Alice Walker, novelist and poet, was the eighth child born to sharecroppers in Eatonton, Georgia.
During her youth, she was accidentally blinded in one eye, and her mother gave her a typewriter, which enabled her to write. She studied at Spelman College and Sarah Lawrence College, receiving a scholarship to study in Paris. She turned it down to go instead in 1965 to Mississippi, where she joined the civil rights movement.
Part of her work involved taking depositions of sharecroppers, who like her parents had been thrown off the land. She and her husband, civil rights attorney Mel Leventhal, married in New York in March 1967, and when they returned to Mississippi four months later, they became the first legally married interracial couple in the state, where interracial marriage was still illegal.
They persevered through death threats, working together on the movement. Leventhal served as lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Walker taught history to Head Start students and became pregnant. Grief overcame her after Martin Luther King’s assassination, and she lost her unborn child. She continued to teach, showing students at Tougaloo College and Jackson State University how poetry could be used in activism.
After moving to New York, she finished her novel, Meridian, which describes the coming of age of civil rights workers during the movement. In 1983, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel The Color Purple, which has since been adapted in both a movie and a musical.
She has continued to champion racial and gender equality in her writing and her life.
“Activism,” she explained, “is the rent I pay for living on the planet.”
Longtime state Rep. Tommy Reynolds, a Democrat from Water Valley, successfully amended Republican-backed legislation designed to purge voter rolls to restore suffrage to military veterans who had lost their right to vote because of felony convictions.
Reynolds has in previous years filed bills to restore the right to vote to veterans who had been convicted of felonies. Those bills were never considered in committee.
But before the full House on Wednesday, Reynolds was successful in amending a bill he and other House Democrats would normally oppose to restore voting rights to members of the military.
After Reynolds’ amendment, House Bill 1310 passed on an 86-31 vote. The bill needed a two-thirds (or at least 78 yeas) vote to pass under guidelines of the Mississippi Constitution. The constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate to restore voting rights to those convicted of felonies. The bill now goes to the Senate unless the House Republican leadership attempts to call the bill back up to try to remove the Reynolds amendment.
The Reynolds amendment split the minority Democratic caucus. House Democrats have been working for years to change the state constitutional provision requiring a two-thirds vote of both chambers to restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies.
Some of the Democrats still voted against the bill because of the voter purge provision. But other Democrats, such as Reynolds, supported it because of the amendment restoring voting rights to veterans.
Rep. Brent Powell, R-Brandon, the original author of the bill, told House members he was “vehemently” opposed to the Reynolds amendment because it would make it a two-thirds vote to pass.
Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the minority leader, said to Powell, “This amendment restores suffrage to veterans, people … who risked their lives for their country, and you are asking us to vote against that?”
Powell said he would be willing to consider the issue in a separate bill, but did not want it in his legislation because it raised the threshold to pass it.
“Military veterans and their right to vote is less important than you being able to remove people from the voter rolls?” Johnson asked.
The amendment passed on a voice vote. There was a loud voice vote in support of the proposal, and it appeared there would be a loud vote in opposition. But the voices of those in opposition trailed off dramatically and the speaker ruled that the amendment had been passed.
Mississippi is one of less than 10 states that do not restore voting right to all people convicted of felonies at some point after they complete their sentence. A lawsuit pending before the U.S. Supreme Court alleges the Mississippi provision is unconstitutional.
Besides restoring the right to vote to military veterans convicted of felonies, the bill would make multiple other changes to state election law, including:
Authorizing the Secretary of State to audit county election procedures.
Placing on an inactive voter roll those who do not vote in two consecutive federal election or one state and one federal election if they also do not respond before the next election to a card confirming they are still at the same address.
Democrats have opposed such voter purge efforts, saying that people may not vote because of multiple reasons, including not liking any candidate on the ballot. In other states with similar voter purge provisions, Democrats maintain that thousands of registered voters have been removed mistakenly from the rolls.
Reynolds also was successful in amending the bill to stipulate that people who voted in any election, including municipal elections or who responded to a jury summons also would not be subject to being placed on an inactive list.
A white supermajority of the Mississippi House voted after an intense, four-plus hour debate to create a separate court system and an expanded police force within the city of Jackson — the Blackest city in America — that would be appointed completely by white state officials.
If House Bill 1020 becomes law later this session, the white chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would appoint two judges to oversee a new district within the city — one that includes all of the city’s majority-white neighborhoods, among other areas. The white state attorney general would appoint four prosecutors, a court clerk, and four public defenders for the new district. The white state public safety commissioner would oversee an expanded Capitol Police force, run currently by a white chief.
The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.
Mississippi’s capital city is 80% Black and home to a higher percentage of Black residents than any major American city. Mississippi’s Legislature is thoroughly controlled by white Republicans, who have redrawn districts over the past 30 years to ensure they can pass any bill without a single Democratic vote. Every legislative Republican is white, and most Democrats are Black.
After thorough and passionate dissent from Black members of the House, the bill passed 76-38 Tuesday primarily along party lines. Two Black member of the House — Rep. Cedric Burnett, a Democrat from Tunica, and Angela Cockerham, an independent from Magnolia — voted for the measure. All but one lawmaker representing the city of Jackson — Rep. Shanda Yates, a white independent — opposed the bill.
“Only in Mississippi would we have a bill like this … where we say solving the problem requires removing the vote from Black people,” Rep. Ed Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton, said while pleading with his colleagues to oppose the measure.
For most of the debate, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba — who has been publicly chided by the white Republicans who lead the Legislature — looked down on the House chamber from the gallery. Lumumba accused the Legislature earlier this year of practicing “plantation politics” in terms of its treatment of Jackson, and of the bill that passed Tuesday, he said: “It reminds me of apartheid.”
Hinds County Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten, who served in the House before being elected judge and would be one of the existing judges to lose jurisdiction under this House proposal, also watched the debate.
Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, who oversees the Capitol Police, watched a portion of the debate from the House gallery, chuckling at times when Democrats made impassioned points about the bill. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the only statewide elected official who owns a house in Jackson, walked onto the House floor shortly before the final vote.
Rep. Blackmon, a civil rights leader who has a decades-long history of championing voting issues, equated the current legislation to the Jim Crow-era 1890 Constitution that was written to strip voting rights from Black Mississippians.
“This is just like the 1890 Constitution all over again,” Blackmon said from the floor. “We are doing exactly what they said they were doing back then: ‘Helping those people because they can’t govern themselves.’”
The bill was authored by Rep. Trey Lamar, a Republican whose hometown of Senatobia is 172 miles north of Jackson. It was sent to Lamar’s committee by Speaker Philip Gunn instead of a House Judiciary Committee, where similar legislation normally would be heard.
“This bill is designed to make our capital city of Jackson, Mississippi, a safer place,” Lamar said, citing numerous news sources who have covered Jackson’s high crime rates. Dwelling on a long backlog of Hinds County court cases, Lamar said the bill was designed to “help not hinder the (Hinds County) court system.”
“My constituents want to feel safe when they come here,” Lamar said, adding the capital city belonged to all the citizens of the state. “Where I am coming from with this bill is to help the citizens of Jackson and Hinds County.”
Many House members who represent Jackson on Tuesday said they were never consulted by House leadership about the bill. Several times during the debate, they pointed out that Republican leaders have never proposed increasing the number of elected judges to address a backlog of cases or increasing state funding to assist an overloaded Jackson Police Department.
In earlier sessions, the Legislature created the Capitol Complex Improvement District, which covers much of the downtown, including the state government office complex and other areas of Jackson. The bill would extend the existing district south to Highway 80, north to County Line Road, west to State Street and east to the Pearl River. Between 40,000 and 50,000 people live within the area.
Opponents of the legislation, dozens of whom have protested at the Capitol several days this year, accused the authors of carving out mostly white, affluent areas of the city to be put in the new district.
The bill would double the funding for the district to $20 million in order to increase the size of the existing Capitol Police force, which has received broad criticism from Jacksonians for shooting several people in recent months with little accountability.
The new court system laid out in House Bill 1020 is estimated to cost $1.6 million annually.
Democratic members of the House said if they wanted to help with the crime problem, the Legislature could increase the number of elected judges in Hinds County. Blackmon said Hinds County was provided four judges in 1992 when a major redistricting occurred, and that number has not increased since then even as the caseload for the four judges has exploded.
In addition, Blackmon said the number of assistant prosecuting attorneys could be increased within Hinds County. In Lamar’s bill, the prosecuting of cases within the district would be conducted by attorneys in the office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is white.
Blackmon said the bill was “about a land grab,” not about fighting crime. He said other municipalities in the state had higher crime rates than Jackson. Blackmon asked why the bill would give the appointed judges the authority to hear civil cases that had nothing to do with crime.
“When Jackson becomes the No. 1 place for murder, we have a problem,” Lamar responded, highlighting the city’s long backlog of court cases. Several Democrats, during the debate, pointed out that the state of Mississippi’s crime lab has a lengthy backlog, as well, adding to the difficult in closing cases in Hinds County.
Lamar said the Mississippi Constitution gives the Legislature the authority to create “inferior courts,” as the Capitol Complex system would be. The decisions of the appointed judges can be appealed to Hinds County Circuit Court.
Democrats offered seven amendments, including one to make the judges elected. All were defeated primarily along partisan and racial lines.
“We not incompetent,” said Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson. “Our judges are not incompetent.”
An amendment offered by Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, to require the Capitol Police to wear body cameras was approved. Lamar voiced support for the amendment.
Much of the debate centered around the issue of creating a court where the Black majority in Hinds County would not be allowed to vote on judges.
One amendment that was defeated would require the appointed judges to come from Hinds County. Lamar said by allowing the judges to come from areas other than Hinds County would ensure “the best and brightest” could serve. Black legislators said the comment implied that he judges and other court staff could not be found within the Black majority population of Hinds County.
When asked why he could not add more elected judges to Hinds County rather than appointing judges to the new district, Lamar said, “This is the bill that is before the body.”
For the fourth time in two years, the Republican-led Mississippi Senate voted to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage to mothers from 60 days to one year.
Supporters, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, call the move a “pro-life” effort to deal with the state’s new abortion ban and long-running high rates of death for infants and mothers.
It heads now to the House, where Republican Speaker Philip Gunn killed the measures without a vote last year, and where a similar House bill this year died in committee without a vote. But a recent survey of lawmakers by Mississippi Today shows a majority of House members said they support extending the coverage, as 28 other states have done and eight others are considering.
There was no debate Tuesday on Senate Bill 2212, which the Senate passed 40 to 11.
“This is the same exact bill we passed last session 45-5,” said Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven.
Seven Republican senators who voted either “yea” or did not vote last year voted “no” on Tuesday: Sens. Michael McClendon of Hernando, Benjamin Suber of Bruce, Chris Caughman of Mendenhall, Neil Whaley of Potts Camp, Philip Moran of Kiln, and Mike Seymour of Vancleave.
The other “no” votes on Tuesday were also “no” votes last year: Sens. Jenifer Branning of Philadelphia, Kathy Chism of New Albany, Angela Burks Hills of Picuyune, Melanie Sojourner of Natchez and Chris McDaniel of Ellisville.
On the floor Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Blackmon, D-Canton, to amend the bill to include broader Medicaid expansion to cover the working poor per the federal Affordable Care Act. Mississippi is one of 11 GOP-led states to refuse to accept federal money to expand the state-federal health program. Although Hosemann and a growing number of Republican lawmakers say they are at least open to expansion, Gunn, Gov. Tate Reeves and many other Republicans remain opposed.
After Blackwell warned colleagues that if they voted for Blackmon’s expansion amendment, “you in essence have killed this (postpartum) bill,” the amendment died with a 15-36 vote.
In Mississippi, with high rates of poverty and uninsured people, about 65% of babies are born to mothers on Medicaid. Because of lag times in being approved for coverage and the current 60-day cutoff, mothers often do not receive the prenatal and postpartum care they need — care that could prevent many major problems, many doctors and experts have testified to lawmakers.
The cost of extending the postpartum coverage is estimated at $6 million to $7 million per year. Many medical officials and advocates have told lawmakers extending the coverage would likely produce a net savings for the state by preventing dire medical conditions later from lack of treatment.
Blackwell, at a recent hearing on the issue, said: “The relatively minimal amount to provide this care compared to the cost later — it’s a no-brainer in my mind.”
But opponents of extending postpartum coverage — most of whom lump it in with broader Medicaid expansion — often criticize it as socialized medicine or welfare.
In his Jan. 30 State of the State address, Gov. Reeves urged lawmakers: “Don’t simply cave under the pressure of Democrats and their allies in the media who are pushing for the expansion of Obamacare, welfare, and socialized medicine … You have my word that if you stand up to the left’s push for endless government-run healthcare, I will stand with you.”
The state Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would place the long-term control of Jackson’s water, wastewater and storm water systems under a nonprofit-led regional authority.
Under Senate Bill 2889, the majority of the board leading the nonprofit would be appointed by state leaders: three members from the governor, two from the lieutenant governor, and four from Jackson’s mayor. The board would then appoint a president of the authority, who would take charge of daily tasks and hiring personnel.
The new structure would take effect once the city’s federally appointed water manager, Ted Henifin, is no longer in his role. The federal judge who appointed Henifin left the timeline for that transition open-ended, only requiring Henifin to remain in Jackson until the city can maintain the water system on its own. Henifin suggested recently he would need at least five years to complete his duties.
The bill’s author, Sen. David Parker, a Republican who lives about 200 miles north of Jackson in Olive Branch, said that while the city’s water troubles have been a “black eye for Jackson, it’s also been a problem for the state as a whole.”
Despite the proposed structure in the bill, Parker refused to characterize the bill as taking control of the water system away from Jackson.
Sen. David Parker, R-Olive Branch Credit: Gil Ford Photography
Citing the bill, Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, read, “‘The utility authority shall assume ownership, management, and control’ … so this is a taking, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I don’t consider it a taking,” Parker responded.
“Then what would you call it?” Horhn asked.
“I would say it’s a change of the structure to allow governance to move in a more people-friendly direction for generations to come,” Sen. Parker said.
“Who owns the asset right now?” Horhn asked.
“The city of Jackson owns (it),” Parker responded.
“And who will own the asset if this bill becomes law?” Horhn asked.
“The regional utility authority shall own the assets,” Parker said.
“It’s a taking,” Horhn responded, “It’s the same principal that we debated seven or eight years ago with the Jackson airport.”
As part of the changes he recently made to the bill, Parker said he combined his initial idea of a regional authority with the idea of a corporate nonprofit, which Henifin had raised in his recently submitted financial plan for the water system. The senator admitted, though, that he hasn’t yet discussed the bill with Henifin.
Henifin’s responsibility includes recommending a future governance structure for the water system. In his financial plan, Henifin didn’t propose any single option, but listed a nonprofit as the only option without any potential downsides. A key difference between his idea and SB 2889, though, is that Jackson wouldn’t lose ownership of the assets included in the drinking water system in Henifin’s proposal.
He wrote that keeping the system in the city’s control would mean limitations with procuring contracts, as well as a potential shift in priorities after each election.
The new version of SB 2889 also removed the requirement that the Jackson mayor would have to consult with the mayors of neighboring cities, Byram and Ridgeland, for two of his appointments, and shifted that requirement to the governor and lieutenant governor’s appointments. Jackson sends drinking water to Byram, and also handles some of Ridgeland’s wastewater.
Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson Credit: Gil Ford Photography
The Senate approved the bill, 34-15, and the legislation now moves to the House. Senators also amended the bill with a reverse repealer, meaning that is has to come back through their chamber before going to the governor’s desk for final approval.
Horhn warned that lawmakers should consider what it would mean to take on the legal liability for the city’s water and wastewater systems, both of which are under federal consent orders. The city is also facing multiple civil lawsuits over drinking water issues. He said that lawmakers considered placing Jackson’s water under a regional authority last year, but backed away for that very reason.
“I wonder if we would even be here right now if the federal government didn’t give us $800 million,” Horhn said, referencing a recent historic investment of federal funds into Jackson’s water system.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba last week criticized SB 2889 and other pending bills that would interfere with the city’s water and judicial systems.
After Public Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees voted to require an additional $345 million annually from state and local governmental entities to fund the pension plan for their current and former employees, lawmakers are considering changes to the system’s authority.
The PERS board voted in December to increase the employer contribution rate, which is paid by state governmental agencies, school districts, county and city governmental entities. The current government contribution is 17.4% of the employees’ paycheck. The board voted to increase the rate to 22.4%.
Ron Higgins, PERS executive director, said the increase is needed to ensure the system is properly funded long-term.
The increase means state agencies will have to provide an additional $265 million toward their employees’ retirement, and local governmental entities will have to provide the rest. If more money is not appropriated by the Legislature to pay for the increase, the state agencies, university and community colleges and local school districts will have to make cuts in other areas so they can meet the mandate of the PERS Board. Local governmental entities also are required to provide the funds for the increase. Under current law, the Legislature cannot prevent the employer increase from going into effect.
A bill is pending in the Legislature, though — House Bill 605 — that could be used to give the Legislature final authority over whether to enact such an increase. Legislators have expressed frustration this year with the PERS board’s decision to increase the employer contribution rate.
When asked if he planned to bring the bill up for consideration before the full chamber, House Appropriations Chair John Read, R-Gautier, said, “All I can say is the bill is on the calendar. It is out there. It might need some more research.”
During a recent meeting, Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, said he understands the need to ensure the pension plan is properly funded, but also expressed concern that the actions of the PERS Board have “a direct impact on the state agencies and programs and opportunities for other people to have jobs and salaries and not get laid off and have cuts in a number of areas.”
Higgins, the executive director of PERS, said, “We just have to make sure it is fiduciary (and) that the system is funded property.” Higgins said the board postponed recommendations of its financial experts to increase the rates in earlier years because of the impact it would have on state and local budgets.
But he said under state law, the only option the board has to correct any funding deficiencies is to increase the employer contribution rate. It would take the Legislature changing the law to allow the board to increase the employee contribution rate or to change the level of benefits. The Legislature has the authority to take such action.
Higgins said more than 300,000 people are members of the system, meaning they are current retirees receiving benefits or are eligible to receive benefits in future years because of their public service. He said the average retiree receives an annual benefit of $26,000.
The planned increase in the employer benefit, which is not slated to go into effect until October, comes on the heels of a year when the system lost more than 8% on its investments. The board postponed recommended increases in the employer contribution rate the past two years in part because of investment earnings of 32.71% in 2020.
But Higgins said the rate increase is not because of investment earnings for any one year. He said it is being enacted because of the long-term prognosis for the system.
The system’s current full-funding ratio is about 61%, meaning it has the assets to pay the benefits of 61% of all the people in the system, ranging from the newest hires to those already retired. It is recommended that a state retirement system has a funding ratio of about 80%.
Hopson pointed out that the Mississippi Public Employee Retirement System employer contribution rate and the rate paid by employees (9% of their paycheck) is among the highest in the country. Higgins agreed, saying the national rate for employees in similar plans is about 6% of their paychecks, and for employers about 15%. The employer rate in Mississippi is currently 17.4%.
Lawmakers questioned whether the board is hiring competent experts to oversee the system and to make investments.
Higgins responded the system’s investment earnings are comparable to those in other states.
But he said the system is stressed by the fact that additional benefits were added for employers in the late 1990s and early 2000s without a method to pay for those benefits.
In addition, the current governmental workforce is shrinking while the number of retirees in the system is growing. Higgins said during the past 10 years, the governmental workforce is down by about 10%, while the number of retirees has increased by more than 25%.
“Every time we take a public service at the state or local level that was performed by a PERS contributing employee and privatize and give it to a someone who is not contributing, that ratio gets more out of whack,” said Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson.
Higgins said the board could provide recommendations on how to reduce the cost to the system. In the past some legislators have talked about temporarily suspending or altering the annual automatic 3% cost of living increase. But outcry from retirees who represent about 10% of the state’s population has stymied those efforts.
Higgins said another option would be to change the benefits for new hires. While that would help long term, Higgins said it would not be an immediate fix.
Sen. Jason Barrett, R-Brookhaven, asked if the board had made any recommendations for the 2023 Legislature to consider. Higgins said it has not, but added it is his understanding that there is not an appetite to address the issue during an election year. But he said the board could provide recommendation.
Black school teacher Gladys Noel Bates sued for equal pay because she earned only half of what her white counterparts earned in Mississippi.
Encouraged by her father, Andrew J. Noel, who was active in the NAACP and Progressive Voters’ League, she joined the NAACP Youth Council. After teaching at Smith Robertson Junior High School, she asked the Jackson School Board to quit discriminating against Black teachers.
The board denied discrimination, and she responded by filing a lawsuit, aided in part by the NAACP’s Constance Baker Motley. “I may sound immodest,” she recalled later, “but it was time for someone to do something.”
In the wake of her lawsuit, people fired shots into their home, tried to torch the home and left burning crosses. She and her husband also lost their jobs, and R. Jess Brown, an automotive science and technology teacher at Lanier High School, took her place in the lawsuit. In the end, the court dismissed the lawsuit, but the judge noted that racial discrimination was indeed responsible for the inequity of the salaries for black and white teachers. After being barred from teaching elsewhere in the state, Tougaloo College, a private college that served as a stronghold for civil rights activities, welcomed her.
The couple eventually moved to Denver, where both were hired as teachers. Although the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case four years later, the fight proved worthwhile. Mississippi began paying Black teachers more. In 1996, the city of Denver held a day in Bates’ honor. She died in 2010, and a Jackson school is now named after her.
Shortly after moving to Madison, Jamie Bardwell learned that the Madison County School District requires parents to opt out in writing from corporal punishment being used on their children, a fact she discovered from other students talking about it in her son’s class.
“A kid got paddled, came back and told my son, and my son was terrified,” she said. “I explained to him that that would never happen to him, we’ve written this letter, but it’s really scary for kids to have people in their classroom come back with these stories. Even if your kid isn’t the one who is subjected to corporal punishment, they’re still being impacted by it.”
The Madison County School District told Mississippi Today that corporal punishment is an option in the district, and that parents are always consulted before it is administered.
The U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights tracks corporal punishment data in public schools nationally, which is generally defined as the use of physical force to discipline students. Often called paddling, the term stems from using a wooden paddle to hit a student on the butt.
Federal data shows that over the last decade, Mississippi had more corporal punishment incidents than any other state for every year data was collected. In the 2017-18 school year, the most recent year for which there is federal data, nearly 30% of all incidents occurred in Mississippi. In the same year, 22 states reported at least one incident of corporal punishment and 10 reported over 1,000 instances.
The Mississippi Department of Education has more recent data, also for public schools. Instances of corporal punishment fell by over 23,000 from the 2016-17 school year to the 2021-22 school year. School leaders attributed this to a combined influence of the pandemic and a 2019 state law which banned the use of corporal punishment on a student with a special education classification.
Some districts began the work of rethinking discipline models before the 2019 law passed.
William Murphy, director of student affairs for the Sunflower County Consolidated School District, said the district’s process of veering away from corporal punishment started in 2016 with restorative justice trainings, a practice that seeks to repair harm caused rather than focus on punishment. When the 2019 law passed, Murphy said multiple administrators told him they rarely utilized it anyway “just because of the lack of effect that it was having.”
He acknowledged that the decline, from 400 incidents in 2016 to 22 in 2022, was impacted by the pandemic and students not being physically in school. However, he said he doesn’t expect to see a return because of the emphasis the pandemic put on social-emotional learning.
“The pandemic allowed us to see into some children’s homes, to see some things that we might have not been privy to before,” Murphy said.
“When you’re having to do more home visits or get closer acclimated to students at home, you learn some things that I think will make you less likely to use corporal punishment,” he continued. “When you learn that a child might have been abused or that a home situation is particularly traumatic, I just think there’s a push to do more counseling, more talking.”
In the Scott County School District, Assistant Superintendent Chad Harrison said the district’s decline in corporal punishment was strongly linked to the 2019 law going into effect. Concerned that a teacher would mistakenly administer corporal punishment to a special education student, the district changed its policy so that it can only be used by administrators or administrative assistants. The district went from nearly 1,800 incidents in 2016 to 532 in 2022.
Harrison also said that the district has focused more energy on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, a framework which seeks to reward students for positive behavior rather than penalize them for negative.
Valeria Wilson shows off the treasure chest of toys that she brings to schools for meetings with students. Wilson is a behavior specialist for the Scott County School District. Thursday, February 2, 2023. Credit: Julia James/Mississippi Today
Valeria Wilson, the behavior specialist for the district, explained the shift includes both creating a culture of rewards for all students and developing individualized plans for students who are struggling with behavior problems.
At every school, teachers, cafeteria workers, janitors, and front desk employees all have “bucks” that they can give students to reward behaviors like being respectful or paying attention. Students use the bucks to buy snacks or gain entry to celebrations throughout the year.
Valeria Wilson shows the "bucks" that students can earn for positive classroom behavior. Wilson is a behavior specialist for the Scott County School District. Thursday, February 2, 2023. Credit: Julia James/Mississippi Today
When students are put on a behavior plan, Wilson works with the student and a committee to develop daily goals and rewards if the student meets them. As a part of the plan, an adult checks in with the student daily to discuss their behavior and provide instant feedback.
“It’s just simply making them aware of their actions,” Wilson said.
Wilson also said that students are involved in the process of selecting their rewards in order to better motivate them.
“You have to find out what the interests of that kid are, and you can only do that by building relationships with them, and then you build your plan around that student,” she said.
Despite the shifts toward other discipline models that some districts are making, advocates are concerned that corporal punishment numbers will tick back up.
Ellen Reddy, executive director of the Nollie Jenkins Family Center in Holmes County, said she believes the pandemic accounts for some of the decline, but is also concerned districts are not being monitored properly.
The Nollie Jenkins Family Center released a report in 2021 highlighting significant disparities in corporal punishment reporting data between the Mississippi Department of Education and the federal government. Jean Cook, communications director for the Mississippi Department of Education, said MDE could not explain these differences, but that districts are not required to respond to any data quality questions from the federal government. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education did not respond to questions regarding their validation process.
When asked how MDE verifies its own data, Cook said districts are required by state law to report accurate information to the state’s data management system and, in doing so, verify their monthly data reports before submitting them to the department. The department does not independently verify this data after it is received unless a complaint is filed.
When talking about the decline of this practice in Mississippi, Reddy and her associates expressed concern about the demographic profile of the students who are still receiving corporal punishment, as national research has shown corporal punishment is disproportionately used on Black students.
“Any student that experiences it is one student too many, so who’s still left in that category, what do they look like, and why are they still experiencing it?” asked Chanya Anderson, a data analysis consultant working with the Nollie Jenkins Family Center. “Because if you’re talking about such a drastic decline, what is it about those students that you still feel the need to use corporal punishment if your model has now shifted to something else?”
MDE data shows that for the 2021-22 school year, nearly 60% of corporal punishment instances were administered to Black students, while 35% happened to white students. For the same school year, 47% of K-12 students were Black and 43% were white.
Anderson also said that laws temporarily put a damper on certain practices, which could explain the decline in corporal punishment incidents.
“When you enact any law, even if laws don’t affect all populations … that’s still going to bring attention to the plight of corporal punishment generally,” Anderson said. “In light of laws, you will often see institutions pull back momentarily, and then as people forget about it and move on, they’ll start to increase their usage of it again once the spotlight has moved off the topic.”
This legislative session, Rep. Carl Mickens, D-Brooksville, introduced a bill to ban corporal punishment but it died, as have his previous efforts for the last five years. Mickens said he doesn’t think the practice “will cause a child to learn, I think it might cause them not to want to learn.” Though he disagrees with the practice, he said ultimately only legislative leadership has the power to decide if a bill progresses.
Rep. Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, chair of the House Education Committee, said he has not taken up the bills to ban it because he believes corporal punishment is a local issue. He said he has not looked at research on how it impacts children.
Studies have shown that corporal punishment can lead students to be more aggressive, have higher rates of depression, and perform worse in school. Morgan Craven, federal policy director for the Intercultural Development Research Association, said it’s telling that so many groups have lined up in opposition, including psychiatrists, pediatricians, lawyers, public health officials, school counselors and educators.
“Not only is it ineffective, but it can actually make issues worse,” Craven said. “Whatever it is that is leading to a particular behavior, it is not solved by hitting a kid.”
Francine Jefferson, who was a board member of the former Holmes County School District, advocated to end corporal punishment when she was on the board from 2010-2018. While she did not achieve a complete ban, the board did change policies to restrict the practice, including allowing parents to opt out.
“I grew up in that environment where teachers are allowed to paddle the kids. I mean, hell, the bus drivers could paddle you, everybody could paddle you,” Jefferson, who also grew up in the district, said. “I grew up with that experience, and it wasn’t a pleasant one … That’s why I pushed so much for it because I never forgot that experience.”
The district later banned the practice entirely in 2018 after consolidation, but Jefferson said she is still concerned about it happening in Holmes County and other parts of the state.
“How many pounds of pressure do you put on a child’s bottom?” she said. “What’s the right amount? Nobody knows. If you can’t tell me that, then I don’t think you need to do it because you can’t take it back.”
Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, is hoping to bring more accountability over Jackson’s ongoing pollution of the Pearl River through the city’s failing wastewater system, despite a federal agency already enforcing the issue through a consent decree.
House Bill 1094, which passed through its House committee last Tuesday, would fine the capital city up to $1 million for each “improper disposal” of wastewater or sewage into the river.
Currie said a consent decree being enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality since 2012 is not doing enough to protect the Pearl River from Jackson’s pollution. The fines that could result from HB 1094, she explained, would go to help clean up the river in the areas of the state downstream from Jackson.
Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven. Credit: Rogelio V. Solis, AP
“When you dump raw sewage in (the Pearl River) for other counties to worry about, it’s disgusting,” said Currie, who’s district includes towns, such as Monticello, bordering the river downstream of Jackson. “When you go down the Pearl River, you can see toilet paper hanging off little branches.”
Currie said that the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality told her that the agency hasn’t yet fined Jackson for such discharges, but an MDEQ spokesperson clarified that it hasn’t issued a fine since the 2012 federal consent decree.
The agency has collected nearly half a million dollars in fines over the city’s wastewater issues, which includes a $240,000 penalty assessed in 2010 for violations at Jackson’s Savanna Street plant, and a $175,000 fine issued as a result of the 2012 order.
The consent agreement gave Jackson about 18 years to make a list of fixes with its wastewater system, but required most of those fixes to be done within 11 years, or by November this year. Citing a lack of funding and staffing, the city hasn’t completed many of the required fixes, and is now attempting to renegotiate the settlement with the EPA.
The Pearl River looking north from U.S. 80 on Apr. 15, 2021. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Currie didn’t speak to how this bill would impact the EPA’s dealing of the issue, saying only that whatever enforcement is happening is not enough.
“(The EPA) is obviously not on top of it if (the pollution) continues to happen,” she said. “How many years has this gone on? So everybody downstream should just pay the price for Jackson not tending to their business?”
Currie called the Pearl River important for the “way of life” of communities downstream of Jackson, with Mississippians using the river to swim, canoe and catch fish. She said that polluting the river is harmful in a number of ways, affecting oysters on the Coast as well as businesses that use the water such as Georgia Pacific, although the latter of which is itself a top polluter in Mississippi. Over the last five years, Georgia Pacific pulp mill on the Leaf River has been among the facilities with the most toxic releases in the state with 15.7 million pounds.
When asked about HB 1094, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said he questioned the legality of “a number of things being suggested,” and that there is an “order to these things” being led by the EPA. The mayor added that lawmakers this session are looking to punish Jackson in a number of ways.
“We are clearly the object of the state House’s affection,” Lumumba said Monday during a press conference. “I think that they’re just more ways contemplated to be increasingly punitive of the city of Jackson. Let’s call a spade a spade.”
In its latest annual report last spring, Jackson reported 13 prohibited bypasses, or times when the city allowed untreated or partially treated wastewater into the river, usually because of too much water entering the plant at one time. Those bypasses totaled 2.1 billion gallons between March 2021 and February 2022, a 30% decrease from the previous year.
The city also reported over 500 sanitary sewer overflows from its collection system in that time, or more than one every day. Those overflows are when untreated sewage leaks out of the system, and the city said most of its overflows that year happened because of either grease blockages or collapsed pipes.
Since 2019, MDEQ has cautioned residents against activities such as swimming, wading or fishing in the segment of the Pearl River neighboring Jackson. The agency later updated the advisory to include streams, such as Hanging Moss Creek and Eubanks Creek, that flow through the city.
The federal consent decree says the city is subject to fines for additional Clean Water Act violations, including a $10,000 penalty for each prohibited bypass and a $2,000 penalty for each sanitary sewer overflow.
The Pearl River looking west from the old Woodrow Wilson Bridge, south of downtown Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
“Historically, EPA has taken the lead on enforcements under all federal consent decrees, and in any event, MDEQ, because we are co-plaintiffs with EPA, cannot take unilateral action to collect the stipulated penalties,” MDEQ spokesperson Jan Schaefer told Mississippi Today. “In the meantime, MDEQ, along with EPA, has been ‘assessing’ stipulated penalties and those stipulated penalties continue to accrue.”
Neither agency could say how much Jackson has accrued in penalties since the 2012 order before this story published.
Jackson, Meridian, Hattiesburg and Greenville are all under a federal consent decree because of wastewater violations. While those cities are starting to see support through historic new federal infrastructure funds, leaders of those cities told Mississippi Today last year that more money is needed to make all the necessary repairs.
