have actually committed.
“The state of Mississippi does not look at a child as being a child until it draws its first breath,” Woods said. “Well, when that child tests positive when it’s born, the abuse has already happened, and it didn’t happen to a ‘child.’ So it was a crack in the system, the way I looked at it. And that’s where we’re kind of playing.”
While medical experts warn against drug use during pregnancy, they point out that not all babies exposed to drugs in the womb are born with medical problems. But Woods said that he doesn’t need evidence of harm to the fetus — just a positive drug test — to pursue a child endangerment case.
Monroe County has accounted for 12 of the 44 cases we found. Woods said he was unaware that 200 miles to the south of his jurisdiction, officials in Jones County had already been filing similar charges against mothers for years, Mississippi Today reported in 2019. All but three of the cases Mississippi Today identified from 2015 to 2023 came from Monroe and Jones, two small rural counties.
While Monroe County has offered leniency in keeping these women out of prison, Jones County’s lone judge, Circuit Court Judge Dal Williamson, has given at least six women long prison sentences for using drugs while pregnant. The difference in sentencing stems in part from the counties charging women under different sections of the child abuse law. Monroe County has utilized the child endangerment section that bars parents from allowing their children to be present around drugs, such as in meth labs. Meanwhile, Jones County has charged women in similar circumstances with poisoning their fetuses. Williamson ordered the women to serve between two and 15 years in prison.
On a page of a binder he keeps in his desk, Monroe County sheriff’s investigator Spencer Woods has jotted down the criminal code containing the crime — child endangerment — that he believes women have committed when they use drugs while pregnant. The statute makes it illegal for a parent to allow their child to be in the presence of drugs. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
“I don’t understand how in the world a mother expecting a child would continue to pour this poison in their body,” Williamson said at a sentencing last year, according to the local newspaper Laurel Leader-Call. “Your baby can’t say, ‘No, mama, stop.’”
Some local investigators and prosecutors are pursuing similar cases in Alabama, Oklahoma and South Carolina. They are policing pregnant people under an expanded interpretation of child abuse and neglect laws — even if parents birthed healthy babies, according to an investigation by The Marshall Project, Mississippi Today, AL.com, The Frontier and The Post & Courier.
Officials in Etowah County, Alabama, 185 miles to the east of Woods, are perhaps the champions of this approach, having arrested hundreds of women in the past several years.
Woods’ strategy has never been tested in court, because each of the 12 women his office has arrested have pleaded guilty under diversion or probation deals that keep them out of prison.
Defense lawyers said they would like to take a case to trial, but their clients are reluctant. “They’re not wanting to take that risk of going to trial and getting convicted because they’re all fighting to get their kids back,” said Luanne Thompson, one of two public defenders in Monroe County who has handled these cases. “That is the dilemma that they’re in.”
Most of Thompson’s clients have received “non-adjudicated” sentences, meaning they avoid prison and their records will be cleared if they satisfy the terms of their probation.
Public health experts fear that the threat of prosecution could dissuade pregnant people from seeking prenatal care at a time when the state is facing growing threats to the health of newborns. Mississippi has the highest infant mortality rate in the nation, at roughly 9 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Cases of infant hospitalizations in Mississippi related to drug exposure in the womb have skyrocketed from more than 300 cases in 2015, when Jones County began prosecuting these cases, to four times that in 2021, at a high of more than 1,200.
State Health Officer Daniel Edney has vowed to address these issues. His department compiled a recent report that identified the uptick in drug-exposed newborns. The report blamed the increase on changes in diagnostic coding at hospitals, as well as rising substance abuse due to the isolation and reduced access to therapy people experienced during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I thought, ‘This is archaic,’” Edney said. “There are a lot of medical conditions that if a pregnant mom doesn't take care of herself, it hurts the baby. This is the one disease that we’ll incarcerate a woman for.”
He warns that prosecuting moms with substance use disorders as child abusers will only deter them from seeking care, making it harder for the medical community to do its job.
“We don't need law enforcement going in to arrest women who are trying to get help,” Edney said. “It has a chilling effect on the women out there who are trying to decide what they need to do.”
Though Mississippi officials enacted and defended the state abortion prohibition that ultimately led to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade last year, the state does not recognize “fetal personhood.” In 2011, Mississippi voters rejected an amendment to the state constitution proposed by anti-abortion activists that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has twice taken up the issue — through two cases in which local officers charged women with murder or manslaughter after losing their pregnancies in 2006 and 2009. Both times, justices wrote ambiguous opinions, and the lower courts ultimately threw charges out in both cases.
Mississippi’s abortion prohibition doesn’t criminalize pregnant people, nor does it treat abortion as murder. The law stipulates prison terms only for the person who performed the abortion, not the woman who sought it. Bills filed in the Mississippi Legislature to criminalize drug use while pregnant under the state’s child abuse statute have died with little attention. Despite those failed efforts, the sheriff’s investigator in Monroe County decided his department needed to act.
“We're eventually gonna have to deal with possibly the Supreme Court or possibly the state Legislature on changing the law, hopefully,” Woods said.
He said he realizes that his tactic may have implications for reproductive rights.
“I always had to keep that in the back of my mind, the Roe v. Wade type stuff, what women can do with their bodies,” Woods said. “That was never my argument. My argument was always what was best for the child. I discussed it with my assistant district attorney, who is a woman, and she had my back on this, and we went forward with it.”
But a growing body of research shows that what’s best for the health of newborns is critical bonding with their mother.
“We have to balance the health and safety of that baby while also trying to make sure that family stays connected,” said Dr. Anita Henderson, a Hattiesburg pediatrician and president of the Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “If you’re trying to reunify families or make that mom or that family as healthy as possible, then the goal should be treatment. ... Incarceration and the threat of incarceration have proven to be ineffective.”
Christina Dent, who has cared for children in Mississippi’s foster care system as a result of their mothers’ drug addictions, supports the concept of fetal personhood and is personally against abortion. She’s also the founder of End It For Good, a nonprofit that advocates for the legalization of drugs. Dent’s group argues that criminalizing drugs only increases harm to people and society. She said that treating these mothers as criminals is “opposed to a pro-life ethic” and leads to worse outcomes for both the mother and baby.
“I would say, yes, that [fetus] is a child,” Dent said, speaking for herself and not on behalf of her organization. “And because of that, shouldn’t we do everything possible to protect that child from further harm, help the mother access prenatal care, and protect the bond of this little family?”
Monroe County Sheriff Kevin Crook has earned a reputation for taking a compassionate approach to drug offenses, placing an emphasis on treatment and rehabilitation. In Crook’s view, though, the threat of prison motivates people to take recovery seriously.
“We gotta have something for these people to run into,” Crook said, “or they're not just gonna stop on their own.”
Woods agreed. “I'm not really trying to put these women in prison,” he said. “What I'm trying to do is correct the issue. We do offer counseling and rehab and those types of things.”
But the investigator acknowledged there’s never enough mental health services to cover the need. He also couldn’t say how effective his strategy is; he doesn’t have any data to show how many mothers he’s arrested have gotten clean or reunited with their children.
Woods said he also believes that smoking or drinking alcohol while pregnant — which can produce similar if not more harmful effects as controlled substances on a fetus’ development — constitutes child abuse.
He’s aware his approach could be applied to other activities that might endanger a fetus. “Of course, you keep going, ‘You're eating too much sugar. You’re ingesting too much caffeine.’ Where do you stop with it?” Woods said.
He draws the line at illegal substances. “I have to go by statutes,” he said. “I can’t just decide what I want to.”
Officials from the Mississippi State Department of Health reported the state’s first pediatric flu death of the 2023-2024 flu season on Wednesday.
Pediatric deaths are deaths occurring in individuals under the age of 18.
There have been a total of 25 pediatric flu deaths, including this one, in the state since pediatric flu deaths were first reported during the 2008-2009 flu season. Flu season in Mississippi usually peaks between January and March, and the vaccine can take up to two weeks to provide immunity.
The Health Department did not provide any further details about the circumstances of the death.
“Vaccination is the best protection against flu and the severe outcomes from flu infection,” interim State Epidemiologist Dr. Kathryn Taylor said in a press release. “All individuals 6 months of age and older are recommended to get an updated flu and COVID-19 vaccine this season.”
For those 18 and under, flu shots are covered by insurance, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Some children may be eligible for free vaccination under the Vaccines for Children Program (VFC) at qualifying locations.
Uninsured and underinsured adults who meet certain high-risk criteria qualify for an adult influenza vaccination at county health department clinics. The vaccine is available for insured adults through pharmacies, retailers and private physicians throughout the state.
Jackson Public Schools concluded its series of community meetings on proposed school closures Tuesday night with multiple parents saying they still lacked clarity about the specifics of how this plan will be implemented.
“You came up with this plan, but you haven’t talked to anybody that it’s going to impact,” said Angela Samuels, a Casey Elementary parent.
In October, JPS district leadership introduced a plan to close 16 school buildings because of declining enrollment in the district. The district has lost around 9,500 students between the 2015-16 and 2023-24 school years, about a third of its population. The district has also previously consolidated schools.
The following buildings are on the proposed closure list:
Clausell Elementary School
Dawson Elementary School
G. N. Smith Elementary School
Green Elementary School
Key Elementary School
Lake Elementary School
Lester Elementary School
Oak Forest Elementary School
Obama IB Elementary
Raines Elementary School
Shirley Elementary School
Sykes Elementary School
Wells APAC Elementary
Chastain Middle School
Whitten Middle School
Wingfield High School
The district hosted four community meetings to receive public feedback on the plan and answer questions. The structure of these meetings changed multiple times as the district responded to time constraints and concerns about adequate opportunities for community participation.
Hundreds of people attended the first community meeting at Forest Hill High School, where concerns were raised about the social impact these mergers will have on students and communities as well as the large number of school closures in south Jackson. The meeting began with a presentation of the consolidation plan, which was followed by over an hour of concerns and questions from community members.
Since the first meeting ran over its 7:30 p.m. end time, JPS officials restructured the meetings at Callaway and Provine High Schools to have community members submit their questions via a QR code instead of giving them a microphone. At the Provine meeting on Nov. 6, attendees interrupted Superintendent Errick Greene to voice frustration that community members were not getting to speak directly, which resulted in a back-and-forth before the meeting was ended early.
Sherwin Johnson, communications director for the district, said after the Nov. 6 meeting that the change was made for efficiency and they did consider the meeting to be engaging, but they would take the feedback under advisement for the final meeting.
At the final meeting Tuesday at Murrah High School, Greene skipped the recap of the consolidation proposal and instead reviewed the feedback they had already received, reserving most of the time for speakers. Community members had a 90-second limit at the microphone and were told in advance their questions would not be answered tonight, instead having responses posted to the district’s FAQ page about the consolidation plan.
Timothy Bracey with Operation Good, a community organization, had been one of the attendees to express frustration at the Nov. 6 meeting. While he still has concerns about the plan overall, he said the meeting Tuesday was an improvement.
“It was better in the sense that they let the people ask their questions, but at the same time, if they are going to have these optimization plans, the questions that the community has, they should have answers for them,” Bracey said.
Other parents also expressed concern about the lack of answers at the meeting and said they would like specificity from the district on how empty buildings will be used or maintained and how the district will work to build new school communities.
Samuels, the Casey Elementary parent, expressed disappointment with some of Greene’s comments, particularly his remarks regarding the timeline of the consolidation plan. Greene shared at the end of the meeting that he had initially intended to present this plan in the spring, allowing for almost a full year of discourse on the plan.
“A full year of all of us doing this, imagine that,” he said. “As concerned, angsty as people are today, imagine a full year of this. I’m pretty convinced that that was not a good idea.”
Samuels said that she understands that change is uncomfortable but that it feels like the district is rushing the process.
“Are you really valuing the community’s input if you want to condense the time we had to actually give you our input?” she said.
The district did not respond to a follow-up question about Greene’s remarks by press time.
Some speakers at the Tuesday meeting expressed frustration with the amount of money the district loses in payments to charter schools, particularly given those schools’ recent poor performance. The district has lost $48 million in payments to charters since 2015 according to a handout distributed at the meeting, nearly half of the total funding loss.
Greene also shared more details Tuesday about possible use for the buildings on the closure list, identifying some to be leased, others to be redeveloped in partnership with the Jackson Redevelopment Authority, and some to be demolished. He emphasized that none of these plans have been finalized.
Demolish: French, Baxter, Key, Woodville Heights, Dawson, Raines
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson has also offered to help the district identify federal funds that could be used to help repurpose closed buildings.
Kemba Taylor, a McWillie Elementary parent, said that she understands the district has shrunk and perhaps students need to be moved, but worries the district is not leaving itself room for growth if they sell off or demolish buildings.
“If people do leave the charter schools and then with all the new babies being born, I think in 10 more years we might find ourselves in a new kind of bind,” she said. “These kids went somewhere, they might come back.”
