Mississippi's crusading gadfly: while others maintain the fight is over, attorney Alvin Chambliss continues to breathe life into Mississippi's famed college desegregation case - Ayers v. Fordice - Cover Story

Black Issues in Higher Education, Jan 16, 2003 by B. Denise Hawkins

Attorney Alvin O. Chambliss Jr. says that as long as the Ayers v. Fordice case is alive, there's hope for Mississippi's three historically Black universities and for the liberation of Black America. Chambliss should know. For more than a quarter century he stubbornly has breathed life into Ayers, the protracted legal battle over the desegregation of Mississippi's higher education system.

Last spring, just as a $503 million settlement was approved by the 2002 Mississippi Legislature, signed by a federal judge and poised to put the litigation to rest, Chambliss decided to vigorously resuscitate the higher education desegregation case he has been synonymous with for 27 years (see Black Issues, May 10, 2001).

Late last month when most people were counting down the days until Christmas, Chambliss was ticking off the 29 days before he would file "the big brief" in mid-January. "When it comes together, this appeal will represent everything that we ever did in the Ayers case," Chambliss says.

The filing date is symbolic. It was 28 years ago this month that Jake Ayers Sr. filed the lawsuit in January 1975 on behalf of his son and other Black college students in Mississippi. Ayers, a factory worker and local civil rights activist from the tiny town of Glen Allan, Miss., accused the state of operating a segregated higher education system. He argued that Jackson State, Mississippi Valley State and Alcorn State universities were unequal, neglected and woefully underfunded compared to the state's five majority-White universities. In 1986, Ayers died never having seen the case reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Department of Justice, long critical of Mississippi's higher education system, sided with the plaintiffs. U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. ruled in 1987 that the state had done enough to end segregation in higher education. But in its 1992 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court called the predominantly Black institutions inferior and underfunded. The high court then ordered Mississippi to remove all vestiges of its dual system.

But many of the court's proposed remedies angered Black plaintiffs who felt they already were shouldering the brunt of dismantling the segregated system. Among the remedies--an imposition of uniform admissions standards for all state universities as well as the creation of special financial incentives to attract White students to HBCUs. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1997 that Mississippi's public colleges and universities were still identifiable as White or Black despite more than a decade of litigation.

At his Houston home turned legal office, Chambliss rummages among the 15 boxes of legal transcripts from hearings in the landmark case dating back to 1975. He knows there should be 16 boxes, and is angry he can't get the court to give him the materials he needs to help him wage his next fight. He says withholding the records is not only illegal, but also racist. "They don't expect for me to make a showing, but I'm going to do it anyway," vows a determined Chambliss.

For Chambliss, his dedication to Ayers is akin to a religious calling. In 1998, Jake Mills, an aide to Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice, called Chambliss foolhardy when he walked away from a $3.5 million payday he was poised to earn in legal fees and expenses when the state attempted an Ayers settlement. Thinking back, Chambliss says, "I would have been financially secure for the rest of my life, but that's not what this is about."

Two years later in 2002, U.S. Congressman and original Ayers plaintiff Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., attempted another settlement in which Chambliss and more than a dozen other attorneys and organizations affiliated with the case over time would have shared $2.5 million in fees. Again, Chambliss decided not to settle or receive payment. Thompson did not return calls for this story.

In a Feb. 15, 2002, news release issued on the judgment in the Ayers settlement, Thompson embraced the agreement, calling the $503 million "a down payment on the equal education opportunities for students who chose to attend Alcorn State, Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State universities.

Chambliss' dedication has not come without consequences. He was a law professor at Houston's Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University until last summer, when he lost his teaching post. He blames Mississippi legislators for coercing university administrators into dismissing him because of his appeals in the Ayers litigation.

"Texas Southern didn't give me any real reason for dismissing me," recalls Chambliss, who had a three-year contract with the law school. He says he was not notified in writing that he would be terminated until Aug. 29, (2002) the start of a new academic year.

Chambliss also claims that his vigorous pursuit of the landmark litigation cost him his job as a staff attorney with North Mississippi Rural Legal Services, where he worked immediately before taking the position at Texas Southern.

To some in the state and in the higher education community, the fiery Chambliss is a thorn in the side they wish would just go away. They charge that he is the only thing standing between Mississippi's three HBCUs and the multimillion-dollar settlement on the table. His opponents are virtually assured that his appeal will be rejected. But if Chambliss has his way, Ayers will find its way back before the U.S. Supreme Court. "That's all we have to pray for," Chambliss says. "We're close."