The settlement that aimed to desegregate higher education in Mississippi, explained

[bernard]

The settlement that capped off a landmark case in the fight to desegregate higher education in Mississippi is about to run out.

Come July, the Legislature will have fulfilled its obligations in the $503 million payout that effectively ended the class-action lawsuit known as Ayers v. Fordice. And advocates for the historically Black public universities in Mississippi will start to look at whether it made up for more than a century of segregation.

In 1975, Jake Ayers, a civil rights activist from Glen Allan, sued the state of Mississippi on behalf of his son, a student at Jackson State University. Ayers alleged that lawmakers, the IHL board, and the predominantly white universities used nearly a dozen policies and practices to prop up a dual system of higher education: One for Black students and one for white students.

After years of negotiations, the suit went to trial in 1982. A federal district judge in Oxford ruled that Mississippi universities had done enough to desegregate simply by adopting some “race-neutral policies.”

The settlement that aimed to desegregate higher education in Mississippi, explained

It’s been 20 years since Mississippi’s HBCUs settled for $500 million. Here’s what happened since.

mississippitoday.org

 

[bernard]

During its April meeting, the State Institutions of Higher Learning staff distributed to the board, and subsequently to the public, a budgetary report which showed that the Ayers allocations – $1.45 million each to Alcorn State University (ASU) and Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) and $3.8 million to Jackson State University (JSU) – end this fiscal year. The Ayers case had originally been filed in January 1975, alleging that the historically Black institutions of higher learning had been and continued to be discriminated against in terms of funding, among other things. Then, for more than 30 years, the case wound its way through the courts before being settled with relatively small monetary allocations being awarded to those universities.

Despite the allocations ending, however, many issues that underlie the case are perpetual.

(1) This Spring, the board authorized a study regarding the building of a football stadium for JSU. This is an issue raised by the plaintiffs in the original filing of the case. Their position was that since JSU did not have a stadium of its own and that Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium was located in Jackson, as was JSU, ownership of the stadium should be transferred to JSU. Then, in a somewhat deceptive move, the board, in the settlement agreement, declared that the stadium would be known as the home of the Jackson State University Tigers. To now pressure JSU to move out of the stadium is an apparent reneging on sentiment, if not the substance of the settlement.

Ayers settlement funding ending, case issues continue - Jackson Advocate

During its April meeting, the State Institutions of Higher Learning staff distributed to the board, and subsequently to the public, a budgetary report which showed that the Ayers allocations – $1.45 million each to Alcorn State University (ASU) and Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) and...

jacksonadvocateonline.com