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The wave of presidential turnover at Mississippi’s institutions of higher learning has come to Rust College. 

The state’s oldest historically Black college in Holly Springs announced in a press release Wednesday that Ivy Taylor, who was appointed in June 2020, has left. Though Taylor gave an interview to a local paper last week announcing she was leaving, it’s unclear if she stepped down or was fired; the press release does not say. Her last day was May 6.  

In Taylor’s place, the private college’s board of trustees named Robert Dixon, the interim vice president for academic affairs, as interim president. He is a physicist who has worked at six historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the last five decades in various administrative roles. 

“I am proud to lend my talents and expertise to such a historic and prestigious institution such as Rust College,” he said in the release. “I look forward to following in the traditions of past exceptional leaders who have served this institution during its 157 years.” 

It’s unclear if, or when, the college’s board will undertake a search for a new permanent president. 

The announcement makes Taylor the latest president of a Mississippi college or university to leave under mysterious circumstances. The trend began last summer when the governing board for the state’s eight public universities suddenly announced it had let go William LaForge, who had served as the president of Delta State University in Cleveland for nine years. 

Rodney Bennett, the former president of University of Southern Mississippi, stepped down soon after. Then earlier this year, the Institutions for Higher Learning Board of Trustees placed Thomas Hudson at Jackson State University on administrative leave, then let him go. 

More recently, the board announced that Felecia Nave was no longer Alcorn State University’s president days after she interviewed for the chancellor position at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

The IHL board has refrained from providing the community with more information about the “personnel issues.” In Nave’s case, the board even refused to answer questions from Mississippi Today about if the change was a resignation or firing. In general, the only additional details about the board’s decision have come from the presidents themselves.

Other universities that haven’t seen presidential turnover have faced discontent from students, faculty and alumni. At the end of last year, a change.org petition circulated at Mississippi Valley State University calling on the IHL board to fire Jerryl Briggs, the president, due to enrollment decline, issues with financial aid and “lack of leadership.” Then Briggs’ supporters created a counter-petition. 

At Tougaloo College, alumni have also created a change.org petition asking the board and Carmen Walters, the president, to acknowledge the enrollment declines and low morale on campus. The petition claims that Tougaloo’s leadership has withheld critical information such as budgets and grant funding. 

The Rust College board hired Taylor, the college’s first female president, after an eight-month search and reportedly interviewing more than 70 candidates. A former mayor of Holly Springs said the board focused on finding a president who would prioritize technological investments that could improve the infrastructure and education at Rust College, which was founded in 1866. 

The hope was that through modernization, Taylor could bring more students to Rust College — or at least, stave off a sharp enrollment decline during the pandemic. 

“Dr. Taylor brings energy, intelligence, and competence as well as experience in listening to diverse views and building coalitions,” said the board chair, David Swinton, said in a press release at the time.

When Taylor arrived on campus, she was met with controversy around some of the on-campus housing conditions. In at least one dorm, the college was reportedly bunking four students to a room, the Tri-State Defender reported. 

In an interview last week, with the local paper in Marshall County, Taylor touched on the enrollment decline and said it was a trend that began before her term. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Rust College’s enrollment since 2016 has plummeted by more than half to just 462 students in 2021. 

“Enrollment had been declining at Rust College for several years when I arrived and the pandemic exacerbated the scenario,” Taylor said. 

Taylor also said she experienced high turnover in leadership turning her time at Rust College, which she attributed to the small, rural nature of Holly Springs, the state of public education in the area, and “the overall ‘Great Resignation’ trend occurring in other sectors.” 

She ended the interview saying that she does not yet have plans for a new job and is using the time off to rest. 

Editor’s note: Ivy Taylor is a member of Mississippi Today’s board of directors.

The post In the latest college president turnover, Rust College’s Ivy Taylor is out appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office has filed its appeal in a lawsuit about public money being allocated to private schools, echoing their arguments from earlier in the process. 

The Legislature gave $10 million to a grant program for private schools at the end of the 2022 legislative session, a move that frustrated some advocates and legislators. The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which gave the Mississippi Legislature $1.8 billion to spend on pandemic response, government services, and infrastructure improvements to water, sewer, and broadband. 

The Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Democracy Forward, and the Mississippi Center for Justice brought a lawsuit challenging this allocation on behalf of Parents for Public Schools, a Jackson-based national nonprofit.

The decision, which a Hinds County judge handed down in October 2022, found that the allocation violated section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution, which prohibits giving any public funds to private schools. With this decision, the state was barred from distributing the money. Legislators re-allocated the $10 million in the 2023 legislative session in case the appeal prevails. 

Section 208 reads in its entirety: 

“No religious or other sect or sects shall ever control any part of the school or other educational funds of this state; nor shall any funds be appropriated toward the support of any sectarian school, or to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school.” 

The attorney general’s office raised one new point in its appeal, saying Section 208 only applies to state educational funds. As this money came from federal COVID relief, it is not subject to these restrictions. 

Will Bardwell, an attorney with Democracy Forward, disputed this point, saying that the money’s origin is not relevant. 

“This is money that went into the state treasury and was doled out by state officials under rules promulgated by the state Legislature,” he said. “Of course it’s state money.”

The appeal’s other main points are similar to previous filings, arguing that Parents for Public Schools does not have a legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of this allocation and its members are not negatively impacted.

The decision from Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Crystal Wise Martin referenced the competition between private and public schools, and its subsequent negative impact on public school enrollment and funding, when granting a permanent injunction in the case. 

The attorney general’s office disputed this line of thinking but said that even if this situation were to occur, it would be public schools or their students who would experience a negative side effect of private schools receiving this money, not the members of Parents for Public Schools who are predominately parents and teachers. 

Bardwell called the notion that parents don’t have a legal interest in their children’s constitutional rights “pretty silly.” 

Attorneys for the state also reiterated the argument that because the Legislature appropriated the money to the Department of Finance and Administration to run a grant program for private schools, instead of directly to those private schools, these laws did not violate the state constitution. 

The judge’s decision rebuked this idea, saying the state cannot avoid compliance with the constitution by delegating appropriating power to an executive agency. 

Bardwell echoed this sentiment when discussing the new filing. 

“The constitution says what it says, it is unambiguous,” he said. “It forbids sending any funds, at all, to private schools. You can’t get around that by money laundering.”

Joann Mickens, the executive director of Parents for Public Schools, said legislators and taxpayers know that the purpose of public funds is to support public goods and services. 

“In this case, Parents for Public Schools is standing up for almost half a million Mississippi children, their families, their communities, and the greater good,” Mickens said in a statement. “In doing so, we stand up for a stronger, better Mississippi and against perpetuating inequity.”    

Bardwell said their filings are due in early June and he expects the Mississippi Supreme Court will want to hold oral arguments in late summer or fall. 

The post AG’s office files appeal in public funds to private schools lawsuit appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for her remarkable investigation “The Backchannel,” which uncovered the depth of the sprawling $77 million welfare scandal, the largest embezzlement of federal funds in the state’s history. Anna joins Mississippi Today editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau to discuss the win, her career, and how she sees her role in Mississippi.

The post Podcast: Anna Wolfe discusses Pulitzer Prize win appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Southern Miss currently holds the nation’s longest winning streak at 10 games and has moved into position to possibly host an NCAA Regional. Scott Berry’s USM program has been a model of consistency since he took over for the legendary Corky Palmer.

Stream all episodes here.

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On the heels of several major hospitals departing the Mississippi Hospital Association, the organization’s leader is baffled.

The hospitals’ move comes shortly after the association’s political action committee made a $250,000 contribution to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley, an outspoken proponent of Medicaid expansion.

The state’s largest public hospital system, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, announced in a letter on April 28 that it was leaving the MHA. Days later, three more hospitals — Singing River on the coast, Gulfport’s Memorial Hospital and George County Regional in Lucedale — followed suit. 

Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg on Monday became the most recent hospital to leave the organization, as first reported by Magnolia Tribune. 

The PAC made the donation – the largest it has ever made – in late April, MHA Executive Director Tim Moore said. 

Forrest General’s termination letter said the departure was fueled by “recent events,” while the other four hospitals cited concerns with MHA leadership. 

Moore said donating to Presley’s campaign was recommended by the MHA’s board of governors, who are administrators of member hospitals elected by MHA members.

“We all have had these discussions for a number of years now that we support candidates that support hospitals, and here is a candidate that is coming very strongly forward with a complete health care agenda,” Moore said. “It was certainly not just … it was not my decision.”

Presley, a Democrat, is running against incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in the 2023 statewide elections. While Reeves has been an active opponent of Medicaid expansion, Presley has vowed to expand Medicaid if he’s elected governor. 

Moore, who’s led the MHA for nearly 10 years, suspects the donation was a catalyst. The hospitals’ departures have left him in disbelief, he said. 

“There’s nothing else that has changed. Nothing,” he said in an interview with Mississippi Today last week. “Our strategy has not changed.”

Mississippi hospitals as a whole are struggling amid the pandemic, when labor and operating costs skyrocketed. The struggle is most apparent in the state’s rural hospitals — about a third are at risk of closure. 

Experts say Medicaid expansion would bring in millions to Mississippi and insure an additional 200,000 to 300,000 Mississippians. State leaders such as Gov. Tate Reeves, the incumbent candidate, have remained opposed to the policy change, though most Mississippians and lawmakers support it. 

“How can anybody blame the hospital association for committing upfront to somebody that has committed to helping hospitals and patients across the state? How can you condemn that?” Moore said. “I can’t figure it out.”

Multiple requests for comment to George County Regional Hospital went unanswered. Spokespeople for UMMC, Singing River, Forrest and Memorial said that hospital administration had no further comment on their decisions to leave the MHA. 

A connection to Reeves is clear for at least one hospital. 

Memorial’s CEO Kent Nicaud has consistently been one of Reeves’ top donors, leading to an appointment to the state gaming commission earlier this year. Reeves also appointed Nicaud’s wife, Jenny, as an administrative law judge for the Mississippi Workers Compensation Commission in 2021. 

While expansion isn’t a silver bullet, experts agree that it would go a long way to increasing the financial viability of Mississippi’s struggling hospitals. Moore previously said that the state’s hospitals run up about $600 million annually in uncompensated care costs. 

Moore said that it’s difficult to imagine any hospital CEO in Mississippi as an opponent of Medicaid expansion because of the vast financial benefits.

“It is a good policy, a fair one,” Moore said. “It’s good for the state of Mississippi. It’s good for the patients. It’s good for the providers. It’s an economic stimulus. It just goes on and on. And there’s just no logical reason not to be trying to move forward.

“While I’m sitting in this seat, I’m nonpartisan. I’m looking for folks that will support our hospitals and providers to take care of patients.”

Michael Beyer, Presley’s communications director, said Presley was proud to have earned the support of the MHA and if elected, would work to “end Tate Reeves’ hospital crisis.”

“Tate Reeves needs to answer why there is always enough taxpayer money for pet projects for his celebrity friends and personal trainer but never enough to solve his hospital crisis, which has left many rural hospitals across the state scrambling to keep their lights on and 220,000 working Mississippians without healthcare,” Beyer said in a statement.

Shelby Wilcher, Reeves’ press secretary, said the Governor’s office “does not have any comment on MHA’s internal affairs.” 

The MHA, a member of the American Hospital Association, represents the interests of Mississippi’s hospitals and advocates for health care policy change, including Medicaid expansion. They also offer services to member hospitals, like a health information exchange program and educational courses. According to its website, the MHA comprises over 100 hospitals, health care systems and other providers, as well as over 50,000 employees.

While the PAC operates as a separate organization from the MHA, it answers to the same board. And Moore serves on the board, as well as director of both organizations.

Moore said during the nearly 100 years that the MHA has represented the state’s hospitals, hospitals have rotated in and out of the organization, but those departures have not been publicized. 

“Hopefully at some point we can reconcile whatever differences these are with members that have become dissatisfied or whatever has been the confusion, because I will say I’ve been extremely disappointed as to how these were handled,” Moore said. 

Whether or not hospitals are members of the MHA, they reap the benefits of the changes the organization advocates for, he said, but it’s harder to convince state lawmakers to make policy changes when the hospitals are fractured.

“In a state like Mississippi, with small geography and a relatively small population … if you break them up into segments, you have a much more difficult job in trying to unify the industry and come in one voice,” he said. “If you implement another association … they tend to undermine each other.”

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MAY 10, 2007

An Alabama grand jury indicted former state trooper James Bonard Fowler for the Feb. 18, 1965, killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was trying to protect his mother from being beaten at Mack’s Café. 

At Jackson’s funeral, Martin Luther King Jr. called him “a martyred hero of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.” As a society, he said, “we must be concerned not merely about who murdered him, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderer.” 

Authorities reopened the case after journalist John Fleming of the Anniston Star published an interview with Fowler in which he admitted, despite his claim of self-defense, that he had shot Jackson multiple times. And Fleming uncovered Fowler’s killing of another Black man, Nathan Johnson. In 2010, Fowler pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to six months behind bars. 

The post On this day in 2007 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

State Rep. Earle Banks, a Democrat representing Jackson in the House since 1993, faces a federal criminal charge for allegedly evading payment of federal income taxes.

According to court documents unsealed this month, Banks reported $38,237 in income on his 2018 federal tax returns even though he “knew that he had received more than $500,000 in additional income in August 2018 from profits from the sale of real estate.”

Banks, the 68-year-old who was elected to the Legislature in 1992, is accused of “willfully making a false material statement on a federal income tax return.”

Jackson attorney Rob McDuff, who is representing Banks, said in a statement: “Mr. Banks made a mistake on his tax return in 2018 and failed to include a capital gain. We have cooperated with the IRS and the U.S. Attorney’s Office as they have looked into this matter, and we will continue that cooperation in moving toward a final resolution.”

The maximum penalty is three years in prison, a $250,000 fine and one year supervised release, according to court documents.

Banks, an attorney and funeral home director, is an active member of the Mississippi Democratic Party. In 2020, he ran unsuccessfully for chairman of the state party after serving four years as second-in-command of the party’s executive committee.

In 2012, Banks ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Bill Waller Jr. for a seat on the state Supreme Court.

Banks is unopposed for reelection later this year to his Jackson House seat. It does not appear a conviction would keep Banks from serving in the Legislature. The Mississippi Constitution bars anyone convicted of most state or federal felonies from serving in the House or Senate, but Section 44 of the state constitution exempts federal tax crimes from being a disqualifying offense.

“This section shall not disqualify a person from holding office if he has been pardoned for the offense or if the offense of which the person was convicted was manslaughter, any violation of the United States Internal Revenue Code or any violation of the tax laws of this state unless such offense also involved misuse or abuse of his office or money coming into his hands by virtue of his office,” the Mississippi Constitution says.

The post Feds charge longtime state Rep. Earle Banks with felony tax crime appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today wins the Pulitzer Prize.

Six words I have always believed would be spoken. Six words that a betting woman might have laughed off when we were getting started as the state’s first nonprofit, online-only newsroom. Six words made all the sweeter after seven years of indescribably hard work.

When people ask me about my path into nonprofit news, I share this story about my own days as a budding journalist.

I have always been a good writer, but I was a terrible reporter. I never had the guts to ask hard questions. I never had the confidence to walk into a room with powerful people to press them for truth and ask for answers. This is why I love my work. I champion the brave, dedicated journalists who put in long hours to walk into uncomfortable spaces armored with facts and data.

I have a front row seat to the grinding, complicated and nuanced research and reporting that takes place before an interview is scheduled. I am the proverbial fly on the wall to endless spreadsheets, dense public records and inches-thick case files. I have watched reporters like Anna Wolfe spend years, literally, becoming subject matter experts on the issues they cover. Always with curiosity, always with ethics, always at heart those impacted most by the story at hand.

This week’s Pulitzer Prize win speaks volumes to Anna’s dedication to shining light on why outcomes remain so poor for Mississippi’s impoverished when there are dedicated funds to give them a hand up. It also speaks to the power of nonprofit news, which by design, allows reporters to stay with a story, to dig in and continue coverage for as long as needed. Moreover, it puts an exclamation point on the value of local news, the impact it carries and the absolute necessity of a free, independent press.

This work is critical, and it comes with a price tag. Our newsroom has invested thousands of dollars on record requests, attorney fees and travel across the state to report this story.

To the thousands of readers who have supported our mission, thank you. To those of you who haven’t yet joined us in this powerful public service journalism, I invite you to become a part of our community by making a donation today.

Our journalists may be the ones with the grit and determination to see a story through, but without your support, those stories go untold.

The post Grit, determination and the reason local news matters in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Following a few hiccups, the federal government finalized Alliance Healthcare System’s rural emergency hospital status, according to the hospital’s leaders. 

This makes Alliance the first in the state to receive such a designation.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) granted the hospital the special designation, aimed at increasing struggling small, rural hospitals’ financial viability, in March. Soon after, though, CMS asked hospital leadership for more information and placed the hospital’s status under review.

The issue was that the hospital was too close to Memphis, Tenn., which is about 50 miles away from Holly Springs where the hospital is based. According to the hospital’s chief operating officer and legal counsel Quentin Whitwell, CMS wanted further confirmation that the hospital was indeed rural, which is required to qualify for the designation. 

After a letter from Dr. Dan Edney, Mississippi’s state health officer, confirming the hospital’s status as such, the rural emergency hospital designation was accepted, Whitwell said. 

CMS did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The rural emergency hospital designation was just rolled out by the federal government a few months ago. To qualify, hospitals must end inpatient services and transfer emergency room patients who need further care to larger hospitals within 24 hours. In exchange, they receive monthly stipends from the federal government and higher reimbursement rates. 

Alliance has been losing money for years, its CEO Dr. Kenneth Williams previously said.

He said the hospital’s survival was contingent on its approval as a rural emergency hospital. 

Now that their status is finalized, Alliance joins four other hospitals as the first rural emergency hospitals in the country.

As for whether it’ll ease the hospital’s financial challenges, Whitwell is hopeful.

“We expect the new designation to improve both the financial and the outpatient capabilities for citizens of Marshall County,” he said. 

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