Judge rules state can't close Mississippi universities to desegregate system

Jet, March 27, 1995

A federal judge in Mississippi has refused to let the state close the mostly Black Mississippi Valley State University or the mostly White Mississippi University for Women to desegregate the state's system of higher education.

U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers ordered the state to establish one set of admissions standards for all eight of its universities without closing any. As they are now, admissions standards vary from school to school, with less stringent requirements at the Black institutions.

The ruling was the most recent development in a 20-year legal battle that began in 1975 after Jake Ayers, a Black state resident, and other plaintiffs began an effort to get more financial support for historically Black institutions. With the support of the U.S. Department of Justice, the plaintiffs took the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Justices ruled in 1992 that simply erasing the barriers to Blacks attempting to enroll in previously White institutions was not enough and that the state had to eradicate a number of other vestiges of the dual systems.

The high court also called the predominantly Black institutions educationally inferior and underfunded. The state responded with a plan to shut down Mississippi Valley State, and merge its 2,300 students with the mostly White Delta State. It also proposed merging the mostly White Mississippi University for Women with the mostly White Mississippi State University. Biggers ruled the plan didn't go far enough.

Alvin Chambliss Jr., the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case told Jet, "This is a total victory on liability. It's what we went to court for under Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954."

Chambliss added: "It's a 100 percent victory for what we went to court for. The state can no longer lie and say they didn't discriminate. But there is a serious question about remedy and we intend to address that. The judge imposed his own remedy and we'll have to see if the judge has gone far enough. He put forth remedies without input from us [the plaintiffs]."

Judge Biggers also required the state to spend about $30 million beginning in July 1996 as part of a program to improve the state's three historically Black universities - Jackson State, Mississippi Valley State and Alcorn State.

Judge Biggers also ordered:

* Creation of a commission to consider giving Jackson State graduate schools of engineering, law and pharmacy.

* Creation of doctoral programs in business, social work and urban planning at Jackson State University.

* Creation of a $5 million endowment at Alcorn State to help attract more White students.

Mississippi Valley State President, Dr. William W. Sutton, who has headed the school since 1988, expressed some disappointment in the judge's proposal.

"The judge indicated we do not have to merge or close for now, but the board is to come back by July 1, 1996, to provide the judge with more evidence on why we should be merged or stay open, so we're still left with the question hanging over our head. We're still dangling. We've been dangling for 20 years and we're still dangling."