Mississippi politicians have long viewed being anti-abortion as a key to winning elections, working diligently for years to stretch the limits of the law and pass some of the nation’s most restrictive bans.
But based on a new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll, being anti-abortion may not be the key electoral issue that politicians – especially Republican politicians – have believed it to be.
A poll of Mississippians who say they will vote in the Aug. 8 Republican primary found that 45% support repealing the state’s “trigger law” that bans most abortions in the state. Another 44% of likely Republican voters oppose repealing the ban, and 11% said they were not sure.
Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.
Mississippi’s trigger law went into effect in 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. That decision effectively meant that abortion was no longer a national right and that the issue could be decided by each state.
It was a Mississippi case that led to the overturning of Roe. After the Supreme Court decision, the Republican leadership of the state proudly proclaimed Mississippi to be solidly pro-life, with some saying it was the nation’s “safest state for the unborn.”
The poll results are especially notable since the respondents are those who say they intend to vote in Republican primary in August. Generally speaking, it is believed that Republican primary voters tend to be staunchly anti-abortion while Democratic voters support abortion rights.
But based on the new poll, abortion might not be any longer the hot-button social issue that Republicans use to attack Mississippi Democrats and link them to national Democrats.
That issue, according to the results of the poll, could become rights of transgender Americans. According to the poll, likely Republican primary voters by an overwhelming 70%-to-19% margin oppose “repealing the current ban on gender affirming healthcare for any trans person under 18 years of age.” The remaining 11% of the poll respondents were undecided.
Earlier this year during the 2023 legislative session, Republican leaders pushed through a bill banning gender affirming care for minors. The bill prohibits medical providers in Mississippi from providing the care and also appears to ban parents from seeking out-of-state care for their children, though it is unclear how that provision would be enforced.
In the 2023 session, Republican legislative leadership also attempted to take steps to ensure that laws in the state banning most abortions are not weakened.
The Legislature made an unsuccessful effort to revise the state’s ballot initiative process that was struck down in 2021 on a technicality by the state Supreme Court. The initiative process allows voters to gather signatures to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot. The House leadership, led by Speaker Philip Gunn, wanted the new initiative process to ban efforts of placing abortion issues on the ballot. The Legislature ultimately was unable to pass a law restoring the initiative.
Of course, the one time that Mississippians voted on the issue of abortion under the old and now invalid initiative, they rejected the so-called “personhood amendment” by a 58% to 42% margin. The personhood proposal on the ballot in 2011 defined a person “to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof.” Then-Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant said at the time a vote against personhood would be “a victory for Satan.”
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to an abortion in 2022, six states have voted on abortion. In all of those states, the electorate voted — usually by large margins — to expand abortion rights. Some of those states, such as Kansas, Kentucky and Montana, are seen as conservative as Mississippi.
On other issues, likely Republican Party primary voters, according to the poll:
Support eliminating the grocery tax 76% to 15%, with 9% undecided or not answering.
Support eliminating the state personal income tax 71% to 18%, with 11% not sure.
Support full funding of public education through the Mississippi Adequate Education Program 57% to 16%, with 26% having no opinion or not knowing.
Support expanding Medicaid 52% to 35%, with 13% not sure.
The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 646 registered voters was conducted June 4-7, 2023, and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A’ rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi and the University of Mississippi Medical Center went head to head for months last year over reimbursement rates.
Turns out, it wasn’t for nothing.
An analysis by Mississippi Today and The Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County shows that in March 2022, during the throes of the dispute, Blue Cross’ negotiated rates were largely lower than other major private insurance companies — Aetna, Cigna, Humana and United — for several common procedures. This was especially true for more expensive procedures and emergency room visits.
A negotiated rate is how much an insurer has agreed to pay an in-network provider through a plan for covered services.
Hospitals perform and are reimbursed for thousands of procedures each year, but what they charge and what insurers pay has largely been kept a secret — that is, until 2021, when the federal government ordered hospitals to start publishing the data.
Mississippi Today worked with The Hilltop Institute to identify 21 common adult and pediatric procedures, then analyzed what Blue Cross reimbursed the hospital for each of those in March 2022, before the entities entered the contract dispute, and in March 2023, after the two entities renegotiated their contract.
Both Blue Cross and UMMC declined to answer any of Mississippi Today’s questions for this story.
The data show that for the selected services, Blue Cross almost never paid close to what UMMC charged, unless it was for cheaper procedures. The only exam that Blue Cross paid exactly what UMMC charged in 2022 was for a fetal non-stress test, which costs $231. (In 2023, when the cost was raised to $400, Blue Cross’ payment increased to $380.)
Hospital prices as of September 2022 show that in general, commercial negotiated rates are on average around 58% of the hospital charge for a given service, according to Morgan Henderson, principal data scientist at Hilltop.
In 2022, Blue Cross largely paid less than other private insurers for more expensive procedures, though the data shows that these insurance companies generally pay less than what UMMC charges.
According to data over the past three fiscal years from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, UMMC charged four times more for services provided to patients than it cost to deliver those services, which Henderson said was in line with what other hospitals charge.
Hospital charges are arbitrary — they can differ substantially from hospital to hospital. It’s rare that any payer gives hospitals the full amount they charge for any service, according to Harold Miller, CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.
Some key findings from 2022 data show:
Other insurers paid UMMC $250 for blood tests called total metabolic panels, $151 for comprehensive metabolic panels and $127 for therapeutic exercises. Blue Cross paid $12, $15 and $35, respectively.
With the exception of X-rays, Blue Cross paid significantly less than other private insurers did for common radiologic procedures.
Preventative care for kids and other services, such as chest radiologic exams and hospital observations, were more equitable compared to what other insurers paid — but they were all services that cost around or less than $150.
Blue Cross paid more for vaginal deliveries, C-sections and fetal tests than other companies.
Henderson pointed specifically to Blue Cross’ low reimbursement rates for emergency room visits, one of the more common reasons people visit a hospital.
For the base cost of emergency room visits (not including any other services often charged during ER visits), Blue Cross reimbursed UMMC in March 2022 at far lower rates than other major insurers and what UMMC charges — by thousands.
“In light of this, the fact that BCBS Mississippi pays only $537.38 for a level 5 ED facility fee – for which the charge is almost $4,800 – is especially striking,” Henderson said.
Emergency room visits are categorized, and charged, based on severity. For a mild injury, a patient is charged a base level 1 fee, excluding any tests that might be performed during that visit. The most severe injury constitutes a level 5 emergency room visit.
And as the severity of the emergency room visit goes up, so does the charge. Depending on the level of injury, UMMC can charge anywhere from $468 to $4,796 for an emergency room visit. But for the most severe ER trip, Blue Cross reimbursed UMMC $537, while other insurance companies paid thousands more.
“This is a very good deal for BCBS Mississippi, especially when compared to the negotiated rates that other large commercial insurers pay for this same service,” he said.
As state lawmakers continue not to expand Medicaid, health care administrators across the state report that people who are uninsured and can’t afford preventative care are using the ER more often for general health care needs.
A year later, data from March 2023 shows that payments from Blue Cross for common procedures generally remain lower than other private insurance companies. In some cases, Blue Cross still pays thousands less.
The terms of UMMC’s agreement with Blue Cross, which was decided when the dispute ended in December, have not been disclosed.
Medicare rates are typically used as a gold standard to judge whether insurer payments are too high or too low. While Blue Cross rates are reasonable compared to Medicare payments, they’re still lower than other private insurers.
“I found the (Blue Cross) vs. non-(Blue Cross) price gaps for emergency and some other procedures very large, but in general what you found is expected,” said Ge Bai, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, in an email to Mississippi Today.
“Large insurers can flex their muscle on the negotiating table and make threats toward hospitals, such as what (Blue Cross) did last year. Small insurers’ threats won’t be as concerning to hospitals because their beneficiaries do not account for a large portion of the hospital’s patient volume. Therefore, small insurers’ negotiated prices can be relatively higher.”
At a market share of 55%, Blue Cross insures the majority of Mississippians with private insurance, and UMMC is the state’s largest public hospital.
But according to consumer advocates, insurers with lower negotiated rates are supposed to pass those savings on to consumers in the form of low premiums, and if a for-profit company has a big surplus, larger premiums shouldn’t be necessary.
However, that doesn’t seem to be the case for Blue Cross — at least for the past three years.
Alleging they had to pay more in claims than expected, Blue Cross raised premiums in January 2020 for small business plans and individual plans. Since then, the insurance company has raised rates for individual plans at an average of 18% and small group plans at an average of 15.6%, according to data from 2023.
After UMMC asked Blue Cross for substantially increased reimbursement rates last year and Blue Cross refused, the hospital system terminated its contract with the insurance company and subsequently went out of network in April. The move forced tens of thousands of Mississippians to pay significantly more or go elsewhere for health care, including for some services that are only available at one place in Mississippi: UMMC.
UMMC houses the state’s only Level 1 trauma center, Level IV neonatal intensive care unit and children’s hospital. It is also home to the state’s only organ transplant center, where transplant candidates with Blue Cross insurance were marked as “inactive” on the wait lists when the hospital was out of network with the insurer.
During the dispute, UMMC maintained that it was asking for below-market rates for academic medical centers, while Blue Cross officials said to increase reimbursement rates, Mississippians’ premiums would have to go up.
A Mississippi Today investigation found that Blue Cross was sitting on a huge reserve of money, to the tune of $750 million.
While insurers generally try to hold at least three times as much capital as the minimum requirement — a ratio of 300% — to ensure the company can pay out claims, Blue Cross’ ratio has been around 1,600% for years, financial records revealed. It’s significantly larger than Blue Cross peers in neighboring states, and perhaps the largest such surplus by percentage in the country.
State Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said it was UMMC’s goal during the dispute to get closer to a 160 to 170% reimbursement rate from Blue Cross compared to Medicare.
Chaney, who advocated on behalf of consumers during the dispute between Blue Cross and UMMC, has long complained about the difficulties in regulating insurance reimbursement rates. He has previously said that Blue Cross won’t make that data available to his office.
New health care price transparency rules, which went into effect in 2021, requires hospitals and insurers to publish their rates, but that doesn’t mean those numbers are easy to access. They’re published on an individual basis, hospital by hospital, and the files, which don’t always look the same, are huge and sometimes hard to decipher.
Gov. Tate Reeves axed a bill earlier this year that would have allowed Chaney’s office the authority to study and address inequalities in reimbursement rates among insurance companies. The bill, which Reeves called a “bad idea,” would have allowed the commissioner to fine companies thousands per violation if they can’t justify unequal reimbursement rates for different hospitals for the same procedures.
“Transparency should provide policy-makers an understanding of what is contributing to the critical financial issues hospitals, clinics, and health providers are facing,” said Mitchell Adcock, executive director of the Center for Mississippi Health Policy. “If payments are not equitable, there are no other financial sources that provide enough revenue to cover health providers' costs.”
And as state leaders continue to oppose expanding Medicaid to the working poor, providers rely on private insurance company payments to offset uncompensated care for people who are uninsured.
Uncompensated care and higher health care costs have worsened the state’s hospital crisis. A third of rural hospitals in Mississippi are at risk of closure.
“The current hospital revenue model, good or bad, is private insurance payments to help cover the limited payments from Medicare and Medicaid and help offset some of the uncompensated care cost,” Adcock said. “Therefore, private insurance payment rates have a significant impact on hospitals’ ability to operate.”
Correction 6/13/2023: The 2022 chart has been updated to correctly reflect what UMMC charged for CT scan and MRIs.
HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss fans didn’t want it to end, not the Super Regional, not the season, not the final 5-0 defeat to Tennessee, and – most of all – not the coaching career of gentleman and head coach Scott Berry.
Joyous Tennessee players were still dog-piling near the pitcher’s mound after the final out, when a chant went up from the third base side of Pete Taylor Park. “Berry! Berry! Berry!” they shouted. As that faded, a chant began from the stands on the first base side. “Thank-you, 40! Thank-you, 40! Thank-you, 40!” they boomed in unison. (Berry’s jersey number is 40.)
Rick Cleveland
Scott Berry, retiring at age 60, stood, his eyes glistening, and soaked it in. Then he turned to the crowd, took off the trademark batting helmet, placed it over his heart and waved to the crowd.
A few moments later, when Berry headed to left field for a final meeting with his players, Coach Tony Vitello and his Tennessee players watched and applauded as Berry crossed the infield and into the outfield. They doffed their caps to him. Later, before taking questions from reporters, Vitello would call Berry a “champion.”
“You ask anybody who has ever played with him, anybody who has ever coached with him or against him. They’ll tell you,” Vitello said. “The game is losing a great one, but he has left his mark.”
Berry has been wearing a baseball uniform for 55 of his 60 years, long enough to learn one of the hardball sport’s harshest lessons. That is, sometimes, no matter how good you are, how hard you practice, how much you want it, and how well you play, the other team, the other guy, is just better. Monday night, Tennessee, especially its pitching, was just better.
Drew Beam, the Vols’ starter, baffled the Eagles with a sharp-breaking slider that often moved like a whiffle ball. He shut the Eagles out for six innings, striking out seven, before Aaron Combs came on to strike out the only batter he faced. Then, Vitello turned to Chase Burns, his imposing closer, who recorded the last eight outs, striking out four, with laser-like, triple-digit fastballs that topped out at 102 mph.
“Elite,” Berry called Tennessee’s pitching. “Very elite. Beam was their third starter and I thought his stuff was better than the first two. We just couldn’t string anything together.”
The Eagles actually out-hit the Vols 7-6, but all seven USM hits were singles. Tennessee landed harder punches. Zane Denton’s fifth inning three-run home run was the game’s biggest blow and Maui Ahuna also tacked on a home run in the seventh.
Berry began his post-game press conference praising the Vols. “They work hard just like we do,” he said. “They wanted to go to Omaha just like we did. They are most deserving, and I wish them well.”
Indeed, Berry handled the disappointing defeat in his final game with utter class – the same as he has handled all else during his Southern Miss tenure. That tenure has closed with seven straight 40-victory seasons, seven straight NCAA Regionals and two straight Super Regionals. No other Division I program in the country has more than five straight 40-victory seasons. Berry’s last team finished 46-20.
Berry thanked USM fans many times over. He thanked his players, his coaches, his administration. He even thanked the media. “I want to thank you all for all the years and the relationships,” he said. “I’ve never had any issues with any of you. You’ve always been balanced.”
Listen: Berry even thanked the umpires. “They have a hard job, and this crew did a really good job,” he said.
Someone asked Berry how he wanted to be remembered. He didn’t mention victories or championships, regionals or Super Regionals.
“I tell our players every August in our first meeting that the batting averages, the statistics, the records will eventually fade, but you will remembered for the people you are,” Berry said, while his two captains, Justin Storm and Danny Lynch, nodded.
“People won’t remember how many home runs Matt Wallner hit. They won’t remember how many wins Nick Sandlin had. Those numbers will fade, but the person you are and the teammates you are, the coach you are, how you care for people and try to build people and try to mold people that are around you, that’s what they’ll remember the most. That’s a big part of who I am. As I’ve gotten older, I understand the big picture. The wins are part of it. The losses come with it, but it’s these guys.”
And what will Berry will remember most?
“I am going to spend the rest of my time thinking about the good times, the good wins,” he said. “I have been so blessed. … I am going to reflect on all the good times, not just as a head coach but as an assistant coaching with my buddy Corky Palmer.”
The late Corky Palmer, with Berry at his side, finished his career in Omaha in 2009 at the College World Series. Fourteen years later, Berry ended up one victory short of Omaha. But Palmer, his boss and his best friend, would surely use one of his homespun Corky-isms to congratulate Berry. My educated guess is Corky would put a hand on Berry’s shoulder, look him in the eyes, and tell him, “Scott, boy, you done good. Real good.”
Two proposed charter schools have made it through the first stage of the annual application process with hopes of opening in the Delta.
This year’s application cycle saw fewer applicants at this stage than in previous years, with five applicants in 2021 and nine in 2022.
The schools are:
Clarksdale Collegiate Prep, grades 7-12 in the Clarksdale Municipal School District
Level-Up Academy Public Charter School, grades K-8 in the Greenville Public School District
Both schools are seeking to open in the fall of 2024 and would serve fewer grades at their opening. This is not the first application for either applicant.
The applicants that have made it to this stage will be reviewed by an outside evaluator. This year, the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board contracted with a local group of former Mississippi education officials to review the applications, which includes former Interim State Superintendent Kim Benton. Final decisions on the potential schools will be announced in September.
Charter schools are free public schools that do not report to a school board like traditional public schools. Instead, they are governed by the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board, which oversees the application process to open a new charter school. They have more flexibility for teachers and administrators when it comes to student instruction, and are funded by local school districts based on enrollment.
Charter schools can apply directly to the authorizer board if they’re planning to open in a D or F district. If an operator wants to open in an A, B, or C district, they need to get approval from the local school board. Both of the schools applying this cycle would be opening in D or F districts.
Ten schools have been approved through this application process since it was created, with eight currently operational and two planning to open this fall in Natchez and Canton. The majority of schools are in Jackson, but schools are also located in Clarksdale and Greenwood.
Brielan Terrell sat a few rows behind the other boys in the auditorium at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
The 18-year-old leaned forward, listening intently, as Eric Lucas Jr., a fourth-year medical student, demonstrated how to perform an ultrasound. As Lucas slid the probe across a medical manikin’s chest, he peppered his audience, about 35 young Black men clad in sports coats and bowties, with questions.
“Can anyone tell me what a stable blood pressure is?” he asked.
Terrell raised his hand and answered correctly: “120 over 80.”
Lucas beamed. This was exactly what he imagined three years ago when he came up with the idea for the Black Men in Health Care Empowerment Summit.
The one-day summer program saw its third cohort on Saturday, as over 100 middle and high school students from all over the state visited UMMC for tours and clinical simulations. Aimed at encouraging young Black men to pursue health care careers, Lucas pitched his idea during his first year at UMMC.
“That’s how I was raised,” he said. “When you walk through the door, you should help someone to walk in.”
Lucas, a graduate of Mississippi State University and native of Ocean Springs, always had a career in health care in his sights.
He remembers getting a microscope kit for a gift when he was 4.
“Science has always kind of been my thing,” Lucas admitted.
Brielan Terrell, center, and Clayton Neely participate in a dentistry exercise during the Black Men in Health Care Empowerment Summit at University of Mississippi Medical Center on Saturday, June 10, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Growing up with a dentist for a mom and a critical care intensivist for a dad, Lucas always knew being a physician was a real career option. But he also knows that’s not the case for many Black kids in Mississippi, including some of his medical school classmates.
“One day, we were all hanging out, and I was like, ‘Man, how cool would it have been if we had a summer camp that brought us through all the medical schools and just getting exposed to what it takes?’” Lucas recounted.
“If you don’t see it, you’re not going to believe it.”
And so the summit was born.
In Mississippi, a state with one of the worst health outcomes for people of color in the country, getting more young Black people involved in health care could make all the difference.
That’s why Dr. Demondes Haynes jumped at the opportunity to make Lucas’ dream a reality at UMMC.
“Just to let students know that a career in health care is an option,” he said. “Not that everybody that’s here today will become a doctor or dentist or a nurse, but we want them to know that it is an option.”
Students attend the Black Men in Health Care Empowerment Summit at University of Mississippi Medical Center on Saturday, June 10, 2023. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Haynes, associate dean for admissions at UMMC, said the only demographic group that had a decrease in students applying and being admitted to medical school in the past 40 years were Black men.
Less than 6% of doctors in the United States identify as Black or African American, though Black people make up about 12% of the population.
Though it’s been shown that, when Black patients are treated by Black doctors, they’re happier with their health care and are more likely to get the preventative care they need, one recent study linked the prevalence of Black doctors to longer life expectancy among Black populations for the first time.
Black men have the shortest life expectancy in the country. The potential power of increasing the number of Black men in the health care field is clear.
“We, as a medical center, want to improve the lives of Mississippians overall,” Haynes said. “This is important because we want to invest in students to contribute to Mississippi. So our hope is that some of these will enter the healthcare field and hopefully stay in Mississippi and improve life in Mississippi for all citizens.”
Throughout the morning, Black medical students and doctors led summit participants — including Terrell — through tours, panels and lectures.
As one of the oldest students in attendance, Terrell lagged behind to talk to medical professionals and raised his hand often. The incoming freshman at the University of Southern Mississippi had a lot on his mind.
During downtime of the ultrasound session, Terrell started chatting with Jaharah Muhammad, a third-year medical student, about his interest in pharmacy.
“Are you going to stay in Mississippi?” she asked.
He answered indecisively.
Later, moments before the students filed out of the auditorium and the next group of medical students and doctors would try to open their eyes to the possibilities of a career in health care, Muhammad shared some parting words.
“Consider staying here,” she said. “If you want more people who look like y’all in health care, this is where it starts.”
A recent report from the State Auditor Shad White’s office found that Mississippi’s eight public universities spent at least $23 million on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives since July 2019. Just under half was state funding, the report states, with the remainder coming from federal or private grants.
Much of the spending in the report covers what appears to be traditional DEI initiatives, like funding for diversity offices, affinity-based student groups and events celebrating Black History Month and Women’s History Month. DEI is generally understood to refer to programs that promote the “fair treatment” of historically marginalized people.
But it also includes programs that may not be typically seen as DEI, like legally-mandated scholarships for non-Black students attending historically Black colleges and universities, a lecture at Mississippi University for Women by the artist collective Guerilla Girls and an event at Alcorn State University called “pet-a-puppy.”
That’s because each institution was operating off it’s own definition of diversity, not DEI. The auditor’s office did not define DEI in its report. A spokesperson told Mississippi Today it was up to the Institutions of Higher Learning and each university, not the auditor, to define DEI.
But IHL has not approved a definition of DEI for the system or for any of the universities, a spokesperson confirmed. Instead, the agency has approved institution-specific definitions of “diversity,” or groups traditionally under-represented at each campus, for the purpose of setting diversity goals.
So that’s the definition the auditor’s office directed IHL and each university to use, emails obtained by Mississippi Today show.
At the state’s three historically Black colleges and universities, that means non-Black students. Programs aimed at recruiting and retaining non-Black students were included in the auditor’s report and accounted for roughly $2.3 million, or 10%, of the total budgeted dollars.
It’s also unclear if the report is comprehensive. Jackson State University’s spending is blank for two of the four fiscal years the auditor requested; a spokesperson told Mississippi Today that was because the university did not have state-funded programs to report for those years. One fiscal year from Mississippi State University includes an accounting error that shows it spent $35,000 less than it actually did.
The university wrote in an email to Mississippi Today that it told the auditor’s office to update the error on June 1 after the office reached out, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Fletcher Freeman, the auditor’s spokesperson, wrote in an email the office did not audit the spreadsheets the universities submitted.
“If a university said they spent DEI money on a program and it was listed in their survey it was included,” Freeman wrote. “We did not ‘choose’ to include one expenditure over another. If it was included in the universities DEI expenditures it was attached to the report.”
In a video, White said he directed his office to run this report because Mississippi taxpayers deserve to know what universities are spending on DEI. (The report, modeled off a similar review by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, did not include DEI spending at the state’s 15 community colleges.)
“I have real concerns about taxpayer dollars being spent on DEI initiatives, particularly whether taxpayer dollars are being spent to teach ideas that tear us apart rather than bring us together,” he said.
After the report published last week, the Institutions of Higher Learning, which worked with the auditor’s office to create the report’s spreadsheet, countered with a statement that said DEI spending is a workforce investment and represents less than 1% of the system’s state appropriations.
“Our public universities have diverse student bodies and an obligation to support them,” the press release said.
IHL had suggested the auditor’s office ask the universities to report DEI spending as a percentage of university expenditures and state appropriations, according to emails obtained by Mississippi Today. But the auditor did not go with that suggestion.
The auditor’s office also asked IHL to provide criteria showing how diversity outcomes factor into performance reviews for the university presidents, according to that same batch of emails. That wasn’t included in the report, though the auditor’s office may be working on an additional report due out in October, according to the emails. Freeman said he was not aware of that.
So how do Mississippi’s universities support their diverse student bodies?
At Delta State University, that looks like $30 spent on an event called “United in Green,” which was held to “engage students, faculty and staff in non-partisan conversations about (the) 2020 election elections.” The university also spent $1,014.66 in 2023 on a civil rights field trip to Jackson.
At Mississippi State University, about $18,970 in state funds in 2020 were spent on a leadership conference for high school juniors who identify as underrepresented. In the spreadsheet, MSU noted that “students participating have shown a greater likelihood to enroll at Mississippi State, as well as be retained.”
Almost every school reported spending DEI funds on programming or activities for international students.
Some of the spending even aligns with programs the state auditor has endorsed — which White did not mention in his video. Many of the universities reported spending DEI funds on events for student veterans, like approximately $33,599 in state funding that the University of Mississippi spent in 2020 on staff who support those students.
But a significant slice of the spending that was reported covered programs that seem to have very little to do with the goals of DEI.
In 2021, Alcorn State reported spending $2,500 on a Department of Fine Arts Strings Workshop and Master Class, $40,000 on “new student orientation” and $1,337 on programs to support student health, such as “National Go Red Day for Heart Health.” That same year, the oldest historically Black university in Mississippi also reported $150,000 of spending on $10,000 scholarships for non-Black students.
Mississippi Valley State University also counted funds it was legally mandated to try to spend as part of the Ayers settlement on recruiting and scholarships for non-Black students as DEI funds.
One of just two DEI programs that Jackson State reported was about $6,972 in 2022 and 2023 to prevent chronic kidney disease in “equitable populations” across Mississippi.
A $400 million federal civil rights lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of two men allegedly beaten and tortured by Rankin County sheriff’s deputies during what attorneys say was an unlawful arrest earlier this year says the department has a pattern of excessive force against Black people.
The 14-count lawsuit details the night of Jan. 24 when six white deputies conducting a drug investigation raided the Braxton residence where Michael Corey Jenkins, 32, and his friend Eddie Terrell Parker, 35, were living. What followed was 90 minutes of unlawful imprisonment and unjustified torture while the men were handcuffed, according to the lawsuit.
The height of the alleged mistreatment came when a deputy placed his service weapon inside Jenkins’ mouth and pulled the trigger, leading to a broken jaw and lacerated tongue. Jenkins’ family and attorneys said the injuries nearly killed him.
“This lawsuit here is all about punitive damages. These acts are egregious and worthy of punishment,” said Jenkins’ attorney, Malik Shabazz, during a Monday morning news conference.
“Why punitive damages? Why punish? Because we don’t want this to happen again,” he said.
Defendants named in the lawsuit are the county, Sheriff Bryan Bailey, and deputies Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon and three unknown deputies.
The lawsuit details the men’s experience: racial slurs allegedly hurled by the deputies, waterboarding, attempted sexual assault and threats of death by having guns pointed at them.
A spokesperson from the sheriff’s department and an attorney representing the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
At the news conference, Jenkins and Parker declined comment due to pending civil action, but they did thank people and family for their support.
Elward is identified in the lawsuit as the deputy who placed a gun inside Jenkins’ mouth and pulled the trigger. As a result, Jenkins has suffered permanent physical injury such as nerve damage, numbness and risk of losing his eyesight.
“The acts described herein, committed under the color of law, set the standard of what is wrong with policing today in America,” the lawsuit states.
During the news conference, Shabazz showed several pictures of evidence from the scene and of the injuries Jenkins and Parker faced, including taser marks on Parker’s body.
None of the deputies intervened or tried to stop each other from hurting Jenkins and Parker during the nearly two-hour encounter, the lawsuit alleges.
The deputies did not show a search warrant or announce themselves, nor were drugs or a firearm alleged to have been pointed at a deputy were found at the scene, Shabazz said. Nonetheless, charges were filed against Jenkins and Parker, according to the lawsuit.
As of Monday, Shabazz said he has no information whether the deputies have been suspended or reprimanded.
The lawsuit also mentions other uses of excessive force by Rankin County sheriff’s deputies and holds Sheriff Bailey responsible for failing to properly train the deputies involved in those incidents, including the 2019 death of 31-year-old Pierre Woods in Pelahatchie and the 2021 death of Damien Cameron in Braxton.
Rankin County is accused of acting with reckless and deliberate indifference to the rights and liberties of Jenkins and Parker, who are county residents, according to the lawsuit.
Shabazz said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which took over the case earlier in the year, has completed its investigation and it is now up to the attorney general’s office whether to prosecute the sheriff’s deputies.
The lawsuit comes months after the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi opened a civil rights investigation into the incident.
In May, Shabazz asked the DOJ to prosecute the deputies on charges of hate crimes and other civil rights violations.
This month, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke visited Mississippi and made several stops, including at Jackson State University, where she heard from Jenkins’ mother and Parker during a public forum, according to the men’s attorneys.
Supporters of Jenkins and Parker have demonstrated at the sheriff’s department and, on Saturday, gathered at a Brandon church for a public hearing about police brutality in Rankin County.
At hearing, attorney Trent Walker, who is also representing Michael Corey Jenkins, urged citizens to share their experiences with Rankin County deputies. “It’s past time that we do something,” he said.
If nothing is done, more people will be shot, he predicted.
“Ain’t nobody coming into our neighborhood,” activist Marqwell Bridges told the crowd. “We’ve got to save ourselves.”
Several residents at the hearing urged Black residents to buy guns for self-defense. Both Kenneth Jackson and Angela Green spoke in favor of buying guns and getting trained on how to use them.
“Most of my life, I didn’t have a gun,” Green said. “Every Black person should own a gun. Yes, I have an AR-15, and I’m ready to use it. Come to my door, and you’ll know I have it.”
Mississippi Today investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell contributed to this report.
Mississippi state Sen. Michael McLendon, R-Hernando, faces a driving under the influence charge in Alabama, Baldwin County Chief Deputy Anthony Lowery said.
McLendon was arrested around 10 a.m. on June 5 after being pulled over on Highway 98 near Foley, Alabama, and faces a charge of DUI combined with substance.
“That means alcohol combined with another substance,” Lowery said. “We are not alleging what that substance is at this point, and that does not necessarily mean anything nefarious — it can be cold medicine.”
McLendon did not immediately respond to a call and message seeking comment on Monday.
McLendon was released the evening of his arrest after posting a $2,500 bond and has a court date scheduled for Oct. 25.
Lowery said McLendon was “completely compliant, with no issues whatsoever” when he was arrested.
McLendon, 59, is finishing his first term in the Mississippi Legislature representing District 1 in DeSoto County and is unopposed for reelection this year.
