It seems that evil never sleeps. On February 19, 2024, Mississippi Republican Senator John Polk submitted Senate Bill 2726 “to provide that the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning shall choose three of the state institutions of higher learning to close by June 30, 2028.” As such, the Mississippi legislature now has a bill before it to close three of its universities by 2028. The bill is currently in the MS State Senate Universities and Colleges Committee, where it needs a majority vote to be submitted to the full body for a vote. Here is a link to the members of that committee, of which the Republicans outnumber the Democrats 10 – 3. To read a summary of the bill go here and here. To read the full bill, go here.
Those of us familiar with the struggle of Mississippi’s three Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) realize that this is the same type of legislation that was submitted during the early 90s to close and/or merge Mississippi’s three HBCUs—Jackson State University, Alcorn State University, and Mississippi Valley State University. By 1992, JSU alum and civil rights Attorney Alvin Chambliss had successfully litigated the Ayers Lawsuit in the US Supreme Court in which Jake Ayers filed suit against the State College Board/IHL, showing that it had willfully withheld funds and engaged in discriminatory funding practices against the State’s three HBCUs, even after they had met the benchmarks to receive their funding. In response to the lawsuit, SCOTUS ruled that Mississippi had engaged in discriminatory funding practices against its HBCUs and proposed several sweeping changes. But, rather than impose the changes itself, SCOTUS returned the case to Mississippi with its suggestions, which included a plan for the continued operation of all eight public universities, noting that, if a compromise was not accomplished, it would impose its measures. To be clear, in its findings and suggestions, SCOTUS planned for all of Mississippi’s eight universities to remain open and to be funded equitably. However, in response to the SCOTUS ruling and remanding the case back to Mississippi, the State College Board/IHL, under the direction of Board President W. Ray Cleere, presented a plan to merge JSU and ASU into PWIs and turn MVSU into a prison, effectively closing all of the state’s public HBCUs (Smith). Here is a link to an October 23, 1992, article published in theNew York Times, which discusses Mississippi’s plan to close and/or merge its public HBCUs, and here is a link to a video in which former NAACP leader Ben Jealous discusses being “in Mississippi in the early 1990s with Stacey Abrams, current NCAAP President and CEO Derrick Johnson, and comedian Dave Chappelle when they tried to stop the governor from turning Mississippi Valley State University into a prison” while merging Jackson State and Alcorn with PWIs.
Once the case was remanded to the state, Attorney Chambliss understood that the majority white, Republican, and racist state legislature and College Board/IHL had no plans of implementing any of the Supreme Court’s suggestions or mandates. At that point, he sent a call to the youth, primarily Mississippi’s black college students, and that call was first answered by Tougaloo College students Derrick Johnson and Berthrone Mock Muhammad who would connect with and organize the SGA leaders of JSU, ASU, and MVSU. This led to a two-year movement from the fall of 1992 with various rallies and marches that culminated in the spring of 1994 into one of the largest mass movement events in the history of Mississippi when HBCU students from all over the nation—this writer included—marched from the campus of JSU to the Mississippi Capitol, creating such a public outcry that the State College Board/IHL tabled talks of merging its HBCUs.
Unfortunately, the operative word in the previous sentence was “tabled” because by 2009 the State College Board/IHL was, once again, proposing to merge Mississippi’s three HBCUs into one school. Here and here are two articles from 2009 that document this attempt. While the HBCUs were able to survive this second attempt, the process revealed that then JSU President Ronald Mason had developed a plan to merge the three HBCUs, and outcry from JSU students, faculty, staff, alumni, and others ultimately led to Mason leaving JSU for another institution. (In full transparency, some JSU stakeholders supported Mason then and now, but the vast majority of JSU stakeholders felt they could no longer trust Mason.) To provide complete historical context to where we are today, in relation to 1992, 2009, and even more attacks on Mississippi’s HBCUs, here is a link to my appearance on KC 1400 Media in February 2023, discussing the four times that the Mississippi legislature has attempted to move, merge, or close JSU, starting as early as 1920.
Lately I’ve invoked Martin Niemoller’s poem, “First They Came,” which vividly explains what happens when people remain silent about evil due to fear or apathy. This isn’t the first legislation that Polk has authored to reduce access to education for Afro-Mississippians or to attack the city of Jackson. Sadly, far too many Afro-Mississippians and African Americans don’t seem to realize that this attack on the city of Jackson and Mississippi’s HBCUs is just one battle in the ultimate war of the neo-Confederates to reestablish Jim Crow. So, just because it’s happening to Jackson, MS, and Mississippi’s HBCUs today doesn’t mean that it won’t happen to others elsewhere tomorrow. In fact, Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin stated “that if state lawmakers passed a bill barring diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the state’s public schools and universities, he would encourage parents of minority student-athletes to select colleges in states ‘where diversity and inclusion are prioritized’” (Bunn). And, of course, in Florida, they already passed legislation to implement a curriculum that teaches that slavery benefited some black people since it taught them useful skills. So, all over America, the neo-Confederates are working to reestablish Jim Crow, incrementally, until the vast numbers of African Americans are returned to the caste of permanent labor base. For those who wonder why they should care about attacks on and the closing of HBCUs, 80% of all black judges are produced by HBCUs, 50% of all black lawyers are produced by HBCUs, 50% of all black doctors are produced by HBCUs, 20% of all black STEM professionals are produced by HBCUs, and JSU produces more minority doctorates than any other public university. Moreover, HBCUs do a better job preparing their undergraduates for grad schools, as 8 of the top 10 and 19 of the top 50 institutions whose African-American undergrads continue to “earn a research doctorate (usually a Ph.D.)” are HBCUs (Nietzel). Furthermore, HBCUs move African-American undergrads from the lower economic status to the middle-class status at more “than twice” the rate of PWIs and “five times that of Ivy League institutions” (“HBCUs Fuel the American Middle Class”). Therefore, the remaining question is: how many Afro-Mississippians and/or African Americans will heed Niemoller’s call. Of course, only time will tell. I just hope that they soon realize that they don’t have nearly as much time as they think they have.