OurTupelo

Editor’s note: This Mississippi Today Ideas essay is published as part of our Brain Drain project, which seeks solutions to Mississippi’s outmigration problem. To read more about the project, click here.

“Should I stay or should I go?”

That classic line sung by The Clash could be the theme song of the Mississippi brain drain.

It’s the stark choice young people are faced with when they graduate from high school or college, and it’s often fraught with tension. As much as I wanted to spread my wings when I turned 18, leaving Mississippi came with a heavy emotional toll. 

Moving away from family was only part of the guilt. I was also made to feel like I was abandoning my community. All the messages I internalized from local media and state politicians over the years blaming the brain drain for our population loss made me feel like I could only do something that would benefit myself at the expense of everyone else.

When I got to my out-of-state destination — an elite urban university with a reputation for producing public servants — there were only three other students from Mississippi in the entire undergraduate program. Some high schools from the Northeast and California sent more students in a single year, and none of them seemed to feel bad about it. Yet I can’t tell you how many former Mississippians I’ve met in other states — not necessarily internationally, just across the country — who call ourselves expats, displaced, itinerant, even prodigal. 

What if it didn’t have to be that way? We’ve created a false dichotomy with the “stay or go” debate when those aren’t the only paths. Ironically, giving young Mississippians just two options for their future fuels the vicious cycle of the brain drain.

The truth is, we could go a long way toward reversing our fate by welcoming home the native Mississippians who’ve spent time away.

Mississippi’s biggest export isn’t catfish or chicken or lumber. It’s talent.

Going out of state, for any amount of time, is an opportunity to learn new things and expand professional networks. We should encourage Mississippians to pursue their dreams and then bring back the experience they’ve gained.

I finally had that epiphany when I decided to move back in my mid-30s. It wasn’t an overnight decision, but after about three years of hemming and hawing, I finally pulled the trigger on my 34th birthday in January 2020.

I moved back with one thing in mind: to be part of reversing the brain drain. I ultimately took a six-figure pay cut in the process.

Of course, I expected to have a reversal in my earnings relocating from Washington, D.C., with the highest median income nationally, to Mississippi at the other end of the table. But what surprised me wasn’t that jobs would pay less, but that there were so few jobs that could use someone with a master’s degree in business. I had work experience at a Fortune 500 technology company, but the jobs in tech in Mississippi were at call centers.

Business school provided me with one ace up my sleeve: an interest in entrepreneurship. With the low cost of living that Mississippi so prominently advertises, I made the ultimate gamble and opened a small business. I knew I was taking a big risk, but I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be to sustain a brick-and-mortar which depends on the economic health and social infrastructure of a rural community. I’m only still hanging in there because I’ve been able to raise funding from out of state.

Now that I’m getting older and my fellow elder millennials are starting to think about coming home to raise their families or care for aging parents, I believe there is a real opportunity for Mississippi to welcome its prodigal sons and daughters home. Yet this would only be tougher if I had more personally at stake. When I uprooted, it was just me and my dog. But for those who are married and have kids, who have different racial backgrounds, and who are gay, it’s a much more complicated decision.

Do you move to Mississippi if you’re worried your spouse can’t get a job as good as yours?

Or do you move to Mississippi if you are concerned about the quality of the schools your children would attend; the local public university will get shut down by the state Legislature; that there is no bookstore or movie theater or music venue to give you something to do on the weekends; the quality of the drinking water; the quality of medical care in an emergency because rural hospitals have closed down?

Or what if you are concerned that you might be discriminated against looking for an apartment to rent, or ostracized socially, or physically threatened because of who you are?

These problems are solvable. The only problem is if we have the political will to solve them.

Here’s the funny thing: These concerns aren’t all that different from what anyone would care about when deciding where they want to live. We don’t have to shame people into never leaving or put golden handcuffs on them to make a deal to stay or devise a crazy scheme to poach people. We just need to invest in our own well-being.

I’ve made the best friends of my life since returning to Mississippi, and I’ve seen them leave one by one as it became impossible for them to stay because they could make a better living somewhere else. In the end, it’s that simple.

The more that Mississippi does to welcome back expats, the more native Mississippians will want to stay, and the more it will attract new first-time residents, too. We just have to build a Mississippi that will be better tomorrow than it was yesterday.

Emily Liner is the founder of Friendly City Books, an independent bookstore in Columbus, and of the Friendly City Books Community Connection, a special project of the CREATE Foundation. A native of Bay Saint Louis, she graduated from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, Georgetown University and the University of North Carolina and worked in public policy and the private sector for over a decade in Washington, D.C., before returning to her home state.

Lucinda Wade-Robinson watched her 22-year-old son, Zachary, hit the pavement feet from her front door on April 29, 2014. She saw the shooter and his friends hightail it to the highway. Her neighbor helped her son into a her car as he bled out. After he was pronounced dead at a hospital and investigators processed the crime scene in her front yard, she says she waited days for the fire department to spray his blood from her bullet-strewn driveway with a fire hose.

Wade-Robinson, worried she wouldn’t be able to cover the $8,000 funeral bill, applied in Hinds County for help from Mississippi’s victim compensation program, a fund that each state has to reimburse victims of crime and their families for funeral expenses, medical costs, crime scene clean-up, execution travel and counseling, among other disbursements. 

A funeral home director told Wade-Robinson about it and suggested she apply. But the state attorney general’s office, which administers the program, denied her claim, alleging her son was responsible for his death, a type of denial known as contributory misconduct. 

“It was a nightmare,” said Wade-Robinson.

Mississippi’s definition of what kind of conduct contributes to one’s death is broader than most states, and a Mississippi Today investigation found that Wade-Robinson’s denial is not unusual. Mississippi has one of the highest rates of denials attributed to “contributory misconduct” when compared to other states, with about 6% of all applicants getting denied for this reason.

Mississippi’s overall denial rate is 42%, for years 2021 to 2024. From 2021 to 2023, roughly 2% of claims were reduced.

Arkansas, West Virginia and South Dakota have similar outcomes, with all four states rejecting for contributory misconduct at roughly three times the national average, according to federal data collected between 2017 and 2023.

It’s the language of the law that makes Mississippi unique, according to Jeremy Levine, a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan who’s published research on victim compensation. If the victim makes “threatening and obscene gestures,” uses “fighting words,” even if the behavior was not directly connected to the circumstances of the person’s death, they would be ruled ineligible for compensation. The law also asks administrators of the fund to consider the victim’s behavior in the weeks leading up to their death.

The law is broad and open to interpretation, particularly when it comes to blaming victims for inciting their own killing.

“The provocation point is really fuzzy,” said Levine, and Mississippi “is on the top end of vagueness and discretionary openness.”

More than a third of compensation applicants in Hinds County were denied reimbursement from 2021 through 2024, according to records obtained by Mississippi Today. The attorney general’s office rejected 169 claims because of administrative rules like contributory misconduct. It approved 291 claims with a payment.

Mississippi’s victim compensation records are secret, according to a law enacted in 2000, meaning there is no way to assess racial and geographic bias in verdicts. And while these types of denials are falling nationwide, according to federal records, they are increasing in Mississippi, the poorest state with the highest homicide rate per capita.

“A lot of these exceptions make assumptions about communities and blame victims for their own deaths,” said Rep. John Hines, a Democrat from Greenville, a city with one of the highest gun homicide rates in the state.

The attorney general’s office chose not to provide comment. A spokesperson from the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice wrote that eligibility requirements are at the discretion of states.

The attorney general paid victims an average of $1,877 less in 2024 than it did the previous one. The average claim was $2,459 in 2024.

Contributory misconduct rejections can present an arbitrary barrier to financial help for victims of crime, said Tina Rogers, a victim assistance coordinator in Columbus, Mississippi.

“It is subjective and can be skewed depending on the type of crime,” wrote Rogers.

Not innocent enough

Wade-Robinson didn’t leave her house after her son’s death. Zachary Robinson had still been living in the family home; his sudden absence was painful. She was spending more quiet afternoons replaying the killing she watched take place from behind her front door.

Wade-Robinson’s attorney appealed the contributory misconduct denial. As she waited for an answer, the prosecutor informed her that charges would not be pursued against her son’s alleged shooter and the six men who accompanied him. The Jackson Police Department determined Robinson’s murder was a self-defense killing. The victim compensation director swiftly issued a second denial letter, citing the department’s finding.

“It was like being victimized again,” Wade-Robinson said. 

Wade-Robinson was hurt. Seven men had come to their house with weapons, she said. After one man came to their door to threaten his mother, Robinson drove home with a concealed weapon and yelled at the men to leave their house, Wade-Robinson remembers. In return, they shot him. And as the seven men sped off, her son’s friend, Lamont Ford, returned fire.

Mississippi has a castle doctrine or “stand your ground” law. But the attorney general’s hearing officer felt it didn’t apply.

“Although the Hearing Officer certainly recognizes Victim’s Second Amendment right to bear arms, Victim was clearly the initial aggressor and his display of a firearm in this circumstance caused another individual to fear imminent death,” the hearing officer said.

Local law enforcement must typically summarize the victim’s involvement in the crime and fill out a document that asks if the victim’s behavior in any way contributed to the person’s death because of drugs and alcohol or fighting words. When it comes to how law enforcement officers interpret how and if a victim’s conduct led to the individual’s death, rationale varies by department and agency.

Law enforcement initially charged Ford, Robinson’s friend, with murder in Robinson’s death, but an assistant district attorney in that office couldn’t explain why. The murder charge was dropped but a shooting into a dwelling charge remained. Ford’s shots missed, entering a nearby home and a delivery driver’s car.

Wade-Robinson didn’t miss a day of the trial. And when the jury found Ford not guilty, Wade-Robinson’s attorney requested that the victim compensation division reconsider its denial of her claim.

On March 31, 2016, at a private hearing held at the attorney general’s office in Jackson, Wade-Robinson’s claim was denied for the second and final time. The hearing officer cited her son’s “displaying of his weapon” and his refusal to call the police. They also cited his decision to drive to his home where two cars of potential adversaries were parked. 

“He was acting in a provoking manner that was greater than that of the offender,” testified Amy Walker, director of Crime Victim Compensation. “Robinson had used fighting words and obscene and threatening gestures based on the information that we received. And whether or not there was a causal relationship between his actions and the incident, I determined that there were.”

“So, I did find some level of responsibility on his part,” she added.

Being under the influence and taking risks isn’t behavior that would lead to outright denials by victim compensation programs in most other states.

The director also mentioned Robinson’s gun possession. 

Mississippi has the most relaxed gun laws in the country. During the pandemic, then-Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba tried to temporarily ban open carry of firearms in the wake of increased violence only to have Attorney General Lynn Fitch ask him to rescind it because it was in violation of the state’s open carry law.

During the trial of Lamont Ford, witnesses were grilled about their gun possession too. 

“I fear for my life when I come to Jackson,” said one of the witnesses. “I always keep a gun in my car.”

‘A national disgrace’

Some advocates, academics and victims argue Mississippi’s crime victim compensation division has failed to live up to the vision set forth by its chief architect, President Ronald Reagan.

In 1982, Reagan assembled a task force that looked into how national, local and state policies treat crime victims. The task force found treatment of crime victims to be a “national disgrace.” 

Reagan signed the Victims of Crime Act into law two years later, which established a fund for each state to disperse to “innocent” victims of crime. In 1991, Mississippi established its division responsible for dispersing money. 

Since establishment of the fund, many states have narrowed their definitions of “contributory misconduct” or removed it as a criterion for eligibility because of disproportionately high rejection rates for minorities and advocacy efforts from victim rights’ groups.

In a 2005 Kansas Supreme Court ruling, judges found that “contributory misconduct” must be directly contributory, ruling against the state’s Crime Victim Compensation Board. A couple had victim compensation diminished for their son who had died in a car wreck that was no fault of his own. The board had found that their underage son had drunk alcohol the night before and therefore had a blood alcohol content level that was illegal for someone his age at the time of his death. The board wrongfully reasoned, the court found, that this crime had contributed to his death.

Ohio in 2021 put a stop to rejections due to mere drug possession and allegations made about victims’ behavior leading up to their death. Pennsylvania prohibited the denial of claims for funeral reimbursements based on “contributory misconduct” in 2022. New Jersey, Delaware, and New Hampshire have made similar changes.

The Justice Department announced it would look into how subjective metrics like “contributory misconduct” can disproportionately discriminate against Black applicants. The DOJ’s announcement came on the heels of a 2024 Associated Press investigation, analyzing data in 23 states, which found that Black applicants for victim compensation were disproportionately denied at a higher rate for subjective reasons “rooted in implicit bias” like contributory misconduct.

On April 5, a group of 18 attorneys general, including Mississippi’s, joined Alabama’s attorney general and objected to what they perceived as the DOJ’s overreach. They found the updated guidelines “exceeded the agency’s authority” and “could result in the States losing vital funding for their victim compensation programs.”

“State resources available to compensate crime victims are not limitless,” argued Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall. “States thus have always had to make choices about how to justly allocate these funds,” he wrote, and this includes considering “whether an applicant was partially responsible for the crime that harmed him rather than being a purely innocent bystander.”

Scant resources for innocent crime victims is a common argument made by proponents of using the “contributory misconduct” stipulation to assess victim compensation claims. Applicants in Mississippi can also be denied if the victim or applicant has a prior felony conviction, didn’t cooperate with law enforcement or prosecutors and applied for ineligible reimbursement categories like property damage, to name a few.

At the end of Financial Year 2024 after all the reimbursements were paid, Mississippi’s crime victim compensation fund had at least $2 million unspent.

By the end of 2021’s reporting period, with 81 more homicides reported in Mississippi, rejections on the basis of contributory misconduct nearly doubled despite a slight increase in applications.

Crime victim compensation programs are mostly funded by court fines and fees, not taxpayer money. Traffic tickets, felony murder convictions and federal judgments all generate money for the fund. State legislatures and the federal government appropriate money, too.

Even Mississippi crime victims who are approved for victim compensation can wait months to over a year for reimbursement. Neighboring Louisiana offers $500 in emergency funds to victims to help cover immediate costs like medical expenses, crime scene clean-up and lost wages.

In 2023, reimbursements for funerals accounted for more than half of funds paid out. Funeral home directors can fill out forms for crime victim compensation, too, applying on behalf of the victim.

Scotty Meredith runs Meredith-Nowell Funeral Home in Clarksdale on top of serving as coroner for Coahoma County. The small Mississippi Delta city experienced a 250% increase in homicides from 2023 to 2024, with four in 2023 and 14 in 2024. Meredith’s funeral home has gained a reputation in the county as a place to seek help filling out applications for crime victim compensation. But when it comes to the contributory aspect, he finds it hard to anticipate who the division will reject.

“It helps the family at a tough time,” he said, sitting in a room dedicated to grief counseling and funeral planning. The Delta is the state’s poorest region and has the highest number of gun homicides per capita. “It takes a big burden off a family that is already grieving.” 

In Mississippi Today’s discussions with 17 funeral homes across the state, 10 confirmed they no longer handle services for families who depend on victim compensation funds to pay for the funeral. It’s too much of a gamble for some, given how subjective the criteria can be.

Funeral home director William Jefferson Jr. of W.H. Jefferson Funeral Home in Vicksburg helped out a young apprentice’s family with a discounted rate after their claim for their son’s funeral was rejected. 

The director had cited marijuana found in his toxicology report, Jefferson said.

Her own detective

Marijuana was cited in 15-year-old Kayden Mohon’s toxicology report – and in the denial letter sent to his mother Angel Mohon.

Angel Mohon found out about the killing through a social media post circulated by the teenagers she believes responsible for his death. For her, it was a nightmare come true. On a day when she should’ve been celebrating his 16th birthday, Mohon was burying her son.

During Memorial Day Weekend, he was driving his friend home after a pool party in Brookhaven. As he braked near the stop sign on Ozark Lane, shots rang out from the field beside him. His car was riddled with bullets in seconds.

A home security camera captured the shooting: Kayden Mohon opened the driver’s side door as bullets continued to hit the car and the gravel road in front of him. He was driven home to the friend’s house down the street where he succumbed to his injuries and police were called.

Brookhaven Police Department communicated to the attorney general’s office that his death was the result of his own negligence. They labeled it a shootout – and made no arrests. Allegations made in the crime victim letter of Mohon’s firearm usage are not supported by the incident report, which doesn’t identify him with a gun.

Angel Mohon reached out to Brookhaven PD to share the home security camera footage that might exonerate her dead son. But they wouldn’t watch. 

So, she took off work as a home health care aide and decided to investigate.

She first tracked down the Toyota Corolla in which her son was killed. She traveled to an Enterprise Rent-A-Car lot in Natchez where the vehicle was towed. She interviewed neighbors who lived on the street where the shooting took place, one shared home security camera footage that cast the incident in a new light. She interviewed a witness to the killing, her son’s friends and knocked on the doors of local parents.

In the weeks after Kayden’s death, Kenny Collins, Brookhaven’s longtime police chief, stepped down. Under his leadership, the department was criticized for incompetence and shoddy police work. The county’s grand jury that considered more than 60 criminal cases found that the “complacent” Brookhaven Police Department “shows a lack of professionalism,” “has a habit of witness blaming” and is prone to “poorly investigating their cases.”

Under new leadership, the police department is reinvestigating several cases and is hiring a new investigator. When Mississippi Today brought Mohon’s case to the new chief’s attention, he confirmed that the case will undergo new scrutiny.

Mohon is still afraid to leave her home. The boys responsible for her son’s murder have threatened to target her next. They have driven by her home and harassed the family from their vehicles, she says. One wears a sweatshirt bearing an image of her son’s dead body.

“It hurts,” she said. “Every time I sit still for too long or I close my eyes, all I see is my baby’s body lying on the ground.”

Kayden was taking classes in welding at the time of his death. His mom was picking up extra shifts as a home health care aide to help pay for the costs of his training. Angel Mohon had also recently taught him to drive. 

“Why kill my child? Because he had a life, he had a future. He had hopes and dreams that he was fulfilling.”

Mohon doesn’t know how she will come up with the $7,000 to pay for the funeral. She is three months behind on her car payments and was told she would lose her only source of transportation next month if she couldn’t come up with $500.

The victim’s voice

When it comes to assessing a victim’s hand in their death, law enforcement officers are the first arbiters. In Mississippi, officers must file their assessment of victim involvement in a crime within 30 days of the victim’s survivors applying.

A law enforcement officer in Sunflower County, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job, said he checks the contributory box only if the victim “brought the fight to somebody else.”

Funding for local law enforcement agencies prevented officer salaries from keeping pace with inflation – and many Mississippi departments operate on small budgets with less staff than they require. Three police chiefs interviewed complain that witnesses are often reluctant to share information, and the department lacks the budget to retain talent.

Greenville Police Chief Marcus Turner recently mandated that all officers provide crime victim compensation applications to families regardless of what responding officers make of the crime scene at first. Even the family of victims responsible for their deaths need our support, Turner said. He also brings sympathy cards to the victim’s home before any interviews take place.

“It’s our responsibility to speak for the victim,” Turner said. “When there’s a murder, you have a suspect and a victim. The victim can’t say anything.”

Mississippi has few nonprofits or charities dedicated to helping crime victims cover even basic burial costs and that provide counseling to immediate relatives of homicide victims. Churches occasionally step in to cover burial costs for longtime parishioners who were the victims of crime. Stewpot, a homeless shelter in Jackson, will occasionally help pay for burial costs of low-income crime victims.

“The survivors of homicide are forgotten on every level,” said Felecia Marshall, founder and CEO of Grant Me Justice, a nonprofit that helps crime victim families navigate the criminal justice system, cover the costs of counseling and pay for burials. “Many parents are not prepared. There are so many layers that the family has to deal with while they are grieving.”

Legally, counties must have a plan in place for burial of paupers, or those who die without a place for their body. State law does not mandate that a pauper burial be marked, though many counties do.

Unmarked

No tombstone marks Chris Magsby’s grave. Jean Tenner, Magsby’s mother and a longtime employee at the Horseshoe Casino in Tunica, had a hard enough time covering the costs of his funeral before her claim was denied.

“I shouldn’t have to do this all by myself,” said Tenner, a single mother with another son in the armed services.

In 2023, Magsby was driving his youngest son when his cousin Decedron Johnson began to threaten him over the phone, trailing him in his car. The two pulled their cars off the road and when Magsby stepped out of his, Johnson started shooting. Johnson was later arrested in Clarksdale, and Magsby was pronounced dead at a hospital.

At the funeral, Magsby was laid to rest in a scarlet casket. Tenner still didn’t know how she’d pay for it. She neglected to make her car payments so she could save to give her son a proper sendoff. But she never saved enough.

While Johnson was out on bail pending a trial, the victim compensation division was still investigating Tenner’s claim for victim compensation. 

On July 22, 2023, over a month after the funeral, Tenner got her response: The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office had rejected her claim on the grounds her son had been on probation for a felony conviction. Magsby was never convicted of a felony.

On Aug. 18, 2023, her claim was rejected for a second time, this time on a posthumous accusation that he committed a felony at the time of his death. Police allegedly found a bag of cocaine in his car, which indicated to the attorney general’s office that he was not an innocent victim at the time of his death, and therefore, his mother would be ineligible for compensation. 

Also, his posthumous commission of a felony broke his non-adjudication agreement, meaning he was back under the supervision of the Mississippi Department of Corrections – another disqualifier. The initial charge was for “trespassing” into a local business when he was a teenager.

Tenner’s denial is hardly unique in the Mississippi suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee, where a tough-on-crime approach by law enforcement often puts victims under suspicion. The AG’s office denied over half of DeSoto County victims’ compensation claims from 2021 through 2023, records show.

Tenner struggled to make sense of the division’s decision in light of what she knew about her son. In the years before his death, Magsby had received his high school equivalency diploma, moved from the Delta to Horn Lake with his burgeoning family and secured a job at a nearby factory. 

Tenner thinks of her son every day, especially how he used to love to take his kids on trips to Disney World and to water parks in nearby Arkansas. She hopes her grandkids will get to go on another trip soon – but they haven’t since Magsby’s passing. Her grandson, who witnessed his father’s death, needs therapy, said Tenner, but with her debts from her son’s death, she feels that counseling is a long way off for the toddler.

As crime increases, more parents are finding themselves struggling with the financial aftermath of their child’s murder, said Turner, Greenville’s police chief. 

“Now, we’re living in a time where young people are losing their lives every day, and the parents are not in the position to have them covered under any type of burial or life insurance,” he said. 

Every witness or person present when Robinson, Magbsby and Mohon were killed, including the victim, were younger than 30. Since 2013, the number of young crime victims has more than tripled; 338 Mississippians younger than 34 were gun homicide victims in 2023.

Acceptance

Every year, Wade-Robinson attends the Christmas tree decorating party for crime victims hosted by the attorney general’s office. The office usually hires musicians to sing hymns and holiday songs. The families of crime victims hang ornaments on branches while the staff greet grieving families. Last year, she cried, touched by a rendition of “How Great Thou Art.”

Scott Colom, a district attorney in Columbus, organizes a similar event for each family at the end of trials. He plants a tree with the victim’s family in an intimate ceremony outside the courthouse. Victim coordinator Tina Rogers sings hymns and popular music. 

“Grief is going to be long, but this tree’s going to be here longer,” Colom said, explaining the ceremony. “The victim’s going to be here, too. They can survive it. They can withstand it. They’ve got a reason to live on.”

He has also appealed crime victim compensation denials, in one case because the applicant was a few days from meeting the five-year threshold from a felony conviction. His appeal was ignored. The division upheld all 54 denials that were appealed on paper or in a hearing in 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to records obtained.

“The only way we’re going to be able to successfully prosecute violent crime is cooperation from victims and survivors,” Colom said. “And if victims and survivors and witnesses have a negative impression of the criminal justice system, that decreases the chances that they’re going to cooperate, which decreases our chances of being able to prosecute crime.”

Restitution is the only other type of compensation available to crime victims. Their families can request that a judge order the offender to pay them for counseling and property damage, among other expenses. But restitution isn’t possible until a person has been successfully prosecuted – an obstacle for mothers of murdered sons in counties with low clearance rates.

Wade-Robinson keeps her son’s room close to how he left it 11 years ago. His car sketches are still taped behind a chest of drawers topped with model cars, trophies and certificates.

Robinson was involved in his community, Wade-Robinson remembers. He used to love to ride his grandfather’s horse at his farm in Terry and hunt deer. Robinson was recruited to play the tuba in high school. He won an academic honor in his senior year and graduated with honors from his automotive course. 

“It’s hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember,” began a resolution honoring Robinson, issued by his high school a week after his death. “We recognize that this temporary loss is Heaven’s ultimate gain.”

The city of Jackson did finally settle a wrongful death suit with Wade-Robinson’s family for an undisclosed sum on Dec. 13, 2017.

But grieving and seeking justice for her son still keeps her up at night. 

“I just can’t understand how you treat victims like this,” she said.

Editor’s note: Mississippi’s Attorney General’s Office counts applications abandoned by claimants before they provide receipt of a service for compensation as “Approved With No Award.” From 2021 to 2024, 1,301 applications fit into this category. Mississippi Today chose to only tabulate applications where a receipt was provided by the applicant to substantiate their claim for financial relief. Here you will find a county breakdown with all categories included.

Monica Ford is hopeful but still cautious. After four months without a voucher, she may receive enough financial help to put her kids in a day care closer to home. She might be able to afford her own home for her family with the money saved.

After months of halted assistance and thousands of Mississippi parents losing their child care vouchers – and with it, their access to day care for their children — the state is issuing vouchers again.

Ford spent $11,000 on day care just over the last few months – and was forced to move in with in-laws.

“Giving up is not an option,” she said. “I would love the help. You have to be making money to survive in this economy.”

In April, Ford was denied a voucher renewal along with thousands of other families because she did not meet one of the six criteria the Mississippi Department of Human Service set. Those criteria were: being a recipient of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, being deployed in the military, being a guardian to a foster child, being homeless, being a parent of a special needs child and being a teen parent. 

For some families, these restrictions now no longer apply.

The pause to the pause, the result of the loss of coronavirus pandemic-era funding, was made possible by a direct legislative appropriation to the Child Care Payment Program administered by the department. The agency had asked for $40 million to continue serving the same number of families, but instead received $15 million.

This means, despite announcing that the agency is now taking applications from families on its waitlist, the program is not likely to be stabilized or capable of serving as many children as it did prior to the pause.

“We’re going back to a time where I think we are going to see a waiting list reappear and the thing about the waitlist is if you’re on the waitlist, you don’t ever know how long you’re going to be there,” said Carol Burnett, director of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, which has been advocating on behalf of child care supports for decades. “So it’s wonderful the pause is over and DHS has met whatever criteria they needed to eliminate the pause.”

The previous restrictions eliminated working parents that weren’t TANF recipients. For middle class parents forced to take on child care’s extra costs and fees this summer, leaving the wait list can mean financial security.

Vennesha Price’s biggest expense each month is child care, which includes the gas money needed to travel further for the care.

“For single, struggling parents or single parents that are considered middle class like myself, who do not meet certain low-income requirements, I’m just on my own whether I have the money or not,” she said.

Mississippi receives a little over $129 million through the federal block grant that primarily funds the program, the Child Care Development Fund, in 2024, an increase of about $31 million from 2020. Child care in Mississippi received a bump of more than $600 million during the pandemic, one way the state was able to increase the rolls in recent years.

The child care payment program has only ever served a fraction of eligible children – over 139,000 across the state, according to some estimates. 

In March before the pause began, more than 36,000 children received the voucher. The state currently serves just under 29,000 children, according to the agency.

In years past, the number of children on the rolls hovered around 20,000–in part because of a child support enforcement requirement that the agency rescinded in 2023. 

In 2017, during a notorious five-year period where the agency was approving no new vouchers, there were 21,000 children on the waitlist.

More children served

Through the mostly federally-funded voucher, the state pays up to 80% of a child’s tuition to a qualified provider, with the parent covering the rest. Every three years, the department is required to conduct a market rate survey to ensure its voucher reimbursement rate corresponds to the 75th percentile of the market rate for the different age groups. 

Weekly rates increased from 2021 to 2024, with variations depending on whether the recipient is in a metro or nonmetro area and the age of the child, since infant care is more expensive. Infant care in the metro area increased from $152 to $185 per week while school- aged care increased from $130 to $135.

Considering these rates, the current annual value of the voucher for infants in a metro area is about $7,700 and $5,600 for school aged children. For nonmetro areas, the state spends about $5,800 and $5,000, respectively. 

The extra state support of $15 million, then, might support roughly 2,500 vouchers for the year, depending on the circumstances of the children who are approved, based on Mississippi Today’s calculations.

That’s only half of the roughly 5,000 children sitting on the waitlist for assistance, according to the agency.

“I’m hoping that it will provide more opportunity for parents,” said Kacheela Dixon, owner of Steppin Up Learning Center in Jackson, Mississippi. “If the parents do sign back up with the vouchers, it will help hire more teachers and pay for more food.”

Dixon might still have to shut her business down in the next couple months unless enrollment increases. The cost of running her business has increased, too. Many of the children rely on her day care for supper.

For day care operator Sherica Lewis, the halt to the freeze might come too late.

She serves less than half the children she did before the child care freeze. She’s had two families with at least three children move to Southaven and Louisiana from Greenville, where her business is based. 

“It’s not going to benefit me as much,” she said. “I already lost the kids and families.”

The families moved to be closer to their extended family that can provide free child care. 

The Department of Human Sservices is also currently accepting proposals for workforce support subgrants under the TANF program that could include child care services. This has the potential to increase access for families without the voucher without requiring more funding for the child care certificate program.

Day care operator Kaysie Burton has been filling out grant applications herself. She saw how day care afforded working parents in her community the opportunity to focus on their careers.

“We want to help Mississippi keep working,” she said. “We’re trying to make sure our hours are tailored to our parents.

As teenagers flooded into Callaway High School on Monday morning, one shirt that read “last first day” drew the attention of Jackson Public Schools administrators greeting students at the door.

“Last first day!” cheered Superintendent Errick L. Greene, prompting a smile from the senior striding past.

Across the city, students went back to school Monday for the start of the new year. For some, it was their first day in a classroom. For others, like Rakeem Burney, it would be the last time they celebrated the first day of grade school. 

“It’s my senior year, but it hasn’t really hit me yet,” he said, dressed sharply in sparkling white sneakers. “I’m just excited to meet all my teachers and embark on this journey and everything this year will bring. The fact that the superintendent came, too, means a lot to me.”

That was the goal, Greene said. By showing up on the first day, he wanted to show students his support and commitment to them.

“This is where the magic happens,” he said. “For all of the back of the office things I have to do, the most important thing is to be here, to observe what’s going on but also to be visible with scholars and team members. They need to know I’m part of this work on the ground.

“This fills my cup.”

The energy was high at Callaway — volunteers and cheerleaders shook pompoms as students meandered through hallways, greeting one another and checking out their schedule for the year — but district changes were also apparent.

As some students entered the high school with cell phone imprints clearly visible in their jean pockets, administrators warned them to put their devices in their backpacks, out of reach. 

Phones were already banned at JPS schools, but the board approved a stricter policy over the summer in an effort to curb bullying, violence and miscommunication with parents. 

It’s part of Greene’s vision for the school year — a safer, more scholastically successful and well-staffed district. He said academic excellence remains a top focus for JPS, but there’s also work to be done around district culture. That includes supporting teachers and strengthening communication with families.

And the work starts from day one, he said.

Just down the block at North Jackson Elementary School, preschoolers were learning for the first time how to behave in a classroom. Greene joined them later that morning, stacking rainbow blocks on a brightly colored rug, while principal Jocelyn Smith circled the classroom, troubleshooting and smiling at the young students.

Despite her cheeriness, by 9 a.m. on Monday, Smith had been awake for hours. 

“The first day for me is just like for the children,” said Smith, who’s been working in education for three decades. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I was too excited to see the children.”

For the elementary students, the first day is essential to the rest of the year, she said.

“They get an introduction to the curriculum … they learn our procedures and how to be safe,” she said. “But most of all, they start learning our expectations for them, and they start to build a relationship with their teachers.”

In a different classroom up the hall, Rakesia Gray was figuring out what her third graders would be interested in reading this year. She passed out a worksheet, and asked her students to circle the topics they liked best. 

“On the first row, tell me which one you’d rather read out,” she said. “Polar bears or penguins?”

The room was silent. Students shyly glanced at each other.

“Come on now,” Gray said, laughing. “Y’all have gotta talk to me!”

A ruling from a federal judge in Mississippi contained factual errors — listing plaintiffs who weren’t parties to the suit, including incorrect quotes from a state law and referring to cases that don’t appear to exist — raising questions about whether artificial intelligence was involved in drafting the order.

U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate issued an error-laden temporary restraining order on July 20, pausing the enforcement of a state law that prohibits diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools and universities. 

Lawyers from the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office asked him to clarify the order on Tuesday, and attorneys for the plaintiffs did not oppose the state’s request. On Wednesday, Wingate replaced the order with a corrected version.

His original order no longer appears on the court docket, so the public no longer has access to it. The corrected order is backdated to July 20, even though it was filed three days later.

“Our attorneys have never seen anything like this,” a Mississippi Attorney General’s Office official told Mississippi Today, speaking only on background because the litigation is pending.

Some attorneys who have reviewed the ruling questioned whether artificial intelligence was used to craft the order. Wingate did not respond to repeated questions about the order or whether he or his staff used AI to prepare it.

The original order lists plaintiffs such as the Mississippi Library Association and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., who have never been involved in the pending litigation and who do not even have cases pending before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. 

Wingate’s original order also appears to quote portions of the initial lawsuit and the legislation that established Mississippi’s DEI prohibition, making it seem as though the phrases were taken verbatim from the texts. But the quoted phrases don’t appear in either the complaint or the legislation. 

Wingate’s corrected order still cites a 1974 case from the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Cousins v. School Board of City of Norfolk. However, when Mississippi Today attempted to search for that case, it appears that either it does not exist or the citation is incorrect. 

Christina Frohock, a University of Miami law school professor who studies the dangers artificial intelligence poses to the integrity of the legal system, said a common way attorneys are getting caught using AI is due to “hallucinations,” or instances where AI programs cite cases that don’t exist or use fabricated quotes. 

Frohock was hesitant to draw conclusions about the errors in the Mississippi ruling and attribute them to AI, but she was similarly perplexed by how basic facts from the case record were incorrect. 

“I actually don’t know how to explain the backstory here,” she said. “I feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland.”

Attorneys have an ethical obligation to make truthful representations in court, so when they are caught using artificial intelligence, judges have applied sanctions and demanded explanations. Just this month, a federal judge in Colorado ordered two attorneys to pay thousands in fines after they used AI to write a mistake-riddled court filing.

But there’s little recourse when the tables are turned. 

“If an attorney does this, a judge can demand explanations, but it’s not true in the other direction,” Frohock said. “We will probably never know what happened, unless an appellate court demands it.”

Parties in the case will meet again Aug. 5 to argue about a preliminary injunction in the case. 

Wingate, 78, was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1985. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate that same year. He served as chief judge of the Southern District from 2003 to 2010. 

Mississippi Today editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau sits down with Jake McGraw, a policy analyst and researcher who runs Working Together Mississippi’s Rethink Mississippi initiative, to discuss the state’s brain drain crisis. Together with the University of Mississippi Center for Population Studies, the organizations launched the state’s first-ever scientific survey to better understand the brain drain problem and develop solutions. Ganucheau and McGraw discuss what the data shows about the problem, the economic and political implications of it, and what more could be done to solve it.

READ MORE: Brain Drain: Why do Mississippians leave, why do they stay? Take our first-of-its-kind survey.

It’s been a disparate few years for Mississippi’s agriculture sector. Even as natural disasters and trade wars have caused row crop prices to decline, record high beef prices, growing poultry production and hundreds millions of dollars in federal disaster payments have bolstered the sector.

Some farmers have reported that federal payments have been slower and lower than needed as they continue to feel the impacts of bad weather in 2023 and 2024 exacerbated by low prices, high costs and trade wars. In Mississippi, row crops, which include soy beans, cotton and corn, have been among the hardest hit.

“This is one of the worst years for row crops,” said Joshua Maples, an agricultural economist at Mississippi State University. 

Row crops, especially soybeans, are an important part of Mississippi’s economy with soybean production valued at over $1 billion. Farmers are still recovering from the effects of past severe weather conditions and the outlook for 2025 is not promising with higher than normal rainfall that may result in a lower crop yield.

The prices of row crops have declined since 2022 leading to smaller profits for farmers who are struggling to break even with high production costs. As a result of 2018 tariffs, China, the biggest importer of soybeans in the world, shifted to buying more from South America, a loss that the U.S. industry has not recovered from.

The bright spots in the agriculture industry have been the livestock and poultry industries. Poultry, the largest agriculture sector in Mississippi, grew by 10% according to data from the Mississippi State University Extension Service largely due to strong production.

But livestock saw the most growth, with a 14% increase.

“Livestock is the shining star of Mississippi,” said Mike McCormick, a cattle farmer and president of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation. Beef prices have soared due to historically low numbers of cattle in the United States. As of Jan. 1, 2025, there were 86.7 million head of cattle in the United States, the fewest since 1951. 

While cattle farmers are currently seeing higher returns, they struggled for years with drought and weak profit margins leading to smaller herds. Farmers are trying to grow their herds but the process will likely take a few years, so beef prices will likely continue to be high.

In 2024, the state’s agricultural nominal GDP remained relatively unchanged with a decrease of 0.4% while the overall state GDP grew by 4.2%.

Agriculture GDP makes up around 2% of the state GDP. At the end of June, data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that in the first quarter of 2025, Mississippi’s economy grew 0.7%.  The agriculture sector was the largest contributor to growth of any industry at 0.83%. This was the third straight quarter that agriculture had the largest GDP growth rate in the state.

But agriculture GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was largely due to $120 million in direct payments from the federal government to Mississippi farmers.

“It’s not reflective of the reality farmers are facing right now,” said Andy Gipson, Mississippi’s agricultural commissioner on a recent episode of Mississippi Today’s podcast The Other Side, of what would appear on paper to be robust growth in farming output.

These payments are part of the American Relief Act that was passed in December 2024 that set aside more than $30 billion in direct payments to farmers to help with losses from economic changes and natural disasters. The money is being paid out through multiple programs, including the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, or ECAP, and the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program, or SDRP. The commodity program helps farmers impacted by increased production costs and falling crop prices while the disaster program helps those affected by severe weather in 2023 and 2024.

 “The $120 million is about 3.5% of the total GDP the state gained from ‘Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting’ in 2024,” said Dr. Sondra Collins a senior economist at the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning. She expects to see the impact of these programs on GDP throughout the year as applications continue to be submitted and money is paid out. 

McCormick’s family has been farming in Mississippi since the 1820s and says this is one of the most challenging periods for farmers since the farm crisis of the 1980s. 

“Farming has always been a risky business,” said McCormick.

Thomas Duff has used his wealth from a tire empire he and his brother created to become a political power broker and sought-after philanthropist. 

Duff, of Hattiesburg, has been involved in state politics, but only peripherally or behind the scenes. Now, the tire baron is considering a political run of his own. His entrance into the 2027 Republican primary for governor could reshape a field of candidates likely to include several statewide officials. 

Duff served an eight-year stint on the state Institutions of Higher Learning Board, first appointed by former Gov. Phil Bryant. He has been a major contributor to many Republican campaigns in Mississippi, and earlier this year formed and funded a political action committee to help elect Republicans to city and legislative offices. He and his brother are major supporters of higher education and have donated millions to Mississippi universities.

As he mulls a run for governor, the billionaire businessman sat for a wide-ranging interview with Mississippi Today.

The conversation spanned his business philosophy, support for tariffs, concerns about Mississippi’s “brain drain,” and his investments in the state’s higher education system. It also touched on where he stands on issues such as immigration, Medicaid expansion, “school choice,” and his affinity for President Donald Trump.

The interview was conducted June 17 and has been edited for clarity and length.

Mississippi Today: Tell me about the moment when you knew that what you were building would grow far bigger than the family business your father had left you. When did you have a sense of the scale at which you were really working with? 

Thomas Duff: That’s a good question. Nobody’s ever asked me that before. When I got into our business, we were in very bad financial shape. Southern Tire Mart was a little company with about seven employees, losing money every month. My father was an attorney in Columbia. He loved business, but he was not active, he just liked to own them. I was finishing up a master’s degree in business, which I did not finish. So I was going to law school at Ole Miss and decided that I liked business much more than practicing law. So I said, ‘Can I stay on and just try to run this company?’ Because I grew up in high school working on tires, changing tires, retreading tires, being very involved in it. My dad said yes. And so I started, and that’s where we began. 

After I got involved in it and liked it, and frankly, started having some success in it, I would say, within about five to eight years after we began, I realized that this thing had potential. It’s really not a job, it’s an opportunity. And truthfully, I’ve never worked a day of my life because I’ve enjoyed being in business that much. 

Our business started with Southern Tire Mart. That has enabled us to be in other businesses and given opportunities. KLLM was a customer of Southern Tire Mart for many, many years, and it had undergone several ownership changes. It had gone public, it had gone back private. So we realized there were opportunities, and hopefully that it would be a profitable opportunity. And so we purchased other businesses that way, and that’s how we grew.

MT: Your core businesses require an integrated transportation ecosystem. Supply chain issues have now taken on a growing salience in our politics. Tell me about the evolution of supply chain issues, and your observations of debates surrounding onshoring versus offshoring that have come closer to the center of the political conversation. What has that been like to watch from your perspective?

Duff: We are uniquely affected by the supply situation. Also by the products that come from Asia and China, in particular. United States truck tire manufacturing only supplies about 70% of our needs in this country. So 30% have to come from outside the United States. So how do you deal with that? Where do you buy? What do you buy? Is it the right thing for customers to buy? 

It’s given us insights into how these foreign companies operate, and frankly, it’s not pleasing, because you see how so many of them have taken advantage of American laxity. Just being, frankly, lax in the way we operate in our supply management, it’s something that needs to be tightened up. We need more domestic manufacturing. There is the demand. There’s just not the manufacturing capacity. So our goal has been to try to increase that.

MT: With tariffs and trade policy being such a central element of political debate right now, what is your view on the trade-offs between free trade, getting products to market and protecting local industries? 

Duff: I think that’s a concern for a lot of people in Mississippi. I think we have watched American manufacturing be a serious problem for the last 25 years — it’s dissipated. We don’t have the trades and the things that we need. We are too dependent. 

But outside of supply chains, and we need to work on that, I have watched tariffs in the last few months be a good thing that’s happening. We approve of what President Trump is trying to do, because this mess existed long before he got here. He’s trying to correct it, and if we can correct it, which we will, it’ll take some short-term concerns, short-term hardships, but it’s going to be a long-term gain for our country. And I say that to you as a person who will probably pay more in tariffs, right? It will hit us hard. But is it going to be corrected? Yes, it will be. So, you know, we got into this mess over 20 or 30 years, it’s gonna take a little while to come out of it.

MT: What is your perspective then on short-term economic cost, let’s say, versus a longer-term structural fix in the economy. Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country. How should people in a state like this who are working class perceive these sorts of trade-offs?

Duff: Obviously, it is a concern. The question is how much of a concern should it be to the average Mississippian? Again, this is a short-term situation. It will have great long-term benefits. And I think what President Trump is trying to do is appropriate, and it will be successful in the end. 

For example, when we had a 20% tariff here, the first time with President Trump’s presidency, our car prices went up three or four percent, what we found out was, in China, they’re more interested in employment and keeping those plants going than they are in profitability because they’re Chinese-owned anyway. It’s not like a normal company like I have that tries to show a profit. In China they’re trying to show employment. So when people talk about these tariffs and what they mean in pricing, we have no evidence that it’s going up that much. What we’re seeing is many manufacturers saying we’re reducing the amount of the increase and trying to work with the American consumer, that’s particularly true for the folks in Mississippi.

MT: You’ve said that retaining employees and attracting quality employees is a priority for you in business. As far as the labor market is concerned, how should Mississippians be thinking about immigration policy? How does reducing immigration impact the economy here in Mississippi?

Duff: You know, we value every person. Each is important for what they do and in their employment throughout our businesses, and frankly, throughout this state. Getting rid of people that have convictions, have problems that come from other countries, that should be one of the highest priorities of stopping the illegal immigration at the southern border. That is is very important, because we need that stability in our employment. 

We are doing well in finding qualified people to work, and I think that’s one of the reasons that we see a lower labor participation rate in our state, you’ve got to offer people good jobs. But you know what? You’ve got to do more than that. You’ve got to have appropriate child care. You’ve got to have good medical. You’ve got to have the things that attract people to say, ‘Hey, I desire to work.’ 

We need more Mississippians at work and we need to be more attractive in what we offer people. That’s very important, and that’s one of the greatest responsibilities that my brother and I have. Do we offer those types of opportunities? Employment wise, social wise. I mean, having proper nursery care, having proper health care is just as important as your wage in today’s world. 

MT: Sure. And to that end, let’s talk about the social safety net. Of course, private employers play an important role in providing access to health care, but there is a segment of Mississippians that may need to rely on the public benefits. Do you think Mississippi should expand Medicaid? 

Duff: You know, I think there are so many rules about Medicaid expansion, it’s hard to always say I’m in favor of it or not in favor of it. Do people need better medical care in the state of Mississippi? Yes, sir. Do more people need to be included in that? Yes, the health of our state is so important. So we have got to offer those things through businesses, through state assistance that helps all Mississippians have better health care. That’s got to be one of the top responsibilities that we all have. How it’s done in today’s changing political environment? I don’t know what to say, but I do know that it’s got to be of the highest importance, and we need to take care of all Mississippians.

MT: So what you’re saying is you’re neither wedded to expansion nor entirely against it? Are you saying you’re open to all options? 

Duff: I want to know the facts and the facts that are best for the people in Mississippi, and those facts have changed with a new president. So it’s hard to really say until we understand the changing political environment.  

MT: I want to ask you about your conception of “welfare” as well. It’s been a politically charged term for a long time, people have different ideas about what programs should be considered welfare. How do you think about welfare and how it relates to the safety net here?

Duff: Well, we need a safety net that’s appropriate and takes care of needs, especially for people who have those needs. We also need a system where people participate, where they’re paid adequately, where they can take care of their families and take care of themselves. 

So my definition of those things would be, if you can work, you need to work. And it’s not just working, it’s working at a higher level. Some people have jobs that they could easily go to someone else, and they could do higher-level jobs. Can you have a better education? Can you have workforce training? How can you maximize your potential in your job?

MT: You mentioned education and training. You and your brother have invested about $50 million in Mississippi universities. So higher education has been a focus of yours, and the issue of “brain drain” has been one of your central concerns. How would you propose that either yourself or others fix this brain drain issue in Mississippi?

Duff: The first thing we’ve got to do, and it’s not a simple answer, we need to have K-12 education that is excellent. And by having excellent education, you prepare people either for vocational jobs or for going into a four-year college route. But you’ve got to have the basics done. 

We have made rapid progress in that. The Mississippi Miracle is real, and we see that. But the real question is, as everybody else is getting better, can we keep our foot on the accelerator and continue to expand K-12? Now we go to vocational, which is so important. We were talking in a meeting this morning about the vocational needs and of some of our businesses, it’ll amaze you what we pay vocational employees, and I’m glad to see they do really well. They have great incomes, a good living. And I like seeing those things. And then we decide to go with the four-year college route, or however many years you decide to go to college, it is important that they receive a good education. 

Education, I can tell you, having served eight years in the Institutions of Higher Learning, Mississippi provides a great education for the money spent, an excellent education. Now, the problem we have in our state is the fact that within three years, half of our college graduates are living somewhere else. That’s our problem. So we have got to start a development in our state of economic activity, and it’s going to come. 

Everybody thinks that we need to grow by hitting home runs and going and finding an Amazon or someone like that to come in. The best way to grow our economy is to take the small businesses and get to know them. There’s no one cookie cutter way for a person to go from seven employees to nine, right? I remember when I had seven employees. I’ve got 15,000 now. So you have to learn to adapt and grow. And if you grow your small businesses, you grow your communities. And if you grow your communities, you grow this state.

And you know, as someone who is one of those employers, we hire 50 college graduates a year in our training programs, in our companies, and it’s a great program. These people get great job opportunities, and frankly, our retention rate is excellent. But you know, it worries me when I have my meetings with these new folks and ask, “Where do you want to live? Why do you want to live there?” And the bulk of these students are from Mississippi colleges, and they say, I want to go to Nashville, Atlanta, Phoenix. I want to live somewhere else. And I’ve never had anybody come in and say, “I want to go live in Greenwood” or “I want to live somewhere around here.” And that concerns me, because we’re letting that problem happen. These are our best and brightest students, and we’re letting them go somewhere else. 

Shame on us for not having those opportunities. That’s what we’ve got to do to grow this state. Population wise, economic wise, social wise, when you have a state that’s prospering economically, you solve a lot of problems.

MT: Before we move on from K-12, do you think that taxpayer dollars should follow students to private schools? Do you think that undermines public education?

Duff: You know, the success of a community is its public school system and its school system, yet every parent deserves the opportunity to make sure their child has the best education that they can get. So is there a place for school choice? Yes, again, the definition of what school choice is goes from left to right, but the overriding consideration needs to be, every parent needs to have a very good hand in their child’s education. And whatever that means, we need to do. So we’re not scared of competing and having great schools, we want them. How does that need to be? I think that’s up to the community and the parent.

MT: Moving on to the Institutions of Higher Learning and politics. I know that most of the work of the IHL just relates to the functionality of the university system. But I want to ask you about your observations of higher education while serving in that capacity, because there’s no denying that college campuses have become a battleground for the culture wars in this state and in the country more broadly. Do you think the state government should play a more active role intervening and regulating the activity of campus life?

Duff: Mississippi pays a good part of the education of college graduates. They should have a say in it, but their say needs to be, how can this student receive the most comprehensive education? 

There’s certainly definitions between liberals and conservatives, what’s important, what’s not important. Some of that’s just part of growing up and learning how to operate. Overall, I would say that our schools present a wonderfully conservative balance of what to do. Two things that I think needs to be done is as I have watched students come in. 

When taxpayer dollars at four year colleges are having to be spent for math and reading and things like that to bring them up to a college level before they even start, that’s an indictment of our K-12 education, and we’ve got to do better in that. 

I (also) think it’s important that we learn more of our civic responsibilities. I don’t think that’s taught as much anymore. What it means to be an American, a Mississippian. What does it mean to be a future member of society, a citizen? The importance of voting. Those type of things need to be added into college curriculums. Learning our constitution, that type of stuff that makes you more well rounded and makes you a better student and adult.

MT: Is there a political thinker that informs your worldview? If you think to yourself, “Where should I come down on a certain issue?” Are there certain leaders or thinkers that you look to for guidance or knowledge?

Duff: I’m a voracious reader. I’m also an avid watcher of newscasts. I like to see all points of view. I’ve always believed if you only had one point of view, that makes you fairly narrow minded. So all points of view are important and you can learn from all of those things, even when you don’t agree. I go into many meetings with our folks and say this is a point of view that’s expressed. It might not be mine, but let’s debate it. Let’s take it apart. Let’s see what’s good about it, what’s bad about it, and we learn from that. So that’s what college is about.

MT: If I could just push you on that a little bit. I appreciate that you consider and take in all points of view. But you do have politics yourself, and you have created a political action committee with a priority to elect conservative candidates. So within the realm of conservatism, I suppose, what sort of conservative are you? Do you identify with a particular political figure? What to you makes a quality conservative leader that you would want to support? 

Duff: I am a conservative. I believe that less government is better. I believe that each of us should have the ability to raise our families, to live our lives and to accomplish what our God given abilities are. So I am very conservative. I’m not trying to raise taxes. I’m not trying to have these social things that jump out there. I think that goes with being in families and being an individual.

The political leader that has affected us, certainly in the last 10 years, would be Donald Trump. He has revolutionized not only the Republican Party, but also the way that people view government, whether you like him or disagree with him, and I happen to like him. I think that what he’s doing in his administration is exactly what he said he would do. And I think 75 million people said ‘I like what he says he’s gonna do. I’m gonna vote for him.’ And he’s following through on that example. So he could probably be the one, if you were to ask me, that would have an influence. But his influence comes from vision and leadership. It’s not always his views, just the fact that he says, ‘I feel it should be this way, and I’m going to offer leadership through myself and the folks that I work with, and hopefully there’s buy in from the people that see it.’ 

MT: Yeah, and just jumping off that, I do want to ask directly about the PAC and the purpose behind it. What do you hope to achieve by potentially ushering in a new cohort of leaders in Mississippi?

Duff: That’s what it’s really for, to have conservative minded people take on these responsibilities because they’re very important economically in their communities and statewide. 

Are they the type leaders that will be exemplary moving forward? 

Mississippi has come so far. Our governor has done a great job, but it’s important for the future that we don’t take the foot off the gas pedal, that we move forward. And it will be different than it is today. The growth of things like AI, the growth of the political challenges that we have, you’ve got to have a person who is a leader, who can have a vision for being able to continue moving forward.

MT: Will you run for governor in 2027?

Duff: I love this state. This state has been good to me. I love being a part of this state. If I can assist and help in the leadership of moving forward in this state, I want to be a part of it. But as far as saying I have to have this as a stepping stone or something else, I don’t need that. 

If I can be of service, and enough people believe in that, then perhaps we can all together move Mississippi forward. So that’s where I stand now. This election is 29 months out. 

MT: I want to close by asking you what Mississippians might not know about you that you want them to know as you go and meet more of them and consider this run for governor? 

Duff: I think what I would want Mississippians to know is I’m just like them. I started out in menial labor, growing up in high school, throughout college, basically put myself through college, got involved in a business. I still work 50 to 60 hours every week. I love my family. I’m very devoted to them and involved with them. But we work, my brother and I work hard. We try to be fair and honorable with every person we deal with.

And you can take principles of business and apply it to certain aspects of government. I think that’s where it comes to vision and it comes to leadership. Those are the most important things that I think our state needs, where everybody is working together for a common goal. I don’t expect people to agree with everything I say, but I would hope that people would say ‘he cares, and I hope that’ll be a difference.’

Don’t look now, but thanks to the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, health care, which by nearly every metric already is bad in Mississippi, is going to get worse.

While Mississippi annually ranks at or near the bottom for most health care outcomes, in recent years some solace could be taken in the fact that the state’s percentage of people without health insurance had dropped significantly.

That drop can be attributed primarily to the fact that since the COVID-19 pandemic, Mississippians have embraced the Affordable Care Act, better known by many as Obamacare.

The citizens of two solid red or Republican states where the ACA for years was ridiculed embraced Obamacare in breath-taking fashion. Texas, viewed as the North Star by many conservatives, had the largest percentage increase of people enrolling in the ACA’s marketplace or health care exchange to obtain private insurance. Texas’ enrollment increased 255% between 2020 and 2025, followed next by Mississippi with a 242% increase to 338,159 people, according to KFF, a nationwide nonprofit that studies health care policy.

Texas and Mississippi have in common that they have more people eligible to sign up for the marketplace policies because they have not adopted another key ACA component: expanding Medicaid to provide health insurance for primarily the working poor. Texas and Mississippi are among 10 states that have not adopted Medicaid expansion. Nine of those non-Medicaid expansion states, excluding Wisconsin, have among the highest percentage of their populations without health insurance and some of the worst health care outcomes. Even with the strong participation in the ACA marketplace, Texas has the nation’s largest uninsured rate at 18.7%, according to Public Health Watch. Mississippi also is in the bottom 10 at 12.4%.

All that said, the uninsured rate in Mississippi is much better than it was pre-ACA, which was passed in 2010 and fully enacted in 2014.

In the 2024 legislative session, as the Mississippi Legislature finally seriously considered expanding Medicaid with the federal government paying the bulk of the cost to provide health care for primarily the working poor, some leaders said the expansion was not needed because of the ACA marketplace. It was true that the working poor, though not the poorest of the poor, could garner private insurance at little or no cost through the exchanges. It was a powerful argument that prevailed, even though hospital administrators stressed that Medicaid expansion would provide more financial security to their struggling hospitals than would the payments they received through the ACA marketplace’s private insurance.

Still, the ACA marketplace policies did provide coverage, and that coverage was bolstered through legislation passed during the Joe Biden administration that provided enhanced federal subsidies to allow the working poor to obtain the policies at little or no cost.

But those enhanced subsidies were not extended with the One Big Beautiful Bill. Some subsidies will still be available under the new legislation, but on average the payments people will have to pay in Mississippi for the marketplace’s private health insurance policies will increase an estimated $480 per year, according to a 2024 KFF study. Plus, the One Big Beautiful Bill makes it more difficult for people to obtain the policies.

Most public health policy experts and the Congressional Budget Office all agree that the percentage of people without health insurance will dramatically increase thanks to the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill touted by President Donald Trump.

But that news is especially disheartening for many in Mississippi, which has the nation’s highest percentage of unhealthy people.

With fewer people receiving health care coverage through the marketplace and with no Medicaid expansion, those numbers most likely will only get worse in Mississippi.

And the people losing coverage will be those who Republicans in the 2024 session of the Mississippi Legislature claimed they wanted to help: the working poor.

They could still help the working poor by expanding Medicaid in the upcoming 2026 session.