Here is the report
If the courts are going to usurp authority and force the Legislature to spend tax money on something, it might as well be education.
The Ayers case was not about race and unequal funding. It was about usurpation of the courts in an area they had no business. This has been the most significant political trend in our country over the last century.
How can funding be racially discriminatory when all Mississippi students are free to attend any school they so desire? There can be no doubt that our three largest universities - Southern, Ole Miss and State - have better facilities and better teachers. Any student who wants to benefit from that funding should attend those schools. That logic is so basic, so simple, so straightforward.
It is mind boggling that our courts can drag this affair out for 20 years and usurp legislative powers in the process over logic that is completely faulty at its core.
Our so-called African-American universities are vestiges of a period of segregation. If government acted sensibly, many of these schools would have been closed once segregation ended. But in our system, once a program or school is created it develops a special interest group associated with it that keeps on going beyond the point of reason.
So be it. If you are going to waste money, it might as well be on education. Let's leave the predominantly African-American universities as a second-tier alternative to those students who lack the desire or qualifications to attend our better universities. But to have a court order the Legislature to fund these second-tier schools based on some judicially derived formula is nothing less than absurd.
Ayers will just perpetuate the segregation of our colleges by making the African-American schools more attractive, thus creating an incentive for African-Americans not to go to Ole Miss, State and Southern.
This is not unlike the misguided Justice Department policies at the secondary school level where busing caused white flight to private schools. As a result of these federal policies, many parts of our state now have a completely segregated system - whites in the private schools, blacks in the public ones.
The Ayers decision will ultimately reduce the resources available to improve our top schools. This will hurt education in our state and drive our best students out of state. It will make our top schools noncompetitive on a regional basis.
We should be urging African-Americans to exploit our best schools to their advantage by enrolling. This would create true integration and African-American advancement.
By heaping more money on what amounts to a de facto all-black system by personal choice, we are perpetuating the segregationist policies that will keep Mississippi from advancing.
Wyatt Emmerich of Jackson is president of Emmerich Newspapers and publisher of the Northside Sun.
Now here are some disturbing things.
Our so-called African-American universities are vestiges of a period of segregation. If government acted sensibly, many of these schools would have been closed once segregation ended.
This is what those Ole' Boys think of all of our schools.
But in our system, once a program or school is created it develops a special interest group associated with it that keeps on going beyond the point of reason.
Let's leave the predominantly African-American universities as a second-tier alternative to those students who lack the desire or qualifications to attend our better universities. But to have a court order the Legislature to fund these second-tier schools based on some judicially derived formula is nothing less than absurd.
This is what those Ole' Boys thinks of all of us.
Ayers will just perpetuate the segregation of our colleges by making the African-American schools more attractive, thus creating an incentive for African-Americans not to go to Ole Miss, State and Southern.
This is what they do not want to happen.
The Ayers decision will ultimately reduce the resources available to improve our top schools. This will hurt education in our state and drive our best students out of state.
We should be urging African-Americans to exploit our best schools to their advantage by enrolling. This would create true integration and African-American advancement
This is another trick by Mr. Charlie. "Yes! Come to our top school and better facilities, so we can EXPLOIT you like we have been doing for XX years!"
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