OurTupelo

Some folks believe the recent U.S. Supreme Court redistricting decision in Louisiana v. Callais gives elected officials the authority to discriminate against Black people – to draw political districts with the express purpose of preventing them from being in the majority.

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves and state Auditor Shad White and other Republicans seem to be of that belief. They advocate, but disagree on timing, redrawing the 2nd Congressional District currently represented by Democrat Bennie Thompson, who is only the second Black Mississippian to serve in the U.S. House since the 1800s, to ensure it is not a majority-Black district.

Court decisions can be difficult to comprehend. Often, attorneys are needed to make sense of the rulings, and if five attorneys look at the same decision, they might all come to nuanced, different interpretations.

Some would argue such vagueness keeps members of the legal profession employed. 

Despite all the pontification and analysis of the landmark Callais redistricting decision, there seems to remain one central question that the high court needs to answer.

Is it OK for elected leaders to draw political districts – congressional, state legislative or local city and county districts – with the intent of preventing majority-Black districts?

Weakening the Voting Rights Act

For decades, the 1965 Voting Rights Act has been used by the courts to prevent the dilution of Black voter strength and to ensure majority-minority districts under certain circumstances. Those circumstances included, for instance, could a majority-minority district be drawn that was reasonably compact without dividing communities of interest, such as cities and counties.

In weakening the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court seemed to say in the Callais decision that districts could not be drawn for the sole purpose of creating majority-Black districts.

But on the flip side, can districts be drawn with the sole intent of preventing majority-Black districts from being created?

Reeves, White and others are arguing that even though Mississippi’s population is nearly 40% Black, it is OK for districts to be drawn to prevent one of four congressional districts from being majority-Black.

Is that a bridge too far even for the conservative U.S. Supreme Court?

Should there be some type of proportional representation awarded to large minority populations, such as Black people in the South or Hispanics in Texas, California and multiple other states?

The courts have long said that districts did not have to be proportional, such as one-fourth of the districts being majority-Black if 25% of the state was Black. But should proportionality be totally ignored?

Perhaps that question will be answered when the Supreme Court addresses a redistricting effort in Alabama.

Despite the Callais decision, a three-judge federal panel, including two appointees of President Donald Trump, recently rejected a redistricting plan developed by the Alabama Legislature saying it was “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.”

The rejected plan in Alabama had reduced that state’s number of majority-Black districts from two to one. The Black population in Alabama is 30%, and the state has seven congressional districts. Some would argue that there is a natural, compact area in the state where another district that’s majority-Black or close to it could be created.

Communities of interest are divided

Perhaps the most obvious effort since the Callais decision to draw districts with the sole intent of preventing a majority-Black district occurred in Tennessee. The Tennessee Legislature worked overtime  to divide Memphis, one of the Blackest big cities in the country, into three congressional districts.

Memphis was previously incorporated into a small compact congressional district in southwest Tennessee. Now, one of the districts incorporating Memphis runs along the southern border of Tennessee for about 200 miles before jutting north to pick up parts of suburban Nashville, while another runs north along the western Tennessee border before turning eastward for about 200 miles. In the middle of those two long and winding districts is the third district that includes Memphians. 

The question is simple. Is it OK to gerrymander to ensure Black people do not have districts where they are the majority population? Is it legal and constitutional? And is it moral?

At one point, politicians across the aisle believed creating such majority-minority districts was the right thing to do. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress voted on multiple occasions to renew the Voting Rights Act and even to strengthen it to ensure minorities could have a chance to elect representatives of their choice.

Perhaps the Supreme Court might want to reevaluate the Callais decision or at least answer an important question.

BATON ROUGE, La. — In what looks like a souped-up high school chemistry lab, with high-tech equipment and carefully labeled specimen jars, Mariano Carossino points to a piece of deer brain.

He and the lab technicians select samples of brain stem and lymph nodes donated by hunters to test for chronic wasting disease, the infection spreading fast among deer, elk and moose nationwide. 

The small, squishy pieces of organs are taken from a medical sample container and examined by lab technicians with long metal tweezers to make sure they are intact enough to be tested for disease. The samples are encased in wax before being thinly sliced and colored with ink. 

Under a microscope, Carossino, a pathologist at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, and the lab techs at the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory can tell whether the deer was diseased, alerted to the problem by little pink dots visible microscopically on their computer monitor.

“You can kind of tell from eyesight, but you really want to look at it microscopically because you can’t always see everything from the eye,” said Carossino. “If there’s red color in the right areas of the tissue, then the result will be a positive detection.”

Chronic wasting disease, sometimes known as “zombie deer disease,” has no cure. It has spread into 36 states, including northern parishes of Louisiana, 18 counties in Mississippi (most in the northern most part of the state) and five Canadian provinces since it was first detected in captive deer in the 1960s and in the wild in the 1980s. It has also been detected in deer farm herds in South Korea and among wild reindeer and moose in Scandinavia.

Detecting the disease is essential for containment efforts. Carossino  works in the diagnostic lab to test for cases of the illness in individual deer. 

The lab housed at LSU, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network, is one of 31 in the country approved to test for chronic wasting disease. During hunting season, the lab tests up to 120 samples a day, working in rotating 12-hour shifts, testing cases from across the Southeast. 

When a case comes up positive, it spurs wildlife officials into action to try to contain the spread.

According to to the CWD Alliance, as of Oct. 16, 2025, there have been 447 positive tests since 2018 in Mississippi. About 270,000 deer are harvested each year in the state from a deer population estimated at 1.75 million, according to the Mississippi State University Extension Service.

Many states, including Louisiana, have adopted policies aimed at stopping healthy deer from coming into contact with infected deer and environments. But those efforts could soon be dialed back at the will of state legislators, worrying scientists who study the disease and its expansion. 

It’s the latest sign of rising antagonism toward practices meant to stop the spread of chronic wasting disease. Because the illness is not thought to be contagious to humans, some argue that efforts to control it have gone too far.

In Missouri, the state’s top wildlife official had to suspend culling of deer in areas rife with the disease. He issued an open letter pledging to work with hunters and landowners on a new approach.

Meanwhile, researchers working in Illinois have found hunters in counties where chronic wasting disease is prevalent are less likely to say the disease poses a risk. They also put less trust in wildlife officials.

Even Ted Nugent, ‘70s rockstar turned conservative activist, got involved in the political squall of chronic wasting disease as a representative of the libertarian hunting rights group Hunter Nation. 

“I’ve had enough of CWD and the one-size-fits-all rules that come with it,” Nugent said in a prerecorded video played during a Louisiana legislative committee meeting. “The left and the misinformed have used CWD scare tactics for far too long to purposely destroy our hunting lifestyle and heritage.”

How is chronic wasting disease spread? 

The signs of an outbreak of chronic wasting disease often start with deer, elk and other cervids infected with this contagious illness looking starved, disoriented and drooling excessively.

They excrete the proteins that cause the disease, known as prions, into the environment. Healthy deer that come into contact with infected deer or prions are likely to catch the disease as well. It always results in death. 

“It’s a misfolded protein that the cell machinery cannot turn over,” said Carossino. “The cell starts to malfunction, and this is when the disease develops.”

In Louisiana, baiting and feeding deer are generally legal, but wildlife officials have marked areas where the disease has been detected as “enhanced mitigation zones,” There, baiting and feeding are not allowed to prevent healthy deer from being drawn to infected areas.

“Prions concentrate in the saliva, which is one of the more infectious bodily fluids, so bait piles can quickly become hotspots for transmission,” said Noelle Thompson, a wildlife health specialist and chronic wasting disease researcher based in the Western United States. 

Thompson said prions also remain infectious in the soil for years, if not decades, so even if bait piles and food plots are removed, the area can still pass on disease to healthy creatures for a long time. 

“Once you do detect an animal, the landscape has probably been contaminated for at least many months, more likely years, and you’re just now playing catch up,” said Mark Zabel, a professor with the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Previously in Louisiana, officials within the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and its regulatory commission could restrict baiting and feeding in land adjacent to the control areas where no disease has yet been detected  — labeled as “buffer zones.” This was done at officials’ discretion, generally based on advice from scientists involved with tracking the disease. 

But this is now changing.

Political pushback

A resolution in the Louisiana Senate changed control areas to be based more on disease prevalence, rather than proximity.  

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries will now establish management zones within five and 15 miles from a confirmed case of chronic wasting disease discovered during annual surveillance seasons.

From July 1 to June 30, the department will collect samples from dead deer to check for the disease, with up to 300 deer to be tested. If sampling points to disease levels in less than 2.5% of the area’s population, baiting and feeding will be allowed.

If the rate is higher than 2.5%, state officials can restrict baiting and feeding in the 5- and 15-mile zones for future surveillance seasons. And, if disease prevalence is higher than 20% of the projected population, baiting and feeding is allowed. 

Meanwhile, another measure would legalize the rehabilitation of injured or orphaned white-tailed deer in the state. 

An advocate for the rehabilitation bill, Louisiana resident Kimberly Graham, told lawmakers the story of a fawn she kept after she’d found its mother had been hit by a car. Graham named the fawn Baby Belle. 

But when state Wildlife and Fisheries agents found out she’d kept it, Baby Belle was euthanized, in accordance with law and internal policy against keeping white-tailed deer in captivity.

“When the baby was thriving under my care, wildlife agents came to me, confiscated and killed her,” Graham said during a legislative committee meeting. “It broke my heart, and this just can’t continue.”

The deer rehabilitation bill includes specific provisions to try to protect against the spread of chronic wasting disease, bringing state officials tentatively on board with the legislation. 

But, when paired with the large changes to the way chronic wasting disease is contained, experts are concerned. 

Disease steadily spreads

The first case of chronic wasting disease was detected in Louisiana in 2022. Since then, it has slowly but steadily crept across the state, with just over 50 cases detected in four parishes in the northern part of the state. 

Thompson said that allowing the rehabilitation of white-tailed deer “will certainly increase geographic spread of CWD” and goes against best management practices for containing the disease, like those the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies published in 2018.

“It is just harder to detect the disease in fawns,” said Thompson, adding that there are more studies emerging to show that mother deer can more commonly pass chronic wasting disease to their babies than previously thought.   

Zabel said that deer with the disease have an increased likelihood of being hit by cars or injured “because they get disoriented.”

“You could have that fawn be positive but not showing any symptoms,” said Zabel, “It’s highly likely that, even if they are infected, they’re not going to show any signs” for up to one year. 

In the rehabilitation bill, deer suspected of having chronic wasting disease would need to be reported, euthanized and sent for testing. In the case of a positive result, any other deer being rehabilitated at the same facility would also need to be put down, with the rehab unable to take on any deer cases in the future.

Zabel recommended adding testing of urine, blood or feces samples taken from seemingly infected live deer. These are less definitive than lymph node or brain tissue tests but at least act as some sort of mechanism to prevent the disease from spreading, he said.

“It’s likely that it’s OK that you’re rehabilitating these animals, especially orphaned animals, but if there’s any way to do at least some kind of testing before they’re released, that would be good,” said Zabel. 

“These are all considerations everybody across the country dealing with CWD has to consider,” he added.

Zabel said he understands the attempt to reach a compromise among the hunting industry, wildlife rehab advocates, scientists and state officials. But the disease won’t stop spreading while they look for middle ground, and Zabel warned that the changes won’t help.

“In five or 10 years, they’re gonna look back and say, ‘Oh man. Yeah, this didn’t work.’”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation. 

Mississippi Today contributed to this report.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana lawmakers passed a new congressional map Friday designed to help Republicans pick up a seat while eliminating one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts, both of which are represented by Democrats.

Approval of the new House map came a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current map as an illegal racial gerrymander, weakening the landmark 1965 federal Voting Rights Act. That decision intensified a national redistricting battle fueled by President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect the Republicans’ slim House majority in the midterm elections. Louisiana is one of several Southern states now redrawing their maps to help Republicans.

Louisiana Republicans had considered drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six of the state’s U.S. House seats. But that would have required adding more Black voters to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring with GOP losses.

READ MORE: ‘We’re ready to fight’: Thousands protest Mississippi redistricting and rally for voting rights

READ MORE: Redistricting affects millions of Americans. Here’s what’s happening across states

South Carolina Senate rejects Trump’s call for congressional redistricting before midterm elections

The map approved Friday in a 28-10 state Senate vote reflected Republican arguments that a 5-1 map is safer for the GOP and better protects U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson from facing a difficult reelection. Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats.

A half-hour Senate debate revolved around Democrats contending that the proposed map is racially gerrymandered to squeeze more Black voters — who tend to be registered Democrats — into a single district.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, repeatedly insisted that party affiliation, not race, drove district boundaries.

“I purposely put more Democrats into District 2 to make the remaining districts better performing for Republicans,” Morris said at one point.

Morris said he told the map demographers to avoid including any data on race or including those statistics in information shared with lawmakers before the vote.

Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris, “I think it’s a racially gerrymandered district that’s going to get us into a lot of trouble here.”

“Agree to disagree,” Morris told Jenkins.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law.

Louisiana is currently using a court-ordered map drawn in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act by including a second district with a majority-Black population.

That map, however, was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by striking it down as an illegal racial gerrymander.

Landry postponed the state’s closed U.S. House primary slated for May 16. He later signed a law making the U.S. primary open and shifted the date to Nov. 3 to allow time for Republican lawmakers to draw and pass a new map. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will be on the ballot for voters in their district.

The proposed map redraws Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields’ district, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana. It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic, majority-Black district based in New Orleans currently represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter.

More lawsuits were expected over the new map.

Democrats say the proposed map could draw a lawsuit over racial gerrymandering. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision criticized the Legislature’s map earlier this week for leaving a majority-Black district in place.

“From the beginning of the process, I said we’re building a house on a broken foundation — now it feels more like quicksand,” Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis said during floor debate. “I’m really, really troubled by the fact that we’re going to continue to lead the charge in this race to the bottom.”

In the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision, several other Republican-controlled Southern states have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts.

So far, Republicans are winning the redistricting contest. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will win a narrowly divided U.S. House in November. Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats from their redistricting efforts so far, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Florida’s Legislature passed new congressional districts just hours after the ruling, completing a redrawing that was in the works in anticipation of the decision. It could yield Republicans as many as four additional seats in the midterm elections.

Tennessee adopted new U.S. House districts a week after the ruling, carving up a majority-Black district based in Memphis in a Republican attempt to win an additional seat.

In Alabama, Republicans are attempting to pick up another seat by redrawing two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it. Democrats hold both seats, and the proposal is mired in a court battle.

South Carolina’s Senate, meanwhile, decided against redistricting, despite pressure from Trump.

___

Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here. 

When Mississippi releases the A–F school and district grades for the 2025-2026 school year, the results may catch people off guard. It is possible that fewer schools will earn As and Bs even though more students are achieving proficiency and making learning gains. That may raise both eyebrows and questions, but it is necessary to ensure Mississippi student performance continues to improve and remain the focus of education. 

More than a decade ago, Mississippi policymakers planned for this. They wrote a state law requiring expectations to be raised once 75% of students reach proficiency or 65% of schools earn a “B” or higher. 

This past fall, the state Board of Education through the Mississippi Department of Education took this requirement seriously and convened a panel of Mississippi educators and national experts to make recommendations for a new more rigorous A-F grading scale.  After reviewing data and discussing past successes, the panel confidently made a recommendation to raise the bar to an aspirational, yet attainable level – and the state Board approved it.

Mississippi is raising the bar to avoid the mistake seen in other states of becoming complacent and resting on their laurels.  While more students are exceeding expectations, not all students are set for success, and raising the bar prompts us to keep our foot on the gas. 

Mississippi has already shown what happens when it takes high expectations seriously. Over the past decade, the state has made real improvements on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, moving from one of the lowest-performing states for fourth grade reading in 2013 to the ninth best state in 2025. Math scores also improved, making Mississippi one of the only states to see improvement in all four major NAEP categories.  

Most importantly, Mississippi policymakers recognize the work is not done. Just this year, lawmakers appropriated more than $9 million to support and improve adolescent literacy, including banning the harmful reading instructional practice of three-cueing or using available information to determine what unknown words are and instead Mississippi is requiring evidence-based literacy practices.

Mississippi leaders are also investing $3.48 million to better fund the Math Act which supports multiple policy solutions we support at ExcelinEd including: access to math coaches, establishing a K-5 universal math screener and requiring districts to adopt high-quality instructional materials.   

Fortunately, Mississippi’s strong state leadership and commitment to students sets it apart from many states that are lowering accountability expectations. The honest, transparent measurement of school performance ensures Mississippi students won’t fall through the cracks or miss out on critical academic intervention. Meeting these higher expectations ensures  students progress through the K-12 system obtaining the proper foundation for whatever they choose to pursue post-graduation, ultimately positively impacting Mississippi’s workforce and economic prosperity.  

When the new Mississippi letter grades come out, the headlines may focus on how many As and Bs disappeared. There likely will be some frustration, especially in communities where those grades drop. That reaction is understandable but misplaced. We all know educators are working hard to support students. These new ratings simply mean that there’s still room to grow.  

Mississippi has made real progress by doing the hard work. Raising expectations is a continuation of that effort, not a departure from it.

In the end, the goal isn’t to protect the appearance of success. It’s to persist and build upon it. That is what Mississippi has been doing since 2013. That is why student performance has improved and there is no reason to stop now.

Christy Hovanetz is a senior policy fellow for ExcelinEd focusing on school accountability and math policies. She served as the assistant commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Education and assistant deputy commissioner at the Florida Department of Education. Hovanetz graduated summa cum laude from St. Cloud State University and is a certified teacher in the state of Minnesota. She earned her Master of Public Administration at the University of Minnesota and a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. ExcelinEd is a national nonprofit formed by former Florida Gov Jeb Bush to work with states on education improvement efforts.

The Mississippi Press Association will induct investigative journalist and civil rights advocate Ida B. Wells and former longtime publisher Tim Kalich into the Mississippi Press Hall of Fame in June.

In 1892, after three of Wells’ friends were killed by a white mob in Memphis, the Holly Springs native began to document the lynchings of Black Americans.

After a mob destroyed her presses and threatened to kill if she ever published again, she moved to Chicago and continued reporting.

“Nowhere in the civilized world save the United States of America do men, possessing all civil and political power, go out in bands of 50 and 5,000 to hunt down, shoot, hang or burn to death a single individual, unarmed and absolutely powerless,” Wells wrote. “We refuse to believe this country, so powerful to defend its citizens abroad, is unable to protect its citizens at home.”

She helped found the NAACP and became a leader in the early Civil Rights Movement, working alongside W. E. B. Du Bois, Madam C. J. Walker, Mary Church Terrell and Frederick Douglass. She also pushed for women’s suffrage, working with Susan B. Anthony and others.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, which opened in 2018, features a reflection space in her honor.

Wells and Kalich will be inducted into the Hall of Fame during the 160th Annual Meeting of the MPA on June 26 in Biloxi.

Kalich retired in 2025 as editor and publisher of The Greenwood Commonwealth after a journalism career spanning more than 40 years. He is a seven-time recipient of the Emmerich Award for Editorial Excellence, one of the highest honors presented annually by MPA, and has earned dozens of awards for reporting, photography and column writing.

He is a past president of MPA and former chairman of the Mississippi Press Foundation. In 2024, the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media presented him with the Silver Em Award for outstanding contributions to journalism. Since  2025, he has coordinated statewide editorial collaborative projects for Press Forward Mississippi, a philanthropic initiative focused on strengthening local journalism.

“We are very excited by the committee’s choices for induction into the Hall of Fame this year,” said MPA  President George Russell Turner, publisher and editor of The Greene County Herald and The Richton Dispatch. “We feel these are worthy recognitions of journalism’s significance in our state and very appropriate for our 160th year.”

A 24-year-old Hinds County detainee reported being stabbed at Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in the Delta. The Hinds County sheriff said he didn’t know about it, and a spokesperson for the company operating the private facility where the man is housed said it didn’t happen. 

Emmanuel Gonzalez-Rubio and his mother found the response baffling, saying he was left with cuts and scratches and that he had spoken with various people, including medical staff and guards about the injuries. They asked for him to be moved. Prison officials refused. 

A month later, Gonzalez-Rubio said he was attacked again. This time, so was his cellmate.

Both men were moved away from the alleged perpetrators. But the men and their family members say they expect to be returned to their zone where they’ll remain at risk. 

“All of that could have been prevented, though, if they had just listened,” Gonzalez-Rubio told Mississippi Today. 

Gonzalez-Rubio has been at Tallahatchie Correctional since 2024. It will be a year next week for his cellmate, Jonathan Sanchez, 21. Since 2023, Hinds County has contracted to send up to 250 people to the facility in Tutwiler because of crowding in the county’s jail in Raymond. The two facilities are about 145 miles apart.

CoreCivic also contracts with other counties to house pretrial detainees and with states to hold people who have already been convicted. Family members and elected officials have raised concerns about violence that in recent years has left several people dead.

About two weeks ago, Gonzalez-Rubio and Sanchez say they were in their cell at night when multiple men entered and stabbed them. Sanchez said he received injuries on his hands and arms, and Gonzalez-Rubio said he was attacked but not injured. 

Bayola Gonzalez-Rubio said her son Emmanuel called afterward and told her what happened. She said he wondered how he was supposed to fight off at least 10 people who had knives. 

Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, confirmed that two Hinds County detainees reported being assaulted by other detainees during the same time frame. He said because they did not know who their assailants were, Tallahatchie Correctional staff are working to identify all who were involved. 

“We have shared the concerns expressed by the family members you provided in your inquiry with our facility leadership team,” Gustin said in a Thursday statement. “The safety, health and well-being of the individuals entrusted to our care is our top priority.”

After the attack, Gonzalez-Rubio and Sanchez remained in their cell until the morning, when Sanchez said he was able to show the guards his injuries. He said the guards took them to a medical unit, where staff cleaned and bandaged his wounds. 

Since the stabbing, prison officials moved them into a lockdown cell for 24 hours a day. Gonzalez-Rubio described it as being in “the hole,” which commonly refers to restrictive or segregated housing. 

Gustin, the CoreCivic spokesman, said restrictive housing can be used for a number of reasons, including protective custody, medical purposes, mental health observation and administrative or investigative reasons. He added that inmates and detainees themselves can request protective custody. 

But the men were told they can’t stay there.

“It’s like they are leaving us for dead,” Sanchez told Mississippi Today. 

Gonzalez-Rubio said that for months, he and his cellmate have told prison staff they couldn’t be in the same zone as the people who were responsible for the first stabbing. But he said it seems like staff don’t want to listen or that they believe they are lying. 

Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones said he had not heard about the stabbing and declined to comment on nonfatal incidents at Tallahatchie Correctional involving Hinds detainees. 

“Unless there is a death that is being conducted as a murder investigation as a threat to public safety, I don’t have a comment about the jail at this time,” Jones said Tuesday. 

Other Hinds County detainees have died in the facility, but their deaths were believed to be drug-related. Ulysses Nelson III and Christian Dyre, both 24, died within days of each other in 2025.

On Thursday, Gustin said Hinds County had been informed about the stabbing.

The attack Gonzalez-Rubio and Sanchez described shares similarities to the April stabbing of Gonzalez-Rubio. 

Gonzalez-Rubio remembers the night of April 11 when about three people jumped him, stabbing him in the hand and arm. He said he also had scratches from trying to defend himself. 

Two days earlier, Gonzalez-Rubio heard through the prison that a man from the U.S. Virgin Islands was stabbed to death in another area of Tallahatchie Correctional.

Bayola Gonzalez-Rubio said she called the manager of her son’s unit to request that he be moved because she feared for his safety, but that didn’t happen. 

Within days of the stabbing, her son told her that prison staff didn’t believe he was stabbed. His mother said she called the prison and they told her they didn’t know about a stabbing. 

Jones, the Hinds County sheriff, said in April that he wasn’t made aware of a stabbing involving Gonzalez-Rubio and any information “would have to be funneled from CoreCivic.” 

When reached for comment, a CoreCivic spokesperson wrote in an email: “It is important to know that the information you received regarding the Hinds County inmate is completely false. The individual in question was neither stabbed nor injured in any way.” 

During both incidents, the men were in a lockdown zone meant for disciplinary cases, and they said weeks earlier other people were moved into the area. 

In both stabbing incidents, the detainees said they don’t know who stabbed them, but they believe they are also Hinds County detainees. They said they also believe it’s a similar group of people responsible for both stabbings because there are members of opposing gangs in the same zone. The men have said they are not gang members. 

“We told the guards these are their ways,” Sanchez said. 

A spokesperson from CoreCivic did not respond to questions about the presence of gangs in the zone for Hinds County detainees or elsewhere throughout the prison.  

Gonzalez-Rubio and Sanchez said they have requested to be moved to a different area of the prison away from the people who allegedly stabbed them. If they could go back to the Hinds County Detention Center, where both of them were housed initially, they said they would. 

From other states, the men’s family members have maintained contact with them, but they said it has been a challenge to receive information from prison staff. Gonzalez-Rubio is from Louisiana, and Sanchez is from Texas. 

Gonzalez-Rubio is set to go to trial in July for charges including aggravated assault, armed robbery and burglary. Sanchez is awaiting indictment for a drug possession charge. 

When Sanchez was wounded by another detainee in the Hinds County Detention Center last year, his wife Lily Cross remembers losing contact with him and assuming the worst. She called the jail and hospitals trying to find him. She dropped the effort when Sanchez called her and told her what happened.

“It’s just been the same thing over and over again,” Cross said about a lack of information from staff at whatever facility Sanchez is housed. 

Jackson State University’s new president will receive a year of outside leadership training as she transitions into the job, which has been tumultuous for her predecessors.

Denise Jones Gregory took the permanent role of president on May 1 after holding the interim role for a year. She is entering a position that has been held by four people in six years. And she will be in charge of leading an institution dealing with a number of challenges, including a student housing shortage and frayed relationships with alumni because of the constant leadership turnover and skepticism of the presidential hiring process.

The coaching she will receive was part of the $97,500 contract Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board signed with AGB Search in September, according to a copy obtained by Mississippi Today. The firm leads executive searches at universities.

It marks the first time a Jackson State president has received such training when moving into the role.

READ MORE: In Q&A, Jackson State’s new president shares the path ahead for the university 

Kim Bobby, a principal with AGB Search, said the training helps presidents get familiar with their new institution and the region and build relationships with the board, faculty, and community members. The firm took Jackson State’s cultural significance as a historically Black university into consideration when shaping the training, she said.

“It’s not a generic process,” Bobby said. “It’s really designed looking to initiate a close relationship and establish communication expectations and protocols around the transition.”

Gregory, a Jackson State alumna, enters the permanent role at a time when colleges and universities across the country are facing significant pressure from state lawmakers scrutinizing how well they are preparing students and from President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pushed universities to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs and has threatened their research funding.

University presidents are serving shorter tenures than ever — 5.9 years compared to 8.5 years two decades ago — according to the American Council on Education.

Gregory said in an email statement to Mississippi Today that, like every university, JSU “faces challenges that require steady attention and measurable progress.” Those challenges include helping students stay enrolled and ensuring they have access to academic support and real-world opportunities.

There are also infrastructure needs that must be addressed, she said. The university struggles to maintain enough housing and complete building renovations on schedule, she said. A key win happened recently: On Tuesday, the university broke ground on a new dining hall, which will have a capacity of 550. Several housing projects are ongoing and set to be completed next year, she said.

Gregory also said she’s working to expand scholarships and sustain donor support for the university.

“Students and families want to invest in institutions where they can clearly see momentum, opportunity, support and long-term vision, and that is exactly what we are working to build,” she said.

The role of president at JSU is historically one marked by turmoil and leadership scandals.

In 2016, Carolyn Meyers resigned from JSU, leaving behind unresolved financial issues. William B. Bynum Jr., Meyers’ successor, resigned in 2020 after he was arrested in a prostitution sting.

The next two presidents, Thomas Hudson and Marcus Thompson, both resigned suddenly without explanation.

Gregory said she hopes to bring stability. Shifting from interim to permanent helps “to ensure continuity with strong governance support and an effective transition,” she said in an email statement.

College presidents are stepping down earlier than ever due to the demands of the job and sometimes their lack of experience, said Judith Wilde, a George Mason University professor who studies college presidential searches. Training like what AGB Search offers can help a president navigate an increasingly complex role, she said.

“I don’t think any president, even if they’ve been president before, is ready to become a president right now,” Wilde said. “Things are so different with the current administration. It has also become a job that is not Monday through Friday, nine to five.”

Presidential search firms interact with alumni, faculty, students and board members during the search process. That gives them a unique perspective that helps them see what an institution needs, said Felecia Commodore, an education policy professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies HBCUs.

Women presidents, particularly at HBCUs, are often scrutinized for their ability to lead a university in ways their male counterparts aren’t, Commodore said. Gregory is the second woman in a decade to hold the permanent title at JSU.

“We see it happen more so with women, especially black women, that after there have been some challenges and sometimes crises at an institution, women are either put in as interim president or president and expected to fix everything,” Commodore said.

Gregory’s experience as JSU’s interim president for nearly a year may help her transition into the top job, Wilde said.

Gregory told Mississippi Today in an email statement that she spent the last year fostering relationships, including with staff, faculty and leaders within the university community.

“If she showed that she is serious and does position herself with the knowledge, skills and expertise to lead a university, that shows her commitment to the institution and serving the community,” Wilde said.

Earlexia Norwood, incoming JSU National Alumni Association president, said Gregory deserves this type of coaching. Alumni in recent years have clashed with JSU and IHL over presidents not receiving the support needed to lead Mississippi’s largest historically Black university.

“All the support possible should be given to her just like support is given to all Mississippi university presidents,” Norwood said. “That support is well overdue.”

Denise Jones Gregory took the helm as president of Jackson State University in a permanent capacity on May 1 after serving as the interim president. She enters a role that has been marked by years of turmoil, with several of her predecessors leaving unexpectedly or amid controversy.

Gregory, a JSU alumna, said she hopes to bring stability to the university.

As she settles into her role, Mississippi Today asked her to outline the challenges she sees ahead for the state’s largest historically Black university. Gregory said that while she, like all university presidents, is concerned about funding and budgets, she is particularly focused on relationships because effective leadership is about “trust, communication and shared purpose.”

READ MORE: Jackson State’s new president will receive leadership training for a role previously marked by turmoil

The following email responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

On budget and funding:

Recent accomplishments include renovations at Transitional  Hall and One University Place, campus-wide infrastructure improvements like sewer, line replacement and continued investment in student housing, including the renovation of McAllister-Whiteside Hall. 

JSU secured more than $65 million in research grants during fiscal year 2025. Faculty also earned national recognition and multi-million-dollar awards that continue elevating the university’s profile and impact.

As we continue strengthening the university financially, I believe we must also continue advocating for opportunities to reward the dedication, talent and commitment of the people who serve our students every day. Expanding scholarships, strengthening donor participation and securing long-term financial support remain essential priorities. 

On relationships with students: 

I believe leadership should be visible, approachable and genuinely engaged in student life. Retention, mentoring, networking and career readiness remain central to our student success efforts. I am proud that freshman enrollment has increased for two  consecutive years. 

Beyond academics, we continue investing in campus life through improvements to student housing, dining and gathering spaces that strengthen the student experience and sense of  belonging. 

On relationships with faculty and staff: 

Our faculty and staff are the heartbeat of Jackson State University. Supporting and  investing in them is critical to sustaining institutional excellence.

Our faculty and staff are deeply committed to this institution and to the students we serve, and I believe it is important that they feel valued, supported, connected and celebrated. Equally important is creating opportunities for employees to engage beyond their daily responsibilities and build a stronger sense of community across campus.

Whether through employee appreciation initiatives, professional development opportunities or simply creating spaces for colleagues to connect authentically, we are continuing to foster a culture where people feel seen, appreciated and empowered to thrive alongside the institution. 

On relationships with alumni: 

I believe meaningful leadership requires visibility, presence and connection. This  summer, I look forward to supporting alumni chapter initiatives both virtually and in  person as I travel to cities, including Detroit, Atlanta and D.C. 

I enjoy celebrating the accomplishments of our students, alumni, faculty, staff and supporters because every success story connected to JSU strengthens our collective legacy. Expanding alumni engagement and fundraising efforts is ultimately about sustaining opportunities for future generations of students. 

On athletics and campus culture: 

Jackson State University earned the 2025–2026  SWAC Dr. James Frank Commissioner’s Cup, recognizing JSU as the conference’s top overall athletics program.

It was especially meaningful to witness our men’s outdoor track & field team capture a SWAC Championship for the first time since my undergraduate years.

Our football program also earned the highest academic progress rate in the SWAC, while multiple student-athletes advanced to NCAA championship competition.

JSU achieved an 88% graduation success rate, the highest in the SWAC, while the  athletics department earned a cumulative 3.3 GPA this past semester, with 12 teams  finishing Spring 2026 with a 3.0 GPA or higher. Those accomplishments reflect our  commitment to developing not only champions in competition, but scholars and leaders prepared for success beyond college.

On state board and community officials:

Relationships with state leaders, community partners and external stakeholders are critically important because their support directly impacts how quickly we can advance infrastructure, housing and student-centered initiatives. My commitment is to advocate for Jackson State with clarity, transparency,and visible results.

Our recent Legislative Renovations and Repair Tour and dining hall groundbreaking  served as an opportunity to showcase both our institutional needs and the measurable  progress taking place across campus. I believe stakeholders should not only hear  about the vision for Jackson State University, but also be able to see it in action. 

Experts tracking how states are spending billions of federal dollars to improve rural healthcare told a panel of lawmakers on Thursday what many of them already knew: Mississippi is uniquely opaque about how it will spend this money. 

Jamila McLean, the director of health equity for the State Health and Value Strategies consortium, told legislators at a joint meeting of House and Senate Public Health committees that nearly every other state in the nation has held public meetings to gather input on how to spend this money.

“I do think that Mississippi is an outlier in terms of the availability of the information,” McLean said. 

Some state lawmakers have expressed frustration at the limited role they have played in the application and appropriation of the money and criticized what they see as Gov. Tate Reeves’ lack of transparency in administering the program. 

Rep. Donnie Scoggins, a Republican from Ellisville, homed in on that comment and asked McLean to repeat herself to make sure he understood her.

“To put it bluntly, yes, we have not seen any public information,” McLean said. “All of our tracking is based off of what we are able to find publicly. And there is very little that we are able to find.”

“I appreciate very much you saying that because out of all the 50 states, we probably need the money the most, and it appears we’re the least transparent in using that money,” Scoggins responded. 

Mississippi ranks near the bottom of most health outcome reports and the state’s rural hospitals have for years struggled to remain solvent. 

Thursday’s hearing stems from the federal government awarding Mississippi nearly $206 million in December as part of the federal Rural Health Transformation Program. States will receive payments over five years as part of a national, $50-billion program. 

Congress created the last-minute fund as a part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed last July, to sweeten the deal for Republican lawmakers concerned about the disproportionate impact that rural hospitals are expected to face as a result of the legislation. 

Reeves’ office led the state’s application for the federal money last fall and is overseeing distribution of it. Mississippi’s plan includes a statewide rural health assessment and other initiatives that focus on coordinating care, strengthening the workforce, creating a statewide health information exchange, expanding telehealth opportunities and improving infrastructure.

Mississippi and New Hampshire are the only two states where the governor’s office directly oversees the distribution of the money. McLean told lawmakers, though, that New Hampshire is being more transparent in how it’s using the funds. 

McLean said Mississippi did solicit input from the public via an online survey. Examples of how other states have solicited more public input include having in-person health summits, establishing advisory councils and conducting workshops to advise groups on how to apply for the federal money. 

Reeves announced April 29 that Richard Grimes, a certified public accountant, will serve as project director for the Mississippi Rural Health Transformation Office.

Grimes did not attend Thursday’s hearing, but House Public Health Chairman Sam Creekmore said lawmakers have arranged for Grimes to testify at a June 4 hearing. 

“This is for rural health, and it is to be transformational,” Creekmore said. I think the Legislature has shown that we are serious about transparency, holding people accountable and making sure that these funds are making a difference in our rural communities, which is most of our state.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved Mississippi’s program budget on April 20. 

“What’s going on in Mississippi is not what other states are doing,” Senate Public Health Chairman Hob Bryan said Thursday. “It’s not typical, and what’s going on in Mississippi is not based on some requirement from CMS. It’s an intentional decision to proceed this way in Mississippi.” 

Lawmakers passed oversight and transparency legislation in March requiring the program’s funding to be directed toward rural communities and spending to be reported to the Legislature. Reeves vetoed the bill, arguing it could jeopardize the state’s access to the money by slowing down its distribution and potentially result in a loss of up to $1 billion over five years. Lawmakers failed to override his veto. 

The vetoed legislation would have:

• Mandated quarterly reports on how funds were spent be provided to the Legislature.
• Required a competitive procurement for establishing a statewide health information exchange to support real-time data sharing between providers.
• Called for priority for the funding to be given to rural areas, the Delta, programs that provide direct assistance to Mississippi providers and patients and entities that have not received state or federal assistance for facility improvements or medical equipment in the past three years.

Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, and several other lawmakers have said it’s unthinkable that legislators, who are constitutionally tasked with appropriating money, have largely abdicated their spending authority over these funds to the governor. 

As part of their reasons for siding with the governor, some lawmakers have said their local hospitals asked them not to override the veto because the hospitals were promised a portion of the federal money. 

“It raises the question how do these people know that they’re going to get money out of this program?” Bryan asked. “We keep hearing there’s information being shared with some individuals, but not publicly.”

 Reeves did not respond to Mississippi Today’s questions about the transparency elements the office plans to implement. He also did not respond to a request for an interview with Grimes. 

The governor’s office in January entered into a seven-year, $10.2-million contract with BDO Government Services, formerly HORNE, for consulting and accounting services to administer the program. 

The program’s website currently lists one funding opportunity, for a vendor to assist with the Mississippi Comprehensive State Health Plan. The plan will be used to identify health care gaps and workforce needs to support long-term policy. 

Mississippi must obligate all of its first-year funds by October and spend them by September 2027.