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Members of Jackson’s legislative delegation say that — fairly or unfairly — the city suffers from an image problem that makes it hard to secure state money from the Legislature for the city’s crumbling infrastructure and other problems.

Despite the state having unprecedented billions in extra federal and state dollars to cover infrastructure needs, the city wasn’t able to secure the money it had hoped for, particularly for its troubled water and sewerage system. And, of the $25 million state match the city’s delegation expects Jackson to receive, it will be subject to strict state oversight. No other local government in the state will undergo similar state oversight.

“There’s a myriad of reasons for our doing that,” Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, said of the state oversight. “The city has not in recent years engendered a whole lot of trust as far as the state’s concerns of (Jackson’s) capacity to perform efficiently, expeditiously some of these repairs.”

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said the city’s delegation was told up front by legislative leadership that special state Department of Finance and Administration oversight was a requirement for Jackson water and sewerage funding, and the delegation pragmatically accepted it.

“We were told that was going to be a requirement and our goal was to get the money,” Blount said. “There have been problems at the Jackson water department, I think we all know that, but it was a requirement and we were not going to walk away empty handed.”

There is a perception with legislative leaders and lawmakers from elsewhere in the state that Jackson needs more oversight in part because of local government in-fighting, such as the nasty ongoing battle between Jackson’s mayor and city council over a garbage collection contract, and because of long-running city problems such as crime.

Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, said there has been oversight placed on Jackson’s funding in the past, predating the current city administration. In 2009, the Legislature granted the city the authority to levy a 1-cent sales tax to fund primarily road and bridge improvements. But in doing so, it created a special commission to oversee spending the money. Bell said it was not fair then and it is not fair now.

“It has been a common practice for the city of Jackson to receive extra scrutiny when it comes to the allocation of funds,” Bell said. “Is it right? No. However, it’s incumbent on the city and delegation to stress the importance of working together and not continuing to keep such standards in place. It’s also important for the city to utilize our resources on the federal level. Our local lobbying efforts have to increase and be more effective on the state level. State and local leaders need to stop playing the pointing game and get to the business of helping the residents of Jackson.”

READ MORE: Mayor Lumumba: ‘Paternalistic, racist’ Legislature failed to help Jackson despite having extra billions

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba called the questioning of Jackson’s leadership and management “myths” that legislative leaders use to justify not giving the city the support it needs. He said many of the issues facing the city have been decades in the making. He also said that racism plays a role in the majority-white Legislature’s views toward majority-Black Jackson.

“I would ask them to call out what those leadership problems are, you know?” Lumumba said. “Disagreement with what our principles are isn’t a leadership problem. That is a disagreement. There isn’t a right to lord over Jackson and make decisions for the city. You have a responsibility to the residents of Jackson just like you have a responsibility to all the residents of the state of Mississippi.”

Lumumba also said there’s “hypocrisy” in state government — which has been rocked by scandals of fraud, bribery, embezzlement and malfeasance — to say Jackson can’t manage resources and projects.

“I’ve not misappropriated funds, right?” Lumumba said. “I’ve not given money to a pet project of mine over the interests of Jackson residents. We have merely been chipping away at how we resolve the challenges that our city has … What there is is a resolve (by legislators) not to provide resources to Jackson.

Lumumba said that given Jackson’s dire infrastructure needs, and it being the state’s largest and capital city, the state should have given the city some direct allocations separate from the matching grant program for cities and counties statewide.

Lumumba said he knows the city’s legislative delegation was “inspired to go with something, versus not getting anything at all.”

When pressed during a lengthy interview with Mississippi Today on why he thought Jackson was treated differently, the mayor said, “It’s racist.”

“And there are going to be people who don’t like that I say that,” Lumumba said. “But if they really have heartburn about it, prove me wrong. I dare you. I dare you to prove me wrong.”

Rep. Shonda Yates, I-Jackson, said she was seeking compromise when she authored the bill establishing state oversight. The goal, she said, was to establish a program where the Legislature would provide designated funding with state oversight to deal with Jackson’s water woes. The bill she authored would have put $43 million into a fund with state oversight.

But what came out of the legislative process was the establishment of a fund, but no direct funding for Jackson. Instead, a program was established where federal American Rescue Plan funds that the state received could be accessed by municipalities for water and sewer need if they provided a dollar-for-dollar match from separate federal ARPA funds they received.

The city of Jackson plans to allocate $25 million or about 60% of its ARPA funds to draw down the state match.

And those funds will be only a drop in the bucket of what the city needs. It has been estimated that fixing Jackson’s water and sewer problems could cost as much as $2 billion. Those problems include concerns from federal officials about the safety of Jackson’s water.

Yates said she hopes additional state funding for Jackson’s water and sewer issues can be provided over the coming years.

“I certainly plan to advocate for such,” she said.

“We are going to be coming back next year, and there is ARPA money remaining,” Blount said. “There is only so much that can be spent, only so much work that can be done (by the city) in the next nine months, and the state has ARPA money remaining, so we will be back again because the capital city has got to have a functioning water system.”

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Nancy New and her son Zach New reached deals Wednesday to plead guilty in a federal case involving $4 million in public school dollars prosecutors say they bilked for their private school.

New, owner of the now-defunct New Summit School, a once popular private school that served students with special needs, pleaded guilty to one count of using proceeds of wire fraud, or money laundering, which comes with a possible prison sentence of up to ten years. Zach New, vice president for the private school district called New Learning Resources Inc., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a sentence of up to five years. They could each face fines up to $250,000. The sentencing before U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves is set for Nov. 19, 2022.

The joint federal indictment against the News, filed over a year ago, alleged they defrauded the Mississippi Department of Education out of $4 million in public education dollars by filing fake reimbursement claims. Nancy New pleaded guilty in that case, while prosecutors split off Zach’s charge in a separate bill of information, a document that is filed when a defendant agrees to plead guilty without the grand jury handing down an indictment.

The plea deals come on the heels of Mississippi Today’s “The Backchannel” investigation that reveals new details about former Gov. Phil Bryant’s involvement in a separate scandal involving the Mississippi Department of Human Services, in which the News are currently facing separate state charges. The recent plea agreements also come less than three weeks before the News were set to stand trial in the federal case.

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s “The Backchannel” investigation that examines former Gov. Phil Bryant’s role in the running of his welfare department

In the state case regarding welfare theft, the Hinds County District Attorneys Office is accusing the News of embezzling more than $4 million in federal public assistance funds, $2.15 million of which prosecutors say they used to make personal investments in companies called Prevacus and PreSolMD.

Text messages newly uncovered by Mississippi Today reveal that right before the News agreed to funnel welfare money to Prevacus, the company’s owner and former NFL quarterback Brett Favre offered Bryant company stock in exchange for his help as governor — which Bryant agreed by text to accept after he left office. Favre even referenced in texts to Bryant the public funding that the company was receiving from the state and Nancy New. Bryant responded positively.

Bryant’s explanation to Mississippi Today was that he did not read his texts carefully enough to appreciate what they meant. Up to this point, officials have not scrutinized Bryant’s role in the welfare scandal and the Prevacus deal. State Auditor Shad White, a Bryant appointee and former Bryant campaign manager and staffer, led the initial investigation.

Federal authorities are still investigating the welfare spending, according to sources.

The federal plea agreements, signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Fulcher Wednesday, do not specify how the defendants may be required to cooperate with prosecutors in the event the News have information that may help officials prosecute other, more powerful figures — a common occurrence in plea deals. But the agreement does reference a separate sealed plea supplement, which usually spell out these conditions.

The defense attorneys — Cynthia Speetjens for Nancy New and T. Gerry Bufkin and Brandon Essig for Zach New — 0r the U.S. Attorneys Office either declined to comment or did not return Mississippi Today’s phone calls Wednesday evening or Thursday morning to discuss the plea agreements.

Because the federal charges are resolving before the state charges regarding welfare theft, the News will likely spend whatever prison sentence they may receive in federal prison, instead of Mississippi’s state prisons with notoriously barbaric conditions.

In the private school scam, prosecutors say the News claimed public school funds by using the names of kids who didn’t attend the school, people who didn’t work at the school or teachers who had a lower certification level than they claimed. The funding came from a special program called “504 teacher units,” which is supposed to supply a private teacher for a child after a doctor or psychologist determines the student requires placement in a hospital or licensed psychiatric facility.

A Mississippi Today analysis of public records shows New Learning Resources has received roughly $20 million in these funds since 2007.

Between 2016 and 2020, New Summit School in Jackson and North New Summit School in Greenwood each reported hiring between 10 and 16 teachers through the “504 teacher units” program per year, according to public records. This translates to around 325 kids with severe mental disorders New Summit claimed to be serving — which is roughly the size of their entire student population.

Prosecutors haven’t outlined where all the money went, but they accused Nancy New of using at least some of the public school dollars to purchase a $250,000 home in northeast Jackson.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the specific crime to which Nancy New pleaded guilty, which is monetary transactions with the proceeds of wire fraud, or money laundering.

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Editor’s note: This story contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Local resources include the Mississippi Department of Mental Health DMH Helpline at 1-877-210-8513 and the NAMI Mississippi Crisis Lines at 1-877-210-851.

A scathing 59-page report by the U.S. Department of Justice says that Mississippi routinely violates the rights of incarcerated people at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman by failing to stop violence or provide proper mental health treatment, especially for those on suicide watch and in solitary confinement. 

The report says these conditions are the result of years of “deliberate indifference” from the Mississippi Department of Corrections and calls for top-down improvements. It makes more than 80 recommendations for MDOC to implement at Parchman from structural changes such as offering competitive salaries for staff and more programming for incarcerated people to smaller fixes like identifying “all broken or jammed locks.” 

“MDOC has been on notice of these deficiencies for years and failed to take reasonable measures to address the violations, due in part to non-functional accountability or quality assurance measures,” the report says. 

The U.S. attorney general may initiate a lawsuit under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act if MDOC does not implement these recommendations in the next 49 days, the report says. But the New York Times reported that the DOJ will likely work with MDOC to address the issues raised in the report.

MDOC declined to comment for this story.

Parchman has long been plagued by reports of unsanitary living conditions and violence. The report describes a Department of Corrections that is ill-equipped to fix the systemic issues at the prison. Among some of the issues identified in the report: 

• MDOC oversees a “barebones staff” that does not properly investigate violent incidents and rarely, if ever, conducts security patrols in units. Out of 100 assaults on incarcerated people at Parchman, the division responsible for investigating could only produce 24 reports to the DOJ. 
• Parchman has not had an on-site psychiatrist since 2018, and the prison’s part-time mental health staff frequently misdiagnose incarcerated people with antisocial personality disorder. 
• Incarcerated people with mental illnesses frequently request to be transferred from Parchman. But due to the lack of mental health services at MDOC’s regional facilities, incarcerated people can’t be moved “if they are on psychoactive medication.” The report says it is common for incarcerated people to stop taking their medication in order to qualify for a transfer, but the mental health staff appear to have never told any patient that is ill-advised. 
• Incarcerated people who are suicidal are placed in cells that a suicide prevention expert described as “very dangerous” due to ventilation grates, exposed bars, and mesh-covered windows. There is a blind spot in the CCTV monitor that staff are supposed to use to observe these cells. 

Ron Welch, a prisoner’s rights attorney, said responsibility for the conditions at Parchman ultimately lies with the governor and lawmakers who have underfunded the prison system for years. Issues at Parchman began to escalate in 2014, Welch said, after lawmakers started to cut MDOC’s budget.  

DOJ’s report “is long, and it’s lengthy, and it’s detailed, but the bottom line is the Department of Corrections can’t do anything without money,” Welch said. 

The DOJ opened its investigation in February 2020 after a weeks-long spate of violent incidents at facilities across the state. In Parchman alone, several incarcerated people were killed or injured as violence broke out at Unit 29. 

The report says that in the months leading up to the riot, MDOC knew about “widespread rumors” of unlivable conditions, increased murders and suicides, and “mounting concerns that gangs were filling the void left by inadequate staff presence.” Yet MDOC failed to increase staff at Parchman, leaving its existing guards “utterly overwhelmed, and ultimately unable to adequately and quickly respond to fighting and significant injuries in multiple buildings.” 

This created an “authority vacuum” that was filled by gang members, the report says.

Guards at Parchman are supposed conduct head counts at the housing units every 30 minutes, but most typically do not even interact with incarcerated people on a daily basis. This is partly due to guards’ fears of safety, but the report says MDOC does not even provide officers with “personnel safety emergency alarms to alert for help when necessary.” 

“Instead, officers almost exclusively supervise housing units from removed towers that overlook the units,” the report says, adding that “MDOC takes it a step further and sometimes fails to staff the towers at all.” 

As a result, guards do not see and are unable to stop assaults. The report describes one incarcerated person who had to resort to setting a fire in his cell to get the guards’ attention after he was stabbed. 

The lack of staff also has a specific impact on mentally ill incarcerated people. The existing mental health staff consist of three part-time nurse practitioners who manage a caseload of over 200 people a week, which is above American Psychiatric Association’s recommended ratio for prison settings. They are not able to provide individual therapy or trauma-informed care for incarcerated people with post-traumatic stress disorder. 

The mental health staff at Parchman also do not conduct “formal or regular treatment planning meetings” or keep complete records of incarcerated people’s mental health history. “Treatment goals appear to be cut and pasted to the next treatment plan without any documentation detailing the incarcerated person’s or clinician’s adjustments for progress,” the report says. 

Staff appear to over-rely on diagnosing incarcerated people with antisocial personality disorder or substance-induced disorders, the report found. “The high percentage of these diagnoses at Parchman is concerning because once these diagnoses are used, future providers are apt to be dismissive of legitimate mental health concerns,” the report says. 

The DOJ also found that Parchman keeps hundreds of incarcerated people in solitary confinement with “decrepit conditions” such as crumbling ceilings, showers without hot water, and pervasive mold. On average, Parchman keeps incarcerated people in solitary confinement for 515 days and sometimes for years. 

MDOC kept one incarcerated person in solitary confinement “since his arrival at Parchman in September 2001.” The report says this person never sought or was treated for mental health issues, but that in February 2021, he “began expressing suicidal ideation during the weekly restrictive housing rounds, which was captured in the clinician’s note as ‘Suicidal Ideation.’” 

Staff did not conduct a suicide risk assessment, and two weeks later, “he hung himself with a bedsheet.” In the week before his death, he had been asking for relief from the “excessive heat on the unit,” which had reached as high as 145 degrees Fahrenheit, one of the officers told the DOJ. 

“When this officer asked if they could turn down the heat, unit supervisors advised not to do so,” the report says.  

After the DOJ announced its investigation in 2020, Gov. Tate Reeves said he was beginning the process of closing Unit 29 of the facility. He also appointed Burl Cain, who had overseen Angola Prison in Louisiana, as commissioner. 

Cain has said he will fix the conditions at Parchman and in other MDOC prisons. One effort that Cain has taken to address the violence at Parchman is participating in a “gang exchange program” with Colorado and other states. 

The DOJ specifically addressed that plan in the report: “While this tactic may have some limited effect, it falls far short of a comprehensive strategy. For example, when a gang leader is moved to an out-of-state correctional facility, a new gang leader will quickly emerge to replace the transferred one.” 

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GREENWOOD – Federal government officials, together with Congressman Bennie Thompson, traveled to the Delta Wednesday to announce a new program aimed at connecting rural communities with more resources.

The Rural Partners Network will give rural communities a local point person to help them access resources from 13 government agencies, including funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. These agencies will also have designated employees focused on rural issues who will be responsible for assisting local officers and improving collaboration between agencies. 

“If Greenwood is the gateway to the Delta, we want places like Greenwood to have a gateway to the federal government so they can access the resources they need to thrive,” said White House Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice.

Mississippi was selected as one of five states for the pilot program of the Rural Partners Network, with an initial emphasis on Delta communities. The other states are Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky and New Mexico.

The White House, the United States Department of Agriculture and Congressman Bennie Thompson hosted a roundtable discussion with mayors, business councils, and other community stakeholders in the targeted counties to hear about their needs and discuss opportunities of the network to help address them. Multiple officials brought up concerns regarding water and sewer and affordable housing as extensions of economic development projects. 

“Housing is a critical need,” said Matthew Harrison, executive director of the Grenada Economic Development District. “We do not have the housing that we need today for the people we have. I’m not sure how we keep up with the economic growth and continue to expand without additional resources to make it happen, so we need this partnership.”

Lee Jones, the director of the Mississippi Rural Partners Network, said that the three pilot networks in Mississippi will be the Washington County Economic Alliance (Washington, Bolivar, Sunflower, and Leflore counties), the Greater Grenada – Lake District Partnership (Grenada and Yalobusha counties), and the North Delta Planning and Development District (Coahoma, Quitman, and Tunica counties). Each network will focus on building shared economic opportunities and infrastructure advancements. 

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said this program presents an opportunity to express appreciation for rural communities, whose people provide most of the country’s provide food, water, energy, recreational spaces and military service. He also credited Thompson for bringing attention to the need for inter-agency collaboration that this program hopes to address. 

“For far too long we have been siloed in the federal government, and this is a new day,” Vilsack said. 

Vilsack also announced grants from the USDA of approximately $1 million each to the Greenwood-Leflore Hospital, the Delta Health Center and the Delta Health Alliance.

The post Mississippi selected for new program connecting rural communities with federal resources appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Editor’s note: This story was first published by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting as a follow-up to Mississippi Today’s “The Backchannel” investigation, which examined former Gov. Phil Bryant’s role in the running of his welfare department during what officials have called the largest public embezzlement scheme in state history.

Is the current scandal involving former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant encouraging the funneling of millions in welfare funds to family and friends the first time these kinds of allegations have surfaced? 

No. In fact, when Bryant worked as state auditor from 1996 to 2003, he demanded reimbursements from officials he claimed had abused funds from the same Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program.  

The demands came after allegations arose that millions of welfare dollars went to things such as the purchase of a gold Jaguar and a trip to Greece to study child care. 

Donald Taylor, who served as executive director for the state Department of Human Services from 1999 to 2008, recalled other fraud allegations, too, such an employee taking a DHS credit card on his honeymoon to Hawaii.  

The way Taylor views it? “My rule is to do the right thing,” he said. “If you have to stop and think about it, it’s probably not the right thing.” 

Asked what he thought about the revelations by Mississippi Today of Bryant’s text messages related to the current welfare scandal, Taylor replied, “It staggers the imagination.”

READ MORE: “The Backchannel”: Mississippi Today’s investigation into millions of misspent welfare dollars 

According to a forensic audit, the state Department of Human Services misused $77 million while Bryant served as governor and his pick, John Davis, headed the agency. Text messages obtained by Mississippi Today show how Bryant may have wielded influence over Davis’ decisions. 

Davis and five others have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges. Bryant has not been charged with any wrongdoing and is credited by State Auditor Shad White as the whistleblower in the case. 

While state auditor in 2005, Bryant demanded nearly $221,000 from Claiborne County officials, accusing them of misusing welfare funds. Those allegations included paying $1,000-a-meeting payments to local human resources board members after they were told to stop in 2001. 

Five years earlier, just after Bryant took office as auditor, the TANF program paid to transport a woman for nine days from her home in Rosedale to her new job at Grand Casino in Robinsonville. 

The cost? $10,744. 

That was enough money at the time to buy the woman a Kia Rio, complete with a CD stereo system with subwoofers, rear-window defroster, fuel-injection engine, dual airbags and sunroof — with cash to spare. 

When The Clarion-Ledger asked a state senator about this, he replied, “$10,000 in nine days? I’m going to get out of the Legislature and get me a couple of cars.” 

In fiscal 2001, Mississippi spent nearly $18 million to aid the impoverished in getting rides to work, but documents showed the program was abused. 

The total number of miles reimbursed? More than 16 million miles, or traveling around the world 649 times. In galactic terms, that’s more than halfway to Venus. 

By contrast, Arkansas spent less than half on the same program: $7.8 million. 

Mississippi allowed nonprofits to charge the program $1.74 a mile — over five times more than the federal government then paid to reimburse employees for their mileage. 

In contrast, Arkansas permitted friends and family members to provide transportation, reimbursing them at a rate of 29 cents a mile. 

Arkansas and other states also helped the impoverished repair their cars and provided funding to buy used cars. 

Robert Cook, who ran the Division of Program Integrity for the state Department of Human Services then, said he regarded his job as a “calling” to ensure monies could go to Mississippi’s most vulnerable. “They are intended for the needy and not the greedy.” 

If current allegations are true about “denying benefits to children and mothers and then channeling those benefits to their cronies,” it’s “disgraceful,” he said. “If it in fact did occur like it’s being alleged, then I think every individual along that trail should be held accountable. I don’t think we as a society and as Mississippians should demand anything else.” 

When political posturing overtakes common sense or officials pad their cronies’ bank accounts, “we go off course,” he said. “In Mississippi, we can’t afford this. Every dime we waste, there’s a Mississippian suffering somewhere because of that.” 

Sandra Shelson, who examined the department’s funding in her work for the attorney general’s office at the time, said TANF dollars have long suffered from a lack of oversight, “but in all of my years, I’ve never seen it abused like this.” 

Two decades ago, one problem was Mississippi officials failed to distribute TANF money, Shelson said. “Then and now, the families this money was intended to provide help and a safety net for didn’t receive the benefit.” 

She said a false belief has long been promoted of a “welfare queen” clutching a Louis Vuitton bag and driving a Mercedes when the truth is a pittance of money makes it to Mississippi’s most impoverished. 

“Parents need child care to go to work,” she said, “but they may not receive vouchers for child care centers, some of which are barely functional.” 

These kinds of false beliefs have led state lawmakers to require all of Mississippi’s welfare recipients to submit to regular drug screening, just to receive benefits, she said. “Meanwhile, we’re using the same money to send an ex-wrestler to Malibu for rehab.”  

According to an indictment unsealed this week, John Davis, then-director of the state Department of Human Services, schemed with Nancy New, executive director of the Mississippi Community Education Center, used welfare monies to pay for luxury drug treatment for retired wrestler Brett DiBiase.  

His wrestling father, Ted, known as “The Million Dollar Man,” is an ordained minister who started the Heart of David ministries, which received more than $3 million in TANF money to “establish a network of partnerships, services and resources throughout Mississippi communities for faith-based and self-help activities.” A forensic audit called the ministries a “high risk” grantee, citing the lack of supporting documentation. 

Davis has pleaded innocent to 20 charges, including bribery, that could put him behind bars for nearly 150 years if convicted on all charges. 

New and her son Zach have pleaded innocent to 46 charges that could put them behind bars for more than 200 years if convicted on all charges.  

Former state Rep. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, said he warned Mississippi’s top leaders about possible abuse. “Nothing ever came of it that I know of,” he said. 

Holland quoting himself as telling then-Gov. Bryant, “Phil, you need to keep a tight watch on this TANF money. There’s not much accountability.” 

He quoted Bryant as replying that he was indeed watching the TANF funds, saying, “I used to be auditor.” 

Holland called what’s happened “the biggest scandal in the history of the state, and nothing’s being done about it.” 

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As Mississippi fights a shortage of officials across all sports, incidents involving confrontations between fans, coaches and referees and umpires are becoming more and more common. The Cleveland boys chat with MHSAA and SWAC head of officials, Robert Holloway about how Mississippians can fix both problems.

Stream all episodes here.

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The NAACP and Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal complaint alleging the state of Mississippi did not adequately dispense federal COVID-19 relief funds to combat the pandemic’s outsized impact on communities of color.

The complaint, filed on behalf of both the national organization and state chapter of the NAACP, says the state’s actions violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after state officials “deliberately shut out advocacy groups” from receiving federal funds to address the pandemic in the minority community.

“The State of Mississippi and other public and private organizations in the state received $15.7 billion in COVID-19 related funding, yet the state has continued to provide a discriminatory program, resulting in disproportionate rates of sickness, hospitalization, and death in Black, Indigenous, and brown communities,” the NAACP complaint says.

The complaint continues: “Mississippi has engaged in unlawful race discrimination when it failed to plan, distribute, or otherwise provide COVID-19 vaccine access in an equitable manner breaching its legal duty to ensure nondiscrimination in federally assisted emergency preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery programs.”

When asked for comment, State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said his agency, the Mississippi State Department of Health, recognized the COVID-19 racial health disparities early and worked hard to correct them.

“Although the state encountered numerous challenges to advancing the equity mission — including early vaccine access, trust issues, and technological barriers to vaccine appointments — a statewide coalition of agency, faith, medical and community leaders was able to deliver much needed information, vaccines and PPE to minority populations across the state,” Dobbs said.

The results of those efforts, Dobbs said, are apparent today: a higher vaccine rate among Black Mississippians than whites in the state, a higher vaccine rate among Black Mississippians than Black Americans at large, and a lower COVID-19 mortality rate for Black Mississippians than whites. The vaccine rate for Hispanics, Dobbs added, was near equal to that of white Mississippians.

The pandemic, in its earlier days, did have disparate effects on Mississippians of color — in mortality rates, in spread of the virus and in vaccine rates once they became available. Dobbs and other state officials were brutally honest about those racial disparities and said they worked hard to address them.

READ MORE: ‘We’re failing minority communities’: Why Black Mississippians are receiving fewer COVID-19 vaccines than white Mississippians

But the complaint alleges that as the pandemic wore on, state leaders did not develop a strategy to ensure a higher vaccination rate in the state — especially in the minority community — and did not provide a plan to improve the vaccination rate.

The complaint also points out the state’s health care system has built-in problems that disproportionally impact minorities. For instance, the complaint says more of a plan was needed to aid minorities in being transported to vaccine locations.

“Just as Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has disavowed the existence of systemic racism, so too has the state’s COVID-19 vaccine program failed to account for these systemic deficiencies and vulnerabilities,” the complaint said. “The state’s vaccine program discriminates against communities on the basis of race, color, or national origin, even when disparities in access to COVID-19 testing foreshadowed these problems.”

The NAACP is asking the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights “to immediately investigate and remedy the unlawful and ongoing discrimination.”

“We would like immediate and lasting changes to vaccine policies and procedures to ensure economically and socially marginalized groups have access to vaccine programs in their areas, including urban and rural communities that have inadequate or substandard access to private health care facilities, hospitals, and pharmacies,” said Rev. Robert James, president of the Mississippi chapter of the NAACP.

READ MORE: How Black community leaders put Mississippi on the path to vaccine equity

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