Miss. HBCU Has New Competition for Students, Funds

Black Issues in Higher Education, Dec 23, 1999

JACKSON, Miss. -- In a ruling praised by education partisans on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a federal judge will allow a four-year college program to begin accepting students as early as next summer, if funding allows. Eight months after blocking college expansion plans on the Gulf Coast, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. ruled earlier this month that the University of Southern Mississippi's new classes should not hurt historically Black state universities.

Coastal leaders had complained of limited educational opportunities in the populous area. The ruling eliminated one of the last barriers for Southern Mississippi to have a four-year school in Long Beach.

Black plaintiffs in a 24-year-old college desegregation case had convinced Biggers in March to halt Southern Mississippi's plans to admit freshmen and sophomores in Long Beach. Juniors and seniors are the only ones attending the campus now. The plaintiffs contended that predominantly Black Alcorn State, Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State are already underfunded and would be financially impacted by a new campus.

"Although the court is not convinced that the Legislature is fully cognizant of the financial demands this undertaking will require in future years as an annual budget expenditure, nevertheless the court has no reason to question at this point the state's willingness and ability to fund all the higher education needs, including the Gulf Coast expansion," Biggers wrote in the ruling made public earlier this month.

Higher Education Commissioner Thomas Layzell said the College Board was pleased with the ruling and would "work with the Legislature on the funding request so that students can be admitted as early as June 2000."

The College Board had agreed last January to allow the expansion. The 1999 Legislature provided no money for new classes because of Biggers' earlier decision, but lawmakers said they would give USM-Gulf Coast at least $500,000 in 2000 if the federal court was satisfied.

Biggers had ruled last March that proposed admission requirements for the new students at the coast campus did not comply with requirements in a 1995 order to desegregate the state's universities.

USM-Gulf Coast had planned to require applicants to write an essay and they wanted to limit admission to students who live on the coast. Those requirements were dropped.

Biggers is overseeing court-ordered desegregation of the eight state universities. Mississippi had been sued in 1975 by the late Jake Ayers Sr. over conditions at the Black colleges.