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APRIL 22, 1892

Fiery civil rights pioneer Vernon Johns was born in Darlington Heights, Virginia, in Prince Edward County. He taught himself German and other languages so well that when the dean of Oberlin College handed him a book of German scripture, Johns easily passed, won admission and became the top student at Oberlin College. 

In 1948, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, hired Johns, who mesmerized the crowd with his photographic memory of scripture. But he butted heads with the middle-class congregation when he chastised members for disliking muddy manual labor, selling cabbages, hams and watermelons on the streets near the state capitol. He pressed civil rights issues, helping black rape victims bring their cases to authorities, ordering a meal from a white restaurant and refusing to sit in the back of a bus. 

No one in the congregation followed his lead, and turmoil continued to rise between the pastor and his parishioners. In May 1953, he resigned, returning to his family farm. His successor? A young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. 

James Earl Jones portrayed the eccentric pastor in the 1994 TV film, “Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story”, and historian Taylor Branch profiled Johns in his Pulitzer-winning “Parting the Waters; America in the King Years 1954-63”.

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Legislation that would create a separate judicial district within Jackson, the state’s capital and largest city, was signed into law Friday by Gov. Tate Reeves.

Reeves had indicated earlier in the week he would sign the legislation.

House Bill 1020 generated national attention by creating a separate judicial district in the whiter and more affluent areas of Jackson, the nation’s Blackest large city. Judges in the district will be appointed by the white chief justice of the Supreme Court instead of elected by the majority Black voters.

There are questions about the constitutionality of the bill. Many have speculated it would be challenged in court because it takes the right to elect judges away from the citizens of Hinds County. The Mississippi Constitution calls for judges to be elected, though there are examples where judges are appointed on a temporary basis by the Supreme Court chief justice. Whether House Bill 1020 creates an allowable exception for usurping the electoral rights of Hinds County citizens could be decided by the courts.

The final version of the bill sent to the governor watered down the more controversial aspects of the legislation as it was introduced during the 2023 session, but it still garnered the support of only one of the 53 African American members of the Legislature.

Jackson legislators conceded the city needed help with its spiraling crime problem, but said the proposal that passed the Legislature and was signed Friday by the governor created more problems than it solved.

Debate on the proposal in both the House and Senate was racially raw.

“When you take away the right of people to elect their officials who have traditionally been elected, how else are they going to see it?” asked Rep. Ed Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton. “ … The right to vote may not mean much to some of you, but when you look at history that got us to where we are today, when it took so long and lost so many lives … ”

READ MORE: Mississippi’s racial divides were on full display as HB 1020 got its final debate and passing vote

Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, the author of the legislation, said his sole intent was to help the city of Jackson and said he resented that he was made to look like his intent was racially motivated intense during debate on the House floor.

“Gentleman, you have not been beaten for asking for the right to vote,” Blackmon said to Lamar. “You have not been locked up for asking for that. I have. Yes, I am sensitive to that.”

Rep. Nick Bain, a Republican from Corinth, said he had heard from many Jacksonians who said they wanted help with crime issues facing the city.

“This is the capital city of Mississippi,” Bain said. “It belongs to each and every one of us in this room.”

He said the legislation was intended to provide that help, not to create racial divides.

In a news release, Reeves said, “This legislation won’t solve the entire problem, but if we can stop one shooting, if we can respond to one more 911 call – then we’re one step closer to a better Jackson. I refuse to accept the status quo. As long as I’m governor, the state will keep fighting for safer streets for every Mississippian no matter their politics, race, creed, or religion – regardless of how we’re portrayed by liberal activists or in the national media.”

The bill creates a separate judicial and law enforcement district within the Capital Complex Improvement District. Four judges will be appointed by Chief Justice Michael Randolph, who is white and from Hattiesburg in south Mississippi. An additional court would be created within the district to hear misdemeanor cases and to conduct preliminary hearings in felony cases.

Unlike the original version of House Bill 1020, the specially appointed judges would be for a set period of time — through 2026 — instead of being in place permanently.

The legislation gives the state Department of Public Safety the authority to send to prison those convicted of misdemeanor crimes that carry jail time. Normally such sentences are served in local jails.

The bill also provides more prosecuting attorneys and public defenders.

Companion legislation — Senate Bill 2343 —also was signed by the governor. The bill would expand the jurisdiction of a state police force both in the Capitol Complex Improvement District and the city overall. That bill also is expected to be signed.

The legislation gives a state police force primary jurisdiction within the Capitol Complex and secondary jurisdiction throughout the city.

The state is expected to have 150 state law enforcement officers patrolling in Jackson.

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Felecia Nave is out as president of Alcorn State University, according to a press release from the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees. 

The board approved the change during executive session at its regular meeting Thursday. Ontario Wooden, the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, will serve as interim president at the state’s oldest historically Black university, effective immediately. 

It was not clear why the board bid Nave goodbye; an IHL spokesperson did not immediately return an inquiry from Mississippi Today. IHL’s press release does not say if she resigned or if the board terminated her contract, which was set to end on June 30, 2023. Tom Duff, the board president, is quoted saying “the Board wishes Dr. Nave well as she pursues new opportunities.”

Nave’s departure makes her the fourth university president to step down or leave since June 2022. In each instance, IHL has provided little information about the circumstances surrounding those decisions — details on why presidents leave usually comes from the individuals themselves.

The first Black woman to lead Alcorn State, Nave was named president in 2019 in a unanimous decision. 

The campus was initially excited about her presidency, but some turned sour in 2021 leading to dozens of students protesting her leadership in the fall. A group of alumni called Alcornites for Change later produced a report alleging the campus faced widespread issues like declining enrollment, dozens of resignations and abysmal facilities. 

Nave did not attend IHL’s Thursday board meeting with the other university presidents — Wooden appeared in her stead.

“I want to thank you — the board, Commissioner Rankins — for your continued support of Alcorn State University,” he said. “I bring you greetings on behalf of Dr. Nave.” 

Wooden came to Alcorn State in 2020. Prior to that, he spent 12 years in administration at North Carolina Central University. 

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Former WWE wrestler Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. was sitting on the front row behind former Mississippi welfare director John Davis while the now disgraced government bureaucrat testified before Congress in 2019.

Davis, who was at the time admittedly orchestrating a stunning welfare fraud scheme, was telling members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture about the supposedly life changing work his department was conducting instead of making food assistance available to more Mississippians.

“We know that it takes investment in our staff through things like Law of 16,” Davis told congress members, “which is our personal and professional development programs for our staff members, to then replicate that over with our clients to make sure that they are empowered to be whom they have been called to be.”

Law of 16 was DiBiase Jr.’s nebulous motivational speaking series, one of the projects for which he received roughly $3 million in federal welfare funds from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

Today, nearly four years after the director spoke openly in the nation’s capital about his work, DiBiase Jr. is facing criminal charges for the first time within the larger unfolding welfare scandal, in which officials stole or misspent tens of millions of federal public assistance funds. 

He pleaded not guilty and if convicted on all counts in the indictment unsealed Thursday, DiBiase Jr. faces a maximum penalty of up to 175 years in prison.

“It was the government that chose to run this program this way. And it was not a secret. This was done in front of everybody. It was done in front of the United States Congress. This was not a secret. This was not, as the federal law would say, a scheme or artifice to defraud,” Scott Gilbert, DiBiase Jr.’s criminal defense attorney, told Mississippi Today two weeks ago. “So what we’re doing now, for the most part, is second guessing and armchair quarterbacking the way government was run. And that’s not what the criminal law is for.”

This indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury, is the first that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has secured in the welfare case. Each of the other five federal defendants pleaded guilty to bills of information, which are used when a defendant chooses to plead guilty without the case going to a grand jury.

READ MORE: The Backchannel Series

DiBiase Jr. joins his younger brother Brett DiBiase, who also received hundreds of thousands in welfare funds, to become the eighth person to be charged criminally within the scandal, including those only charged in state court. DiBiase Jr., his brother and their father, former WWE star Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase, are all facing civil charges in a parallel lawsuit Mississippi Department of Human Services has filed against nearly four dozen people or organizations. DiBiase Sr. has not faced criminal charges.

Under the new indictment, DiBiase Jr. faces 13 criminal counts under Title 18 of the U.S. Code, the main criminal code of the federal government, ranging from conspiracy, wire fraud, theft of federal funds and money laundering.

“It’s ironic that he was involved with the Law of 16, a questionable program at best, because he’s now going to get familiar with the Law of 18, which is Title 18 of the U.S. Code,” quipped current Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson, a former prosecutor tapped by Gov. Tate Reeves to lead the welfare agency after the scandal broke in 2020.

Anderson has said he is cooperating with the federal authorities in their ongoing investigation for his entire tenure at MDHS. 

“I believe they will do everything to bring all additional charges they think are appropriate in this case,” he added after DiBiase Jr.’s arraignment Thursday.

Prosecutors say DiBiase Jr. secured at least five “sham contracts” in 2017 and 2018 with two nonprofits, Mississippi Community Education Center and Family Resource Center of North Mississippi, who were receiving tens of millions of federal welfare funds to run a statewide anti-poverty initiative called Families First for Mississippi. The directors of those nonprofits, Nancy New and Christie Webb, have both pleaded guilty within the scheme.

Davis and DiBiase Jr. met after the director initially hired his younger brother, Brett DiBiase, in an executive level position at MDHS in 2017, despite him lacking qualifications for the job. Davis became close with the DiBiase brothers, first Brett and then Teddy. Their communication reflects a familial relationship in which they discussed their faith, hardships, and told each other, “I love you.”

Davis retired from office in mid-2019, shortly after the D.C. trip, after his deputy, Jacob Black, who is facing his own charges in the parallel civil suit, brought a tip of suspected fraud to former Gov. Phil Bryant. In the months leading up to his ousting, Davis expressed concern that his relationship with DiBiase Jr. had weakened.

“I hate that you feel that way,” DiBiase Jr. wrote to Davis in a March 2019 text message. “… You definitely don’t have to ‘chase’ after me … Just want you to know I love you dearly, and I’m so grateful for your friendship.”

In its civil suit, MDHS alleges DiBiase Jr. “exploited his close relationship with John Davis to further enrich his family and friends.”

Under Davis’ direction, the nonprofits made up front payments to DiBiase Jr. “regardless of whether any work had been performed and knowing that no work likely ever would be performed,” the new indictment alleges.

The nonprofits hired DiBiase Jr. to perform vague services — such as leadership outreach, addressing the needs of inner city youth and assessing the need for emergency food assistance — with little requirement of outcomes.

But according to audit reports, interviews and a review of communication, Davis frequently required DiBiase Jr. to accompany him in his day-to-day executive meetings and tasks, interrupting DiBiase Jr.’s duties under the contract.

“It’s just sort of bizarre to think of the executive director of the Department of Human Services actually conducting himself on a regular basis in ways that thwart and interfere with the ability of the contractor to do the work. But that’s exactly what went on, on a regular basis,” Gilbert said.

“You’ve got a guy who’s here that’s trying to perform and do what he’s supposed to do, and to a large extent he does,” Gilbert said. “And then you’ve got this person running MDHS that for whatever reason feels like the best use of Teddy’s time is not to perform his contracts, but to follow him around to meetings and to other events and things like that. And it just, it’s nonsensical. … I don’t know of anybody that understands really what that was about other than just, it’s just pure absurdity.”

The indictment alleges that the money that went to DiBiase Jr. “were diverted from needy families and low-income individuals in Mississippi.”

However, states have long legally diverted funds from the national Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program away from families in need. Since welfare reform in the 90’s, when TANF was created, states have used the lax guidelines in federal statute to shrink the side of the program that provides monthly cash assistance, known as the welfare check, and put the money instead into other programs or pet projects. 

Even today, Mississippi’s welfare agency uses only about 5% of its TANF block grant on the welfare check. 

While the other TANF programs are supposed to serve one of three other goals — promoting job preparation and marriage, preventing out-of-wedlock pregnancies and encouraging two-parent families — the federal government provides virtually no oversight to ensure that the programs supported by these funds actually correspond with these goals.

In the case of the Mississippi welfare scandal, which involves officials using $5 million in TANF funds to build a volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, the spending had become especially egregious.

The indictment alleges DiBiase Jr. used the federal funds he received to buy himself a vehicle and a boat and to put a down payment on a roughly $1.5 million lakeside home in the Madison community of Reunion, which the federal government has since seized.

Gilbert is confident the federal government doesn’t have a viable case against his client. He says there are several problems with the prosecution’s legal theory. In the welfare fraud case, prosecutors have used a specific theft or bribery statute, 18 U.S. Code § 666, which applies to agents of an organization or agency that receives federal funds obtaining funding by fraud. Two of DiBiase Jr.’s 13 counts fall under this statute. Gilbert said his client cannot be charged with this crime since he was not an agent of an organization that received federal funds. He makes the distinction that because DiBiase Jr. was a contractor under the nonprofit, not the state agency, he was never an agent of the federal funds.

Gilbert also contests the government’s claim that DiBiase Jr.’s contracts were a “sham.” DiBiase Jr. did conduct work under the contracts, Gilbert said, and any work he did not conduct was as a result of Davis’ interference.

“The big issue from a criminal defense perspective is: Did someone obtain money or property from the government by being dishonest? And what I can tell you in this case is, these contracts, the work that was done, I’ve yet to see a single shred of evidence that would show that Teddy DiBiase was dishonest with anybody about anything in order to get these contracts. These contracts were awarded to him. They came to him. He didn’t solicit anything from MDHS. He undertook these contracts and attempted to perform the work.”

“So what this boils down to is do people feel like this was an appropriate use of TANF money or other money to carry out the function of government?” Gilbert continued. “That’s a fair question, and that’s a question that reasonable people absolutely can disagree about. But it’s not a crime. You resolve your dissatisfaction with the way the government functions at the polling place.”

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Mississippi Today and Open Campus Higher Education Reporter Molly Minta is a finalist for this year’s National Awards for Education Reporting.

The annual awards administered by the Education Writers Association recognize the best education reporting in newsrooms big and small across the nation. Minta is one of three finalists in the small newsroom division of the features category, which honors excellence in human-interest reporting and presentation. 

Her story, “Inside Mississippi’s only class on critical race theory,” started with a tip from a reader. Brittany Murphree, a conservative student in the state’s only class on critical race theory at the University of Mississippi School of Law, wrote a letter urging lawmakers not to ban CRT. She sent her letter to Mississippi Today at the advice of her classmate, Teresa Jones. 

After Molly spent hours on the phone with both students, she realized the story was bigger than the class itself and more about how academic freedom and intellectual inquiry led two Mississippians to a deeper understanding of the state they’d grown up with. 

“I’m honored to be recognized for my reporting alongside journalists whose work I’ve read for years,” Minta said. “I wrote this story for Mississippians in an attempt to show what actually learning critical race theory looks like, but it’s been gratifying to see how the experiences of the two students who shared their stories with me has resonated outside our state.”

Before Mississippi Today published Molly’s story in February 2022, most local and national coverage of critical race theory had focused on three themes: The conservative actors behind the efforts to ban the theory, simply reporting a definition to readers of what the theory actually is, or the fact that it was not taught in K-12 public schools. Molly’s story took readers beyond that paradigm and into a college classroom where students were actually learning the theory. 

“I remember first reading this story and thinking “Finally! Someone actually talked to students in a CRT class.”” Minta’s story sparked conversation and debate not just with readers but with journalists too,” one of the judges wrote of Minta’s story. “After publishing, I know first hand that this story influenced CRT reporting a lot and that alone makes this story particularly innovative.”

Mississippi Today Community Health Reporter Devna Bose is also a finalist in the collaborations category for her work on a series titled Tackling Teacher Shortages she contributed to while at the Post & Courier in South Carolina.

Winners will be announced June 2 during the Education Writers Association National Seminar in Atlanta.

The post Mississippi Today’s Molly Minta named a finalist for national education reporting award appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The new president of Delta State University was appointed with a split vote by the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, a rare occurrence from the governing board that typically projects an organized, unified front. 

Daniel Ennis, the longtime South Carolina educator who will take the reins at Delta State in June, was even shot down by Teresa Hubbard, the board’s only DSU alumnus and the trustee who led the presidential search committee. The vote was 7-4 with one trustee absent, according to board meeting minutes. 

But Hubbard and other trustees who opposed Ennis did not want to elaborate on why at IHL’s regular board meeting on Thursday. 

READ MORE: IHL names Daniel J. Ennis next president of Delta State

“No, I’m not gonna do that,” said Trustee Chip Morgan, a retired executive vice president of Delta Council, when asked to comment. “It’s a personnel matter. I’m very supportive of making certain that he is very successful.”

Trustee Gregg Rader declined a request for comment, and Trustee Jeanne Luckey could not be reached because she attended the board meeting virtually. 

Hubbard, who introduced Ennis to campus earlier this month with a complimentary speech, said he has her “complete support.” But she wouldn’t speak to what, if anything, led her to become publicly supportive of Ennis since her no-vote during executive session in late March. 

“We were fortunate in having a tremendous number of qualified candidates,” Hubbard told Mississippi Today. “I felt that way from the beginning. I just think we had a large pool of very qualified candidates, and it was a very difficult decision because there were so many strong candidates for the position.” 

Ennis was one of 59 applicants, six semi-finalists and two finalists, according to an IHL spokesperson. The board undertook a national search to fill the role at Delta State, a regional college in the Mississippi Delta, with the support of Academic Search, an executive headhunting firm. 

He will make $320,000, a slight bump over the $300,000-salary that the current interim president, E.E. “Butch” Caston, is making. Hubbard and Morgan did not attend a special-called meeting, held four days after they did not vote to approve Ennis, that was held to discuss his future salary and moving expenses, according to board meeting minutes. 

As to whether the other finalist was a Delta State alumnus, Hubbard said “that’s one of the things we don’t discuss.”

At the IHL meeting, Caston thanked the trustees for appointing Ennis and said that Delta State is looking forward to him. 

“The excitement on campus and in the community is out the top,” Caston said, “I can speak to the board: Job well done.” 

The community at Delta State was split on if the next president should be a graduate. Ennis’ hiring is also unusual for IHL because he is not an alumnus. In recent years, IHL has made it an increasing priority to hire graduates of its universities. Ennis is the first non-alumnus the board has selected for president since 2017. 

Ennis will be the sole president who was not unanimously appointed by trustees, according to board meeting minutes. 

Last fall, trustees unanimously voted to suspend the search for president at the University of Southern Mississippi and elevate Joe Paul, then the interim president, to a permanent post. Trustees also unanimously appointed Thomas Hudson, the recently resigned president of Jackson State University. Even University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce, whose selection sparked protests on campus, was unanimously appointed. 

In a text, Ennis did not say if he had any insight to share into the trustees’ unusual split vote but wrote that “IHL has been tremendously supportive since I was named DSU’s next president.” 

“I’m coming from South Carolina,” he texted. “Around here you can’t get twelve people to agree on whether the evening meal is called ‘dinner’ or ‘supper.’” 

“Perhaps the headline for your article should be ‘So musical a discord’ — a line from my favorite play,” he added. “Shakespeare himself knew that unanimity wasn’t terribly interesting.” 

The post In rare occurrence, IHL did not unanimously vote for new Delta State president  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A 19-year-old farmworker from South Africa suffocated to death in a Delta farm’s grain bin last year because of his employer’s negligence, according to a report and citations from the U.S. Department of Labor. 

The teenager was working at Bare Bones Farms in Greenwood on an H-2A visa. A Mississippi Today investigation last year found farms across the Delta are increasingly relying upon white foreign workers from South Africa to work their fields through the visa program. 

READ MORE: White Delta farm owners are underpaying and pushing out Black workers

The farm was issued a $90,000 fine this week following a federal investigation.

“Well-known safety standards that protect people from the grave dangers of working in grain bins have been in place for decades, and yet Bare Bones Farms jeopardized the lives of its employees by ignoring federal regulations,” said Courtney Bohanno, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Mississippi director, in a statement. “As a result, the life of a young man who traveled more than 8,500 miles to work in the U.S. ended tragically.”

Bare Bones Farm, which grows soybeans, is owned by Dr. Joseph “Asa” Bennett, an orthopedic surgeon based in LeFlore County. Bennett did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

In October 2022, the teen, two coworkers and their supervisor climbed into a grain storage bin in efforts to unclog it, according to OSHA. The teen entered the bin first. The group was engulfed in seconds. Emergency responders had to cut a hole in the bin to free the men trapped inside. 

All but one was a visa worker from South Africa. Three of them survived, but it took first responders five hours to recover the body of the 19-year-old. 

Department of Labor inspectors found that the Greenwood farm “willfully violated federal law by failing to ensure that the employees wore full body harnesses connected to a lifeline while inside the soybean bin, which exposed them to deadly engulfment hazards.” 

OSHA investigators found employees were not properly trained on general safety precautions for bin entry. Workers should have turned off equipment before ever entering. 

Investigators with OSHA and the labor department fined Bare Bone for several violations, including not having a written respiratory protection program for employees required to wear respirators; and not providing a medical evaluations or fit test or training for workers required to wear respirators as they loaded and unloaded soybeans. 

OSHA outlines clear safety plans for workers entering grain bins — usually massive metal silos with peaked roofs — since 1988. 

In 2021, 38% of the grain engulfment incidents reported to OSHA turned deadly because employers failed to follow required safeguards, according to the labor department. 

Bare Bones Farm requested 11 foreign workers for the 2022 season, according to disclosure documents posted by the Department of Labor. 

Among the job qualifications, the job posting listed three months of experience, the ability to obtain a driver’s license and basic literacy and math skills. An average work week was expected to be at least 60 hours. 

Bare Bones had requested nine workers the previous season. Both times, it used agents known for finding young, white white men from South Africa on behalf of farm owners.

In last year’s investigation, Mississippi Today found Delta farm owners would often pay the white foreign workers a higher salary than their local counterparts, who were most often Black men.

Local farm workers told Mississippi Today at that time they were charged with training the South Africans, who they said came from farming backgrounds without the massive equipment and safety hazards common on the average Mississippi farm. 

Department of Labor documents show that Bare Bones Farms did not request any foreign workers for the 2023 farming season. It’s unclear if the farm may have been barred from doing so, a penalty that can be administered should a farm be found to not offer safe conditions. 

Bare Bones has 15 days to respond to the citation notice, according to OSHA. It may also request a conference with the department or contest the findings before a review commission. 

The post U.S. Dept. of Labor fines Delta farm after South African teen suffocates to death in grain bin appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Students, faculty and staff made it clear at the listening session that the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees held on Jackson State University’s campus Wednesday: Hire a permanent president whose tenure won’t end in resignation like the last three. 

In 2016, Carolyn Meyers resigned amid cratering finances. In 2020, William Bynum, Jr., resigned after he was arrested in a prostitution sting at a Clinton hotel. 

And though nobody spoke former president Thomas Hudson’s name, his resignation — for which the board still has not provided a detailed explanation — cast a shadow over the listening sessions, with many community members accusing the board of not doing its due diligence in his hiring.  

Only one person mentioned he’d like to see Elayne Hayes-Anthony, JSU’s temporary acting president, elevated to a permanent spot, though trustees did ask speakers not to name potential candidates as the board isn’t yet at that point in the search. 

Steven Cunningham, the trustee who is leading the search and the only JSU alumnus on the board, emphasized that he wants to hire a good president too. 

“I’m not just here as an arbitrary member of the board,” he said during the student session. “This place means a lot to me.” 

The board plans to do a national search. The listening sessions, which trustees will use to write a candidate profile, are the first step in that process. There’s also a survey on IHL’s website that will remain open until midnight on April 26. 

Faculty and staff

The first listening session began on a low note. Etta Morgan, an associate professor in the criminal justice and sociology department, kicked it off: Morale among faculty is at an “all-time low” she said, even under the temporary administration. 

“We are losing extremely good people,” she said. “Students have gotten to the point where they’re cursing you out in the classroom. You write them up, nothing gets done … It’s like we’re being destroyed from the inside out.” 

It’s not just faculty at JSU who are turning over, speakers noted — so are the presidents. But not everyone at the faculty and staff session seemed to agree that presidential turnover has necessarily meant bad leadership. When Robert Luckett, the director of the Margaret Walker Center suggested that was the case, there was vocal disagreement from the audience.  

“This is a level of instability that is deeply problematic for this institution.” Luckett said, adding that he had experienced “disastrous leadership” during his time at JSU. 

“I wouldn’t say that,” an audience member said. “That’s your opinion!”

The next president needs to understand JSU is a special place in Mississippi, many faculty told trustees. Others said they felt like JSU no longer has the magic it once did. 

LaKeisha Crye, an instructor and 2004 graduate, teared up as she told trustees that she didn’t want to send her daughters to JSU. Even though faculty receive a tuition discount, and JSU has programs that her kids are interested in, Crye said she would spend more money at university with a safer campus. 

Concerns about safety at JSU have become more frequent since the fall, when news made the rounds that a student was shot and killed on campus.

At times, faculty and staff chastised the board members. During a lull in speakers, Cunningham tried to encourage more people to go to the mic because the next president would “potentially be here for 15-20 years.” 

Latoya Reed, a director in the division of student affairs, said if faculty and staff weren’t talking, it was likely due to exhaustion and frustration with the board and its processes, not fear. 

“I would like to charge the board first and foremost to not let this be routine, not let this be an average run of show,” she said. 

Sophia Leggett, a faculty member who said she knew Cunningham when he was a student, called out IHL Commissioner Al Rankins. 

“Be sincere, be intentional,” she said. “It’s time out for games.” 

Students 

Multiple students talked about issues they’d like to see the next president improve, like campus safety, transparency from administration, and the ailing state of the buildings. There’s mold across campus, students reported, tiles are falling off the wall in one classroom, and only two working stalls in liberal arts building bathroom. 

“It’s been broken for a couple months now, and it still hasn’t been repaired, even if you scan the QR code and ask for repairs,” said Christi Madison Fortson, a senior psychology major. 

Fortson also touched on a topic many students dodged, garnering some chuckles from the audience. 

“In regards to the president,” she said, “I was hoping for some possibility of an extensive background check, just to make sure we get a president of the right mindset.” 

The next administration needs to be more stable, many students said. Some noted they had experienced two, even three, presidents in their time at JSU. They said if the president sets the right tone, then their professors will be more inclined to stay longer. 

Another big theme is students want a president who understands the culture of HBCUs. 

Elijah Karriem, a senior and the secretary of JSU’s NAACP chapter, noted that during the town halls — a fixture of student life during the water crises over the last few years — it felt like Hudson’s administration was responding with prepared statements. 

“We’re all humans,” he said. “Don’t read off the paper.”

Alumni and community 

The alumni session was the longest and most critical of trustees. 

Carrine Bishop, a faculty member whose family has deep roots at JSU, put it the most bluntly: “Stop hiring your friends,” she said to claps. “ We need to vet every individual.” 

Several alumni warily asked the board to include them in the search process. Some referenced the 2017 search when IHL hired Bynum even though he did not receive a favorable review from the search committee.  

“The only thing that we really ask is you give us a slate of candidates, not put someone in front of us and tell us that’s who is going to lead our university,” said Patrease Edwards, the president of the alumni association. 

Many alumni said they felt the board, and its presidents, have held JSU back from its true potential. Sen. Hillman Frazier, a Democrat who represents parts of Jackson, said lawmakers cite JSU’s turbulent leadership as reasons not to provide more funding to the university. 

The president of the neighborhood association near JSU said that he grew up seeing his neighbors sharecrop to afford to send their kids to JSU, but it doesn’t seem like IHL gives back to them. He cited the dilapidated buildings that surround campus. 

“My problem is this, the gatekeepers of this university will not allow the community to come in,” he said. 

Donna Antoine-LaVigne, an alumnus, said she was tired of hearing news about scandals on the ninth floor, but that she wanted people to know that JSU was more than its president. 

“The man or the woman does not make Jackson State,” she said. “Jackson state is Jackson State. It has a history in this community. It has done things for Black folk that nobody has thought about doing or has done.” 

She called on Cunningham and Rankins to hire a president with vision. 

“We have Black leadership with the board now — exercise it,” she said. “I’m not saying do anything special. Just do the right thing.” 

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