Well I personally think that the case still hasn't been settled. Since the court turn down this appeal the state of the rebel flag says they don't have the funds to support it. But if you remember about 2 or 3 years ago. The state college board voted to turn the USM campus on the coast so that it can allow students to receive a 4 year degree there. Now with the state being short of money, wouldn't have been smart to wait on that until they took care of the responsibilities with the Ayers.
What I am hoping and praying for is that ASU, JSU, and MVSU are not cut out of the regular funding that the state gives. If this happens, I guess we will have to go back to court. Another thing that many do not know is that before the school can get a portion of the money (the endowment funds) they must have a 10% minority enrollment for 3 consecutive years. Here's an article that was posted today.
Biggers laments schools litigation
Courts' role in higher education should be limited, judge says
The federal judge who for 20 years held sway over resolving inequities in the state's university system says courts should play a limited role in education.
"Courts are not supposed to run higher education. They are only supposed to provide an equal playing field,'' U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. told The Clarion-Ledger. "It's for the Legislature and administration to run higher education.''
In a wide-ranging interview, Biggers reflected on the Ayers higher education desegregation case, which he dismissed but had to preside over again after the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to him on appeal.
That court, which in 1992 had found vestiges of segregation in the state's universities, last week refused to hear an appeal by a splinter group of plaintiffs unhappy with a $503 million settlement agreement.
The Oct. 18 decision ended the lawsuit the late Jake Ayers Sr. filed in 1975, accusing the state of decades of neglect of its historically black universities.
Over the years, the tone of the case changed, Biggers said.
"The remedy for the situation was not to enhance segregated facilities, but to desegregate the facilities. Some of the plaintiffs, it seemed, wanted equal, segregated facilities,'' he said.
Alvin O. Chambliss Jr., the original plaintiff attorney and the attorney for Ayers' widow, Lillie B. Ayers, and other plaintiffs dissatisfied with the settlement, said the case has meant affirmative action for white students and denial of equal opportunity for black students.
"If that's desegregation, we lost," Chambliss said. "It was a noble effort, but we lost."
Chambliss said desegregation has been achieved the way white people define it: by having more black people go to white schools.
But the way Chambliss defines desegregation ? more black students at both black and white universities and more white students at black universities ? has not been achieved, he said.
Biggers called the settlement worked out by plaintiffs, the U.S. Department of Justice, the College Board and others reasonable.
"It was what all the parties wanted done. It did not violate the constitution. It maybe went beyond what the constitution required,'' he said.
Both monetarily and policywise, however, the settlement did not go as far as some plaintiffs wanted. They favored open admissions.
Biggers said he believed the open admissions plan submitted early on would have driven up dropout rates.
Students would have "gone to college who were not prepared to go to college,'' he said. At a number of universities with open admissions across the nation, it has been "a disaster,'' he said.
"The main plus of the (Ayers) case is that the new admission standards are now such that an African American can go to Ole Miss as easily as they can go to Mississippi Valley State and historically white colleges are open to blacks and whites,'' Biggers said.
To meet regular admission standards, students need at least a 2.5 grade-point average in college-prep classes and a 16 on the ACT college entrance exam or a 2.0 GPA with an 18 on the ACT.
Admission requirements were changed under Ayers after plaintiffs argued that requiring an ACT score of 15 for regular admission to the five historically white universities kept some black students from attending. The three historically black universities ? Mississippi Valley State, Jackson State and Alcorn State ? required a 13, but some students got in with at least a 9.
A Summer Developmental Program was implemented for students who don't meet regular admission standards. Nearly all program participants are black and most attend the historically black universities.
Chambliss said the problem with the program is that about 1,200 students who were in school under the old admission standards at the historically black universities now are not attending college.
Biggers noted the state's five historically white universities are actively recruiting African Americans. "Today, there is no longer a question of an African American going to one set of colleges, and the colleges have been upgraded,'' he said.
A state College Board plan in the Ayers case in the early 1990s to close Valley and Mississippi University for Women "became a very unreasonable solution,'' Biggers recalled.
Biggers noted the College Board and the Legislature were allocating millions of dollars at the two universities while the closure proposal was in his lap at a 10-week trial in Oxford in 1994. "On one side of their mouth, they (board members) want to close them, on the other side, they were spending millions of dollars,'' the 69-year-old judge said.
In his 1995 order, Biggers, a graduate of Millsaps College and the University of Mississippi School of Law, left all eight Mississippi universities open with new admission standards.
The case has its "pluses and minuses,'' said the conservative federal judge who joined the bench in 1984. "If the state could afford to enhance all the universities, it is certainly a plus,'' Biggers said. He said he hopes the state finds the money "without an undue burden on taxpayers.''
"I always thought the state could ill afford the amount of a half billion extra over the normal budgets" into the three historically black universities, Biggers said.
The settlement calls for $503 million over 17 years. In the midst of another budget crunch, lawmakers say that will be difficult to provide. But Jackson State junior Sherie Dean, 22, of Madison, said she hopes the Legislature keeps the settlement dollars flowing to the three black universities. "Regardless of how long it takes, they need to take care of the funding,'' she said. "It is the state's duty to see that the schools are equipped with the things they need.''
Despite some tough financial times facing the Legislature in 2005, 2nd District U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the lead plaintiff, said there shouldn't be any excuses for not honoring the agreement.
A hearing for attorney fees is about all that's left before Biggers in the case.
