OurTupelo

Read the story behind the cartoon here.

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Jackson native Janet Marie Smith, a Mississippi State-educated architect, designed Camden Yards in Baltimore, renovated Fenway Park in Boston, and most recently has renovated Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Her hardhat is in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, and she may be, too, some day.

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State Sens. Sampson Jackson, D-Preston, and Tammy Witherspoon, D-Magnolia, have announced their resignations midway through their current terms.

Witherspoon was recently elected mayor of Magnolia and began serving in that office on July 1. She has served six years in the Legislature as senator for District 38, which includes Adams, Pike, Walthall and Wilkinson counties. She was chairwoman of the Enrolled Bills Committee and vice chairwoman of the Housing Committee.

Jackson, who represented District 32 including Kemper, Lauderdale, Noxubee and Winston counties, has served in the Legislature for 30 years. He was chairman of the Forestry Committee. He told local news outlets in his home district that he felt it was simply time for him to retire.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann thanked Jackson and Witherspoon for their service and said both senators “had a collegial and congenial nature in the chamber, and oftentimes worked across the aisle on issues aimed at making Mississippi a great place to live and work.”

“After nearly three decades of service, Sen. Jackson has a wealth of experience and knowledge about the legislative process and policy which served his district very well,” Hosemann said in a statement on Tuesday. “Sen. Witherspoon was equally as dedicated to finding solutions and opportunities for her constituents.”

Gov. Tate Reeves will set special elections to fill the final two years of the four-year terms.

The post Two Democratic state senators resigning in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Department of Employment Security has secured a $2.5 million federal grant to improve the state’s employment and workforce data. 

The U.S. Department of Labor’s employment and training administration heads the grant program, which helps states grow databases to examine whether education programs lead to jobs, if jobseekers are selecting training-related positions, and the impact of training on workers’ wages. 

“The grant will allow us to improve the quality and breadth of data in Mississippi’s mature state longitudinal data system,” Mississippi employment office spokeswoman Dianne Bell said in a statement.

Bell also said the funds will allow the state to better evaluate its job training programs by adding information from unemployment insurance wage records.

The grant comes as the state plans to double down on addressing labor shortfalls with a new workforce development office. Ryan Miller, a former program director at the University of Mississippi, began as the office’s first executive director in the spring.

When Miller’s appointment was announced in March, Gov. Tate Reeves said the new office will strategize how to move more Mississippians into higher paying jobs and train more workers to meet the demands of modern labor needs. 

The improved data through the grant program is aimed at aiding state leaders, employers and educators in identifying the pathways and programs that lead skilled workers to higher paying, in-demand positions. The data can also help workers make informed decisions about their own education and job interests, according to the department of labor. 

Mississippi is one of five states to receive a total of $11.6 million in federal funds to analyze their respective programs and services that help jobseekers find and keep higher paying positions. 

This is round eight of the program’s grant distribution. Mississippi also received $2.7 million through the same program in 2017. 

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Doris Carpenter worries about her young grandson. It’s been 15 months since he’s seen his father — her son — who is serving a 10-year sentence at the Bolivar County Correctional Facility in Cleveland. That likely won’t change any time soon because of a new policy put in place by the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

The visitation policy, issued by MDOC Commissioner Burl Cain in May 2021, lays out guidelines restricting age and time frames that people can visit their loved ones inside of prison. According to the new policy, incarcerated people can only have two adult visitors and no children per session, and they can only come during specific hours once a month.

“It’s unfortunate that a 7-year-old child cannot see their father and cries all the time… In essence, they’re keeping their children from their loved ones,” Carpenter said.

When Mississippi reported its first case of COVID-19 in March 2020, MDOC suspended all visitation at their facilities, “effective immediately” and “until further notice.” The department reported 109 deaths in 2020 — of those, 22 were determined through autopsy to be caused by COVID-19, though dozens more are still pending autopsy results.

Over a year after COVID-19 gripped the state and the nation, MDOC mandated people incarcerated inside their prisons take COVID-19 vaccinations or forgo visitation once it was reinstated. While people can now visit the prisons, family members like Carpenter say the department’s new policy is not sufficient.

Carpenter said she and her husband are fully vaccinated, and their son received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in April in the Bolivar County Regional Correctional Facility.

She wasn’t able to see her son until June 19, Carpenter said, her first time seeing him since the pandemic began in 2020. She drove over four hours to visit with her son inside the prison for less than one hour.

She arrived at the Bolivar County Correctional Facility with her husband about an hour before visitation started at 9 a.m., but prison officials only allowed people to begin filing into the prison 10 minutes before the visitation window opened, cutting into visitation time, Carpenter said. She  only got 45 minutes with him and is unsure when prison officials will schedule visits again at the Bolivar County Correctional Facility, she said.

“It’s almost like MDOC is doing everything in their power to prevent the visits than rather allow the visits,” Carpenter said, “even though the inmates have had the vaccine.”

Carpenter worries most about her 7-year-old grandson, the child of her incarcerated son, who is now not allowed to visit his father at all inside the Bolivar County Regional Correctional Facility, per MDOC’s visitation policy, which does not allow any visitors under the age of 18.

Carpenter’s son has been incarcerated since 2016, when his son was just a toddler. Carpenter would bring her grandson to visit his father inside the prison two times a month for a total of six hours. Now, under the new MDOC visitation policy, children are not allowed to visit their incarcerated family members and loved ones, a reality that deeply worries Carpenter.

“At 7 years old, they don’t really understand everything,” Carpenter said. “Even if I wear my mask, can I still not see my daddy? I can only talk to my daddy, but I won’t ever be able to see him again? Those are the kinds of questions I get from a 7-year-old used to seeing their daddy from the time they were two all the way up until 15 months (ago).”

Miles away from the Bolivar County Correctional Facility stands the South Mississippi Correctional Institution (SMCI) near Leakesville, where Sara Jane Scott’s husband is incarcerated. Scott visited her husband for the first time in late May and mid June of this year.

Scott’s husband, who is serving a life sentence, described seeing his wife during visitation as “an amazing feeling.”

Scott, who founded the prison reform advocacy organization The Parchman Project, said she’s heard different visitation guidelines being upheld at different prisons across the state. For instance, while visitation windows at SMCI are three hours, she said they are only one hour at East Mississippi Correctional Facility, a private prison, not operated by MDOC, near Meridian.

She also said prison officials did not screen visitors for COVID-19 symptoms when she visited her husband in SMCI two times.

“They’re not asking COVID questions, so if you’re not asking questions, why are you using that as an excuse (to limit visitation)?” Scott said.

Another man serving a life sentence at Parchman said his mother and girlfriend visited him inside prison on June 13 for the first time in 16 months, a feeling he described as “being able to breathe fresh air again… like hitting reset.”

“It’s a great thing to have somebody come check on you,” Scott’s husband, incarcerated at SMCI, said. “It makes you feel like, OK I’m still here.”

Editor’s note: Doris Carpenter is using a pseudonym over fear that prison officials will transfer her son to another facility. Mississippi Today independently verified her identity, as well as her son’s.

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“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” — Pete Townshend in The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Mississippi’s settlement of a lawsuit with state Medicaid contractor Centene was based on the same blueprint as other cases: private lawyers were hired by the attorney general to pursue allegations of wrongdoing against mega companies.

Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch sent out a news release last month touting the $55 million settlement of the lawsuit that accused Centene of overcharging the state for pharmacy benefits it was contracted to provide to the Medicaid program.

The big difference is that Fitch’s predecessor — Democrat Jim Hood — often called news conferences to announce such settlements where reporters routinely quizzed the state’s only elected Democrat about the use of private attorney for such lawsuits.

Hood was often savaged for the use of outside counsel by legislators, former Gov. Haley Barbour and by others. Legislation was filed to try to prevent the hiring of private attorneys.

But when Fitch and state Auditor Shad White announced they had settled with Centene, the same people who used to complain about the use of private attorneys by Hood and his predecessor — Democrat Mike Moore — uttered not a single negative word.

There was no criticism even though the case against Centene had elements similar to Moore’s lawsuit against the tobacco companies from the 1990s — still the best known and perhaps most successful use of outside counsel. In that lawsuit, Mississippi received what is known as a “lead dog” commitment. If another state later received a better settlement, then Mississippi, as the lead dog, would get the same settlement.

In the Centene case, Ohio filed and settled the first lawsuit and received “lead dog” status.

And like with the tobacco lawsuits and scores of lawsuits since then, the private attorneys were paid only if they prevailed — a percentage of the settlement, or about $2.5 million in the Centene case.

In recent days, Fitch has announced she has filed another lawsuit against insulin manufacturers. The lawsuit alleges the companies are artificially inflating the price of the life-saving drug.

“As the mother of a diabetic, I know the emotional, physical and financial toll the unconscionable price of insulin has on families,” Fitch said in a statement. “I filed this lawsuit on behalf of every Mississippian who relies on this medication to survive. These companies are exploiting the vulnerable. I’m fighting back because you should never have to decide between paying the ever-increasing price of insulin or compromising your care.”

The insulin lawsuit is being pursued for Fitch by the attorneys who worked on the Centene case: Ridgeland-based Liston & Deas. And if they win, they will receive a percentage of the settlement — 5% of any settlement above $25 million — a larger percentage for smaller settlements. The attorneys pay all the expenses of the lawsuits, and they receive nothing if they lose.

Hood used to argue that the outside counsel was needed to pursue cases where the state did not have the expertise, manpower or finances to be successful against large corporations with deep pockets. In the Centene case, for example, work on the concept that led to the lawsuit began years ago.

The fact that Fitch is pursuing much the same course as Hood and Moore should not be a surprise.

During the campaign, a Fitch spokesperson said, “The default should be in-house counsel, of course, because it is usually the best, most efficient, and most cost-effective way. But, just like any law firm, if there’s a case that requires specialized knowledge and the people’s interests are better served with some outside expertise working alongside AG attorneys, Lynn Fitch won’t foreclose the option.”

Also during the campaign, Jennifer Riley Collins, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, complained that many of the lawyers and others who had supported Hood financially were contributing to the Fitch campaign. The message some saw in that was that in Republican-controlled Mississippi, Riley Collins did not have much of a chance of winning, so they contributed to the Republican who essentially would play by the same rules as previous Democratic attorneys general.

During Hood’s tenure, $2.8 billion was awarded to the state in lawsuits assisted by outside counsel. The private attorneys received $121.1 million in fees and expenses, or 4.3% of the total awarded to the state, according to information compiled by Hood’s office before his tenure ended. Those numbers do not include the annual payments to the state from the tobacco lawsuit.

In the early 1990s, cigar-chomping Rep. Charlie Capps, D-Cleveland, the powerful Appropriations chair, warned Moore he had better not spend state funds on the dubious and unwinnable lawsuit against the cigarette makers.

Moore did not. But the state still is spending the money — about $100 million annually — Moore garnered in settlements from the litigation.

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It took 129 years of playing college baseball and 12 trips to the College World Series, but Mississippi State’s Bulldogs are national champions. Tyler Cleveland interviews his pops, Rick Cleveland, on State’s incredible run to a national title and what it means to the most passionate fan base in America.

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This is part five in a five-part series about Philip Gunn’s influence in changing the Mississippi state flag. Read the full series here.

State Rep. Manly Barton walked into Speaker of the House Philip Gunn’s office on June 25, 2020, for what he knew would be a difficult conversation.

With the clock ticking on the 2020 legislative session, Gunn was sprinting to whip the necessary votes to suspend the rules to change the state flag, the last in the nation featuring the Confederate battle emblem. Barton, the 72-year-old Jackson County Republican who was in his eighth year in office, was among the final holdouts.

Because lawmakers were in session in June following COVID-19 delays, general bill deadlines had long passed. Gunn needed about 40 Republican votes to join the 44 Democrats to suspend the rules to even get to the bill that would change the flag. Once House leaders cleared the heftier rules suspension threshold, they knew the simple majority vote to change the flag would sail through.

On Monday of that final week, Gunn had counted just 14 of the 40 necessary Republican votes. But in just three days, as pressure outside the Capitol had reached a fever pitch, Gunn and his allies had whipped about 35 Republican votes.

“Talk about all the things that had to come together, all the House members who ended up voting with us… Manly Barton is the one that inspires me the most,” Gunn told Mississippi Today.

Like most rural district Republicans, Barton had assured his district’s constituents for years that he would not vote to change the flag. Barton’s stance ran so deep that his main campaign placard featured a photo of him while serving in Vietnam. Draped in the background of the photo was the old Mississippi state flag.

Gunn, for years the most prominent state Republican who had publicly called for a new flag, was closer than he’d ever been to having the votes to get there. He needed Barton, and he believed he would flip.

“He stood behind that leather chair,” Gunn recalled, pointing across his office. “I said, ‘Manly, I need your vote.’ He said, ‘Mr. Speaker, I just can’t do it. I just can’t do it.’

“I said to him, ‘All I need is for you to vote to suspend the rules, you don’t have to vote to change the flag when the separate bill comes up.’ He moaned and groaned and said, ‘I just can’t do it.’ That went on for about 10 minutes, and I talked to him about the legacy he’d be leaving, about how his children and grandchildren would remember this moment.”

Barton left the office without giving Gunn a hard commitment.

Later that night, Gunn was at dinner with a group of House Republicans when Barton approached his table, tapped him on the shoulder and asked to speak with him privately. For about 45 minutes, Barton explained to Gunn how he felt about the flag, and he expressed fear that he couldn’t get reelected in his majority-white rural district if he voted to change the flag.

“He wanted to do the right thing. He’d struggled with it all day, so he called his wife,” Gunn recalled. “She asked him, ‘Are you going to be able to look at yourself in the mirror the day after this vote and be proud of what you’ve done?’ He looked at me and said, ‘I know the answer to that. You know, I gotta do the right thing. Not only will I vote to suspend the rules, I’m going to vote to change the flag.’”

There are several similar stories from the final hours before the vote. To this day, Gunn won’t take credit for Barton or any of the other flips of House holdouts. He insists that their families or maybe even God moved them, and that statements from business, religious and sports leaders gave them enough political cover to get there.

“I just gave them the opportunity,” Gunn said. “I brought them in here one by one. I said, ‘Where are you? Don’t you want to be on the right side of history here? People will forever look back on this moment.’ And, you know, before too long, the votes started coming together.”

But several House members told Mississippi Today they fully credit Gunn for his consistent message about the legacy they would all be leaving and getting the key holdouts on board —.an effort that began in an unplanned June 11 Republican caucus speech.

“The practical reality is that the flag doesn’t change without (Gunn’s) leadership,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader. “When we first came to him in early June with the desire to try, he went to work. If he doesn’t take that initiative and start telling his caucus how important it was, this doesn’t happen. That leadership didn’t come from Tate Reeves or Delbert Hosemann, it came from Philip Gunn.”

When Gunn left that dinner on Thursday, June 25, he and his leadership team felt they had received enough verbal commitments to meet the 81-vote threshold needed to suspend the rules and take up the flag bill.

But three main questions remained: What, exactly, would the bill look like? How many House members did they really have on board? Did the Senate have enough votes to suspend its rules if the House did its part?

House and Senate leaders negotiated the contents of the bill itself for at least four days, all the way up to the morning of June 28, when the House voted to suspend the rules. Gunn, along with his trusted confidants Rep. Jason White and Rep. Trey Lamar, had talked at least a dozen times that final week with Hosemann and Senate chairmen Sen. Briggs Hopson and Sen. Josh Harkins about the details of the bill.

Hosemann, who had just a couple days before still not supported lawmakers making the change themselves, had agreed to legislative change as long as the new flag had the words “In God We Trust” on it. Gunn, too, insisted that phrase make the final bill. Many lawmakers expressed to reporters that week they felt that the slogan would provide some political cover for them to vote for the change.

“Who would vote against God on the ballot?” a Senate Republican chairman quipped to a Mississippi Today reporter on the day of the final vote.

After a couple days of back-and-forth, House and Senate leaders decided the bill would feature three main elements: It would create a commission to select a new flag design (including the words “In God We Trust”), it would require that the commission report back to legislators and it would eliminate the Confederate battle emblem from consideration.

The House and Senate leaders were careful not to put the contents of the bill on paper because they didn’t want the details to leak to the press and give the public or even some on-the-fence lawmakers time to poke holes in the plan.

The next question to answer was how many House members were on board. On the evening of Friday, June 26, Gunn and his leadership team thought they had 84 votes — more than enough to suspend the rules and later pass a veto-proof flag bill. But before Gunn called the vote, he had to be sure.

“I took my caucus, and I divided it into five groups,” Gunn said. He assigned a handful of members to Rep. Jason White, another group to his chief of staff Trey Dellinger, another group to his policy director TJ Taylor, and another group to his former chief of staff Nathan Wells. Gunn took the final group himself.

“I told them to call every member and ask for three things,” Gunn said. “First, you will vote to suspend the rules. Second, you will vote against any floor amendments offered. Third, you will vote to change the flag. I needed them to answer all three in the affirmative. So we spent a couple hours making those calls, and the number was dead on. We had 84 votes.”

Late that week, as Gunn focused on the House, he also had to keep an eye on the Senate. If he garnered enough House votes to suspend the rules and change the flag, he wanted to be sure the Senate would follow suit. Otherwise, the effort would have been for naught.

“You can’t overlook the effort given by a number of young lobbyists who were working mostly on senators,” Gunn said. “There was a group of 10 or 12 lobbyists — all of them of the younger generation that frankly was always more supportive of the change. They weren’t paid by anybody. They just decided to give up their time to work the issue because they thought it was the right thing to do.”

Meanwhile, White and Lamar were in constant communication with Hopson and Harkins, the Senate leaders. The young lobbyists and the Senate leaders communicated to Gunn on the night of Friday, June 26, that the Senate would make their number.

On the morning of Saturday, June 27, the Capitol was buzzing. Mississippi Today reported the night before that the House had their votes and would suspend the rules to consider the flag bill on Saturday.

Many lawmakers brought their families to the building for the historic day. Everyday Mississippians lined up outside the House gallery in hopes of being in the chamber when the vote was cast. Reporters from around the South and the nation were present to document the moment.

Gunn gaveled in the House that morning, but neither the rules suspension nor the flag bill were on the calendar. Leaders on both sides of the building remained eerily quiet all morning. The suspense spurred questions about whether something had happened overnight.

Behind the scenes, though, leaders were still hammering out the details of the bill itself, legislative attorneys were ensuring the language was air-tight, and the Senate was still counting its votes. Gunn was adamant that the House would not take up the resolution until he got a verbal commitment from Senate leaders that they had their number.

Gunn received that confirmation of the Senate votes around noon, and he quickly called a House Republican caucus meeting on the second floor. He informed his members that both chambers had the votes, and they would soon go back upstairs to take the procedural vote.

Several Republicans who opposed the flag change loudly voiced their opinions in that meeting, but there was no changing minds at that point.

Gunn, White and Lamar left the caucus meeting, walked into the speaker’s office and closed the door. They had decided a couple days before that White, as House pro tem and someone who worked hard to whip the votes, would handle the bill on the floor. White had been rehearsing his speech since Friday night.

“I remember working on all that and, uh, it was very emotional. I think all of us understood the weight of the moment,” Gunn said of the final few seconds before they walked onto the House floor for the rules suspension vote. “I recall as we were in the office just working on our speeches, how choked up we all got just contemplating that moment.”

Gunn had Rep. Lee Yancey, a Republican from Rankin County, come into his office to pray for the small group before they walked to the House floor for the vote.

On the floor, White delivered what some consider one of the best speeches given on the floor of the Mississippi House of Representatives. Many of his colleagues and visitors in the gallery openly wept.

Then came the moment so many people had been waiting so long for. The final vote on the House rules suspension was actually one vote better than Gunn counted the night before: 85 yeas, 35 nays. 

House members applauded for several minutes. Cheers echoed through the halls of the Capitol. Visitors hugged and wiped tears from their faces.

A couple hours later, the Senate followed suit, voting to suspend its rules to consider the bill. The biggest procedural hurdles had been overcome, and everyone knew the flag would be changed the very next day.

As the House votes on the rules suspension were tallied, Gunn held back tears from the speaker’s podium.

“It’s hard to describe,” Gunn said when asked about his feelings during that moment. “This had been a long journey. Five years to the month of being out front and advocating for this, such a long time that nobody had really bought in. You just feel like it’s all been worth it because we’ve now turned a corner in the history of our state. The magnitude of that moment, I don’t think any of us even realized it at the time.”

The next day, on June 28, the House passed the bill that actually changed the flag — the historic event but just a formality after Saturday’s rules suspension. Nine House Republicans who had voted against suspending the rules on Saturday actually voted to change the flag on Sunday — a change of heart certainly prompted by the overwhelmingly positive press the state had received the day before. The Senate passed its flag bill a few minutes later on June 28.

The state flag that had flown over Mississippi for 126 years had been furled for good.

“Just to think that flag will be flying long after we’re all gone, both from the Legislature and this life, it was just a momentous occasion,” Gunn said in the interview earlier this year. “Everybody involved in the process can take pride in the fact that they played a role in that history and put forward an image that’s positive.”

For five years, Gunn was on a limb in his party. He remained patient, even while taking criticism from several political factions, and he watched carefully for the right moment to move. 

When that moment came in June 2020, as thousands of Mississippians and millions of Americans protested racial inequality, Gunn challenged his fellow Republicans to think about their neighbors, the future of the state and their own individual legacies. He coordinated critical meetings and asked religious, university and sports leaders to get involved at key inflection points. He strategically pieced together the legislative coalition necessary to make the change based on the relationships he’d built over the past several months and years.

After the final vote on June 28, Gunn called a press conference outside the House chamber and invited several lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats alike — to give speeches. Several lawmakers got choked up as they talked about the significance of the vote and the moment.

But when it came time for Gunn to speak, he gave credit for the change to everyone but himself.

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Last year, DeeDee Baldwin, a history research librarian at Mississippi State University, saw firsthand how her community came together to keep each other safe during the pandemic.

The faculty asked for a classroom mask mandate, the provost made it happen. It seemed to Baldwin like the custodial staff were always on campus. Professors worked with students who missed assignments or couldn’t come to class. 

“Everybody from the leadership on down really came together to do their best with a bad situation,” Baldwin said. “I think the last year really showed us the importance of working together and remembering that we live in a society and we depend on each other.” 

That is why Baldwin was alarmed when, in late April, she received a notice from the Office of Public Affairs that MSU would be lifting the mask mandate for some indoor locations on campus starting in May. Social distancing requirements would be relaxed by 75%. 

In a Facebook group, other faculty at MSU also questioned the logic of relaxing these safety guidelines with Mississippi’s vaccination rate lagging behind the rest of the country and murmurings of rapidly spreading Delta variant. Then one of Baldwin’s colleagues, Andrea Spain, an English professor at MSU, suggested they speak up. 

So they did. Along with two colleagues, Baldwin and Spain put together a letter urging the Institutions of Higher Learning to require the COVID-19 vaccine for all students at Mississippi’s eight public universities this fall. Since students comprise the majority of the campus population, they view this as the quickest way to reach herd immunity and ensure that the most vulnerable people in the community are protected. 

“We must protect all members of the university community,” the letter reads, “especially those who cannot be vaccinated due to medical conditions and/or are immunocompromised.”

The letter also asks that universities in Mississippi not cease their mask mandates and social distancing until a majority of the campus is vaccinated. 

“I keep hearing people say, ‘Oh it’s a personal decision,’” to get vaccinated, Baldwin said, “and I’m like, no it’s not. This affects other people. It’s not just a personal decision; it’s a community decision.” 

The letter has been live for over a month, and in that time, nearly 250 faculty, staff, students and community members across the state have signed it. And their requests have taken on new urgency as Mississippi is still the least vaccinated state in the country, with only 31 percent of the population fully vaccinated against COVID-19. And the CDC has now warned that Mississippi is one of five states where the Delta variant could have the worst impact. 

Yet the universities are still trying to return to normal. In early June, MSU completely relaxed its social distancing requirements and lifted its mask mandate entirely. Some faculty were asked to take signs urging mask-wearing off their office doors. Privately, untenured professors reached out to Spain to express their concern. 

“People don’t necessarily feel safe to voice what can seem like an unpopular opinion,” Spain said. “But of course, it’s actually not an unpopular opinion for universities to require vaccinations.” 

Spain referred to a tracker maintained by the Chronicle of Higher Education which shows as of press time that 570 campuses in 36 states are requiring the COVID vaccine of at least some students or employees. 

“What we’re asking is not radical; institutions do this already,” Spain said. “This is a valid, important position, and many people hold it.” 

There appears to be confusion as to whether universities can require students to get the vaccine. In a March faculty senate meeting at MSU, President Mark Keenum was asked if the school planned to require the vaccine. 

“We’re gonna promote it as aggressively as we can,” he answered. “As far as the mandate, I had the same question—I talked to our attorneys, and I’ll just read to you what was shared with me from our own internal legal staff. 

“Mississippi law and IHL board policies require that students obtain certain vaccinations before attending an IHL institution,” Keenum read, looking down at his notes. “However, this does not currently include the COVID-19 vaccine. So unless the state law or the IHL board policy is amended, we can’t legally force someone to have a vaccine,” he finished. 

Keenum reassured the attendees that his office has had “some discussions about this” and that he plans to “have dialogue among IHL institutions, with our commissioner” about a possible mandate. 

“But again, the board would have to approve that,” he said. “Or the state could amend these vaccination requirements for a student to be able to enroll in any public university.” 

The University of Mississippi has also said it can’t mandate the COVID-19 vaccine until IHL amends its policy to include it, according to a June 25 article in the Daily Journal.

But IHL doesn’t appear to agree. In an email to Mississippi Today, Caron Blanton, the IHL spokesperson, wrote that the board’s policy does not prevent the universities from requiring vaccinations that aren’t expressly included. IHL’s policy, Blanton wrote, “represents the minimum requirements that must be enforced by the universities. Additional requirements are not prohibited.” 

The trustees have yet to publicly discuss the possibility of a vaccine requirement, but in the past, the board has been reluctant to implement system-wide mandates in response to the pandemic. Last April, IHL commissioner Alfred Rankins convened a task force “to craft a system-level plan for starting and completing the fall 2020 semester in the safest and most effective way.” In its recommendations issued in May, the task force’s baseline practice for schools was to “strongly encourage wearing face coverings while on campus,” despite the governor’s executive order implementing a state-wide school mask mandate. 

Gov. Tate Reeves could issue an executive order mandating students receive the COVID vaccine, but he is unlikely to. And Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state health officer, said at a forum in early June that “in college, where you do have an opportunity to get vaccinated and the outcomes are relatively mild for the majority of college folks, it’s hard to really raise the level of necessity to that level. Right now it doesn’t seem to be justified.” 

Baldwin and Spain plan to send the letter in mid-July to the IHL board, Reeves, Dobbs and the lieutenant governor and speaker of the house. It will be open to signatures until then. 

One of those signatories is Ann Fisher-Wirth, a poet and professor at the University of Mississippi. Until she received the second dose of the COVID vaccine in March, Fisher-Wirth, who is 74 and has rheumatoid arthritis, said she took “all the precautions.” That meant teaching and attending academic conferences over Zoom, no travelling to see her kids, no browsing Square Books or giving poetry readings, and shopping at one store only. For a while she washed her groceries. She always wore a mask.

Now fully vaccinated, Fisher-Wirth taught in-person this summer for the first time since the pandemic began. 

“Students do not sit six feet apart from each other,” she said, “They sit closer than that. They sit right next to their friends.” 

This week, she finally took a trip to see her children. She has tried to feel optimistic that the end of the pandemic is in sight, but she isn’t sure she can trust her community to come together. 

“People always talk a big game, ‘oh we’re one big family,’” Fisher-Wirth said. “But ‘one big family’ means that people look out for each other, and they don’t just think of what they want, they also think of what … would be beneficial for the people around them.” 

“I would not like to feel like I have to retire because of this,” she added. “I really enjoy teaching, I love being in the classroom, I love reaching those students, but I am immunocompromised. I’d like to feel protected.”

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