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Despite a longtime nationwide backslide in learning, a new report has found that Mississippi continues to outpace most of the country in post-pandemic recovery. 

Mississippi ranks No. 7 out of 38 states in academic growth in math and No. 7 out of 35 states in reading between 2022 and 2025, according to an Education Scorecard analysis released Wednesday. 

The Education Scorecard examines how students in third to eighth grades are recovering from learning losses, amid what researchers say is a national reading recession that predates the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruptions in schooling. Researchers from Harvard and Stanford universities and Dartmouth College analyzed students’ state test scores from more than 5,000 school districts in 38 states, allowing comparisons across districts and states. 

What researchers found was sobering: Only five states plus the District of Columbia had meaningful growth in reading test scores from 2022 to 2025. Nationally, students remain nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic reading scores and only slightly better in math. 

While schools have focused on catching students up academically since the pandemic, reading test scores were falling long before then — since 2013 for eighth graders and 2015 for fourth graders, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

“The pandemic was the mudslide that had followed seven years of steady erosion in achievement,” said Thomas Kane, a Harvard professor who helped create the Education Scorecard.

Mississippi showed negligible growth in average reading scores during that time frame: 0.03 grade levels higher in reading in 2025 than in 2022. And the average student is performing 0.22 grade equivalents below 2019 levels. 

In math, the average student in Mississippi performed 0.4 grade levels higher in 2025 compared with 2022, but 0.31 grade equivalents below 2019 levels. 

Almost every state in the analysis saw improvements in math test scores from 2022 to 2025.

Across the country, the states that improved reading scores all had one thing in common: They ordered schools to teach with a phonics-based approach known as the “science of reading.” 

For years, schools taught reading using approaches that de-emphasized phonics and encouraged strategies such as guessing words based on context clues. As reading scores tumbled over the past decade, parents, scholars and literacy advocates pushed for teaching methods that align with decades of research about how kids learn to read — largely by sounding out words.

The South was quick to adopt the approach. For the last decade, the region has led the way on education reforms, bucking an established trend of landing at the bottom of education rankings. Southern states were quick to change to research-based teaching methods, and states have paid to train and coach teachers.

According to the scorecard, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Kentucky all improved both math and reading test scores since 2022.

Mississippi adopted a law in 2013 requiring phonics-based instruction for elementary students and deploying reading coaches for teachers across the state and saw significant progress on NAEP scores for the following decade. This year, the Mississippi Legislature extended that reading initiative into higher grades in an attempt to extend those gains, and established a math act modeled after the reading act. 

That said, “science of reading” reforms do not guarantee success, the researchers found. Some states, including Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, changed parts of their reading instruction but still saw test scores fall.

And even though absenteeism declined in most states, chronic absenteeism, or students missing more than 10% of the school year, remains a looming threat in Mississippi and other states. Chronic absenteeism hovers around 28% in Mississippi, almost 13% above pre-pandemic levels.

The report also found that federal pandemic relief to schools — which totaled about $2.52 billion or $5,700 per student in Mississippi — was tied to gains in high-poverty districts. Post-pandemic recovery has been U-shaped, the report’s authors said, with larger improvements among the highest-income and the lowest-income school districts in the country. 

The report’s authors recommend that in light of dried up federal funding, Mississippi should focus dollars on middle- and high-poverty districts that trail their pre-pandemic achievement levels. They also recommend focusing efforts on lowering student absenteeism and pairing rising star districts with peers. 

One such district in Mississippi is Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District, which is outperforming its peers in both math and reading. 

“Sustained progress doesn’t happen by chance — it comes from aligning strong instruction, empowered leadership, and intentional supports, so every student has the opportunity to succeed,” Starkville Oktibbeha Superintendent Tony McGee said in a press release about the Education Scorecard report.

While the Jackson County Utility Authority was able to quickly repair a leak that dumped approximately 550,000 gallons of untreated sewage into the Pascagoula River this past weekend, officials say the issue is part of a larger infrastructure need decades in the making.

The leak has led the state to issue a water contact advisory on Monday.

Eric Page, the authority’s executive director, said recent rainfall put stress on the sewer system, causing a section of a line installed roughly 50 years ago to rupture. Pascagoula officials alerted the utility about the leak on Saturday night and it was able to fix the leak Sunday afternoon, Page said.

“ We’re thinking that the pressure over time, the stress that was on the pipe from that rain event, then the amount of sewage that it was having to pump because of the stormwater infiltration into the sewer system, it just ultimately collapsed,” Page told Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Department of Enviornmental Quality issued the water contact advisory for Comynie Bayou and the stretch of the Pascagoula River between the west end of Delmas Avenue south to the river’s mouth. “A number of residences” are near where the line break happened, Page said, adding that people use that stretch of the river for recreational boating.

While workers were able to fix the leak within a day, the utility director said the cast iron pipe that failed is part of a four-mile line installed in either the 1960s or 1970s that needs replacing.

“ We’re evaluating as part of our capital improvements plan strategy how to replace that pipe sometime over the next couple of years,” Page said. “The cost for that replacement project would end up being probably well in excess of $10 million. So that’s not something you can just do on a whim.”

The Mississippi Legislature created the Jackson County Utility Authority in 2006. Before then, the utility was part of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Regional Wastewater Authority, which was established in 1981. The regional authority inherited the sewer infrastructure from local entities, Page said.

Last weekend’s sewer leak is just the latest wastewater issue on the Coast. State officials in recent years have raised the alarm on untreated sewage from houseboats pouring directly into the Pascagoula River, the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center reported last year. While MDEQ said water testing showed no signs of contamination, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources called it a “huge issue.”

Mississippi beaches have also struggled for years with water contact advisories due to high bacteria levels. While those are usually the result of “natural reasons” such as “high winds and significant rainfall,” they also can occur after a sewer line break, MDEQ’s website says. Just since 2024, the agency has issued 97 advisories due to “probable high bacteria levels” as part of its Mississippi Beach Monitoring Program.

Gov. Tate Reeves on Wednesday morning said he will cancel a special legislative session set for next week to redraw Mississippi’s state Supreme Court districts, but he indicated the state will redraw its four congressional districts at some point. 

Reeves, on SuperTalk radio, indicated that it would be difficult for the state to redraw the congressional districts in time for the upcoming midterm election and that it could hurt Republicans overall in congressional races if Mississippi did so.

Still, he stressed he wants the state to redraw congressional districts in the future and said Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson’s hold on one of Mississippi’s four congressional seats will end soon.

“The tenure of Congressman Bennie Thompson reigning terror on the 2nd Congressional District is over,” Reeves said. “It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when.” 

Reeves, a Republican, said his reason for calling off next week’s special session is the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturning an order from U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock that found the Mississippi Supreme Court districts violated the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power. Aycock had ordered the state to redraw them. 

But even though the appellate court tossed out Aycock’s initial order, it doesn’t mean that the litigation ended entirely. 

The plaintiffs in the case and the state, which is the defendant, filed a joint request with the 5th Circuit to overturn the lower court’s order and remand it for further legal work. 

The reason the parties asked to file additional arguments with Aycock is to debate, again, whether the districts violate the Voting Rights Act, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent landmark ruling in the Louisiana v. Callais case.

So Aycock could still rule at a later date that the districts violate federal law and again order the state to redraw them. She recently ordered the parties to file a joint status report by May 26 outlining how the case should proceed. 

The parties have not filed any recent court papers, but the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the parties involved in the litigation, previously said in a news release that it believes even under the new Callais standards, the state Supreme Court districts are discriminatory and violate federal law. 

The governor, however, said he wants the Legislature to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative districts in the future. He said he’s working closely with the Trump administration to determine when the state should move.

Even though the governor’s only agenda item for the special session was judicial redistricting, several Republican state lawmakers and President Donald Trump pressured Reeves to add congressional redistricting to the session as part of the president’s push to redraw many congressional districts into safe Republican ones.

Mississippi has already held primary elections for congressional seats, so Mississippi would have to nullify its party primaries and hold another round of elections to redistrict in time for the November midterms. 

“It’s complicated,” Reeves said. “Every issue surrounding redistricting is complicated, and I think it is fair to say that we are looking at every potential option as to what they may look like, and when is the best time to look at it.” 

If the state tossed out its primary elections results, Reeves said the state could set a nationwide precedent that would allow both Republican and Democratic-led states to cancel out primary elections. He said that could thwart what is expected to be a large net gain for Republican-leaning districts nationwide in the upcoming midterms.

But the governor said he expected lawmakers to redraw congressional, state legislative and state Supreme Court district lines between now and the 2027 statewide election cycle. 

House Speaker Jason White last week announced that he has formed a select committee that will study redistricting over the summer and fall and make recommendations.

The governor did not call anyone by name, but he said that certain officials who are considering a statewide run in 2027 have made redrawing congressional districts a top issue on social media recently and that they don’t understand how complex the issue is. One of the most vocal proponents of redrawing the districts is state Auditor Shad White, who is a likely candidate for governor next year. 

“This is going to be the silly season in Mississippi politics,” Reeves said. 

Mississippi by June will begin reviewing the eligibility of Medicaid providers deemed high risk for fraud as part of a Trump administration effort to weed out potential waste and abuse in the program. 

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, sent a letter on April 23 to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and Mississippi Medicaid Director Cindy Bradshaw, along with officials in all 50 states, directing them to share plans to swiftly revalidate high-risk Medicaid providers within 10 days and provide a two-year strategy for reviewing all providers within 30 days. 

“Our analysis of national trends strongly suggests a persistent and growing Medicaid threat posed by sophisticated actors knowingly exploiting these complex systems for financial gain,” Oz wrote.

In an April 30 reply to Oz obtained by Mississippi Today, Reeves said Mississippi will recertify all high-risk Medicaid providers not reviewed in the past year and the state will provide a plan for reviewing all providers to CMS within the 30-day deadline.

“I too share this critical commitment and look forward to working with our partners at CMS to ensure our Medicaid members receive high quality care from qualified and ethical providers,” Reeves wrote. 

Spokespersons for Reeves and the Mississippi Division of Medicaid did not respond to Mississippi Today’s questions about how they plan to execute the federal directives. Mississippi Medicaid spokesperson Matt Westerfield did not respond to questions about how Mississippi currently defines low-, medium- and high-risk providers. 

Federal regulations require state Medicaid agencies to screen all Medicaid providers at least once every five years. States must provide more stringent reviews of providers they determine could pose a high risk of financial fraud, waste or abuse to the program. 

Oz’s April request to states is a part of a broader federal campaign to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in public benefit programs. These efforts have been a priority of the Trump administration, though earlier efforts were focused primarily on Democratic-led states. The administration launched healthcare fraud investigations in California, Florida, Maine, Minnesota and New York this year before expanding its efforts to all states. 

Much of the administration’s focus on eliminating healthcare fraud has been concentrated on Minnesota. In February, Vice President JD Vance announced the federal government would withhold $249 million in federal Medicaid funding from Minnesota due to fraud concerns. States and the federal government share the cost of Medicaid programs. 

In response, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the state’s Department of Human Services filed a lawsuit arguing the federal government was illegally withholding Medicaid payments and jeopardizing health insurance access for more than 1 million Minnesotans enrolled in the program. 

The Mississippi Division of Medicaid, which administers health coverage to nearly 700,000 children and low-income pregnant, disabled or elderly Mississippians, paused the provider revalidation process during the COVID-19 pandemic, when some federal regulations were loosened, but resumed the reviews in October 2023, according to the Mississippi Division of Medicaid website. 

The agency revalidated 397 high-risk providers in the past year, accounting for 43% of the program’s high-risk providers, Reeves said in his April 30 letter to Oz. The letter did not say if any providers failed the revalidation process. 

Oz has called for states to review high-risk providers more frequently than federal law requires and implement more stringent reviews of those without a National Provider Identifier, a number used to identify covered healthcare providers. It is more common for atypical providers, or those who don’t deliver traditional medical services, like non-emergency medical transportation providers and personal care attendants, to lack an NPI, though they can acquire one. 

Reeves said in his letter to Oz that Mississippi’s risk levels are assigned “at or above the established risk levels of CMS,” and that all atypical providers, including those without an NPI, are designated high-risk. He said providers may also be elevated to high-risk status based on audit findings. 

Andy Schneider, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, acknowledged that a universal NPI requirement could be useful, but said he is not aware of evidence that suggests providers without NPIs commit fraud more frequently than those that do have the identifier. 

“Would it be better if everyone had an NPI? Sure,” Schneider said. “But that hasn’t been a requirement.” 

Khaylah Scott, program manager for Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, said it is important to ensure the process of revalidating providers without NPIs is completed carefully to ensure it does not jeopardize the care of people served by atypical providers, which often include seniors and disabled people. 

“It would be very unfortunate to see them go without their services because this process was done too swiftly,” Scott said.  

The call to complete a swift revalidation of providers comes as the Mississippi Division of Medicaid faces a vast budgetary shortfall. Lawmakers’ appropriation for the fiscal year that begins July 1 fell about $190 million short of what the agency requested. 

At the April 17 Medicaid Advisory Committee Meeting, Chief of Staff Jennifer Wentworth said the budget gap amounts to roughly $600 million to $700 million when factoring in the federal match funds Mississippi won’t receive as a result of the undersized state appropriation. 

This estimate could change when new actuarial reports are released, Bradshaw added, but the agency will likely need state lawmakers to appropriate additional money next year to cover the shortfall, or the agency could also be forced to cut provider payments. 

“I anticipate that it’s going to be a strategy of walking a thin line between making some cuts where we can, maybe implementing some rate increases … along with, in January, we will probably ask for a deficit appropriation, though I don’t think we’re even close to knowing what that amount will be,” Bradshaw said. 

The cost of completing the revalidation process will depend on how large the number of providers is and how many have recently been validated, Schneider said. 

He said the reviews could uncover bad actors diverting money away from the program and thus create savings for states, but the process can also be costly, time-consuming work for states with limited resources. 

“If you’re looking at the $600 million hole, this is not going to help you fill it,” Schneider said. 

According to the Mississippi Division of Medicaid’s 2024 annual report, the agency recovered $2.3 million through efforts by the Medicaid Office of Program Integrity to detect and prevent fraud and abuse. The office reported 205 open investigations that year and referred four cases to the Mississippi Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, operated by the state attorney general, for further investigation or prosecution. 

Scott said while efforts to address fraud are critical, she has concerns that the revalidation process could have harmful effects, particularly as Mississippi’s Medicaid program faces significant budget pressures and amid federal efforts to freeze funding to states. 

“I just hope that it’s done with the most vulnerable populations in mind,” Scott said. 

President Donald Trump’s push to redraw the nation’s U.S. House districts received mixed results Tuesday as South Carolina senators defied his desires but Missouri’s top court upheld a new map that could help Republicans win an additional seat in the November midterm elections.

Rather than waning, a national redistricting battle that began 10 months ago has intensified — inflamed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act and provided grounds for states to try to eliminate voting districts with large minority populations.

Republican lawmakers in Louisiana are wrestling with how politically aggressive to be when redrawing House districts after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a majority-Black district as an illegal racial gerrymander.

The ripples of the Louisiana ruling already have led to new U.S. House districts in Tennessee and have extended to Alabama, where Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced an Aug. 11 special primary for four of the state’s seven congressional districts. That came after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an order mandating use of a map with two largely Black districts. The state plans to switch to a map passed in 2023 that has only one majority-Black district, giving Republicans a chance to win an additional seat.

Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from new House maps enacted so far in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.

Missouri court upholds split of Kansas City

Missouri was the second Republican state, after Texas, to redraw its congressional districts at Trump’s urging last year.

Tuesday’s two unanimous state Supreme Court decisions, delivered just hours after arguments, “are a complete victory for Missouri and for the people’s elected representatives,” Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said in a statement.

Attorneys for voters challenging Missouri’s new map had focused on changes to a Kansas City-based district long represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who previously was the city’s first Black mayor.

The new map takes a compact urban district that covered 20 miles (32 kilometers) and two counties and stretches it 200 miles (322 kilometers) over 15 counties, distorting it “into a sprawling behemoth that cuts clear across the state to unite territories that share nothing in common,” said Abha Khanna, a partner in the Elias Law Group, a Democratic firm.

But the Supreme Court upheld a March decision by a lower court, which found the map as a whole satisfied the compactness requirement even though the Kansas City district may look less compact. No Missouri court has ever struck down a congressional map for not being compact, said attorney John Gore, who defended the districts on behalf of the Republican Party.

A second case heard by the high court centered on whether the new map took effect in December, as asserted by Hanaway and Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, or whether it should have been suspended when referendum signatures were submitted.

To suspend the map before validating the signatures would let activists temporarily undercut laws by submitting boxes of fraudulent signatures, Missouri Solicitor General Lou Capozzi argued.

But to not immediately suspend the map “would dilute the referendum right, if not destroy it altogether,” said attorney Jonathan Hawley, arguing for voters who sued.

The Supreme Court agreed with Republican officials, who contend that the new districts can be suspended only after Hoskins determines the petition meets constitutional requirements and has enough valid signatures. Hoskins has until Aug. 4, the day of Missouri’s primary elections, to make that determination.

South Carolina senator sees risk in redistricting

Trump urged South Carolina to redraw its congressional districts ahead of the November elections in an attempt to help Republicans win another seat. The state House voted in favor of letting lawmakers return after the regular session ends to consider redistricting, and proposed a new map that could eliminate the state’s only Democratic-held seat.

But the Senate had to give permission to take up redistricting, too. The 29-17 vote failed, coming just two votes short of the two-thirds needed, as five Republicans joined all Democrats in opposition. The Senate could try again before its regular work session ends Thursday

Trump had said on social media that he was closely watching the redistricting vote, urging South Carolina senators to “be bold and courageous” and to delay the June 9 House primaries so new districts can be drawn.

Although Republicans have a supermajority in the chamber, some GOP senators weren’t sure the proposed map would guarantee the party could unseat longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. They also said it could push enough Democrats into other districts to backfire, resulting in a 5-2 or even a 4-3 Republican split.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey acknowledged the pressure from Trump, but said he doesn’t like being asked to bend to someone’s will instead of doing what’s best for his state.

“I got too much Southern in my blood,” Massey said. “I’ve got too much resistance in my heritage.”

Louisiana hearing leads to death threats

Louisiana state Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican who drafted redistricting bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s majority Black districts, told lawmakers Monday that he received death threats after Friday’s contentious hearing in which he told members of the public to “shut up.”

Morris acknowledged the outburst but denied the Louisiana Democratic Party’s assertion — blasted across social media and in a press release — that he also used the derogatory term “boy” toward its executive director, Dadrius Lanus, who is Black.

State Sen. Gary Carter, one of three Black Democrats serving alongside six white Republicans on the Senate committee overseeing redistricting, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he had withdrawn from the committee “to help restore the decorum and focus that this moment demands” after shouting at Republicans during last Friday’s hearing. Carter publicly apologized on Monday to Morris and his Senate colleagues for having “lost my temper” and for any remarks that were taken as “personal attacks.”

Carter is the nephew of U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat who represents New Orleans and is at risk of losing his seat in the redistricting process. Gary Carter is being replaced on the committee with state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans.

___

Brook reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Chandler from Montgomery, Alabama; Collins from Columbia, South Carolina; and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.

OXFORD — Mississippi quarterback Trinidad Chambliss is ready to “disappear” for a while.

Having spent the previous eight months under college football’s media microscope, the sixth-year senior smiled when reporters asked about his summer plans once spring practice wrapped up.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

For Chambliss, the spring session finished with a weekend meet-and-greet fan function before a weeklong session of spring drills that were closed to reporters.

Chambliss planned to return with family to his childhood hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he was expected to make personal appearances and speeches at school functions. Chambliss regularly touts his hometown roots, his experience at Division II Ferris State and an opportunity to “give back and tell (schoolchildren) if I can make it, you can make it.”

Coach Pete Golding said he encouraged all Ole Miss players to give themselves a break from football following spring football and exams.

“I told them I didn’t want to see them for a few weeks,” said Golding, who is heading into his first regular season as a head coach after going 2-1 in the College Football Playoff last season as current LSU coach Lane Kiffin’s successor.

“I do think it’s really important for them to get away from it,” Golding said. “They need a reset.”

Perhaps no player could appreciate a break more than Chambliss, who’d won a Division II national title in 2024 but remained relatively unknown before Ole Miss QB Austin Simmons was sidelined by an ankle injury. Elevated into a starting role, Chambliss debuted by leading the Rebels to a 41-35 home win over Arkansas.

By the time the season ended in a last-second, CFP semifinal loss to Miami, the dual-threat Chambliss had totaled more than 3,900 yards and accounted for 30 touchdowns.

The Rebels finished 13-2 and ranked No. 4 in the final Associated Press Top 25. Along the way were a handful of victories over ranked teams, including Tulane and Georgia in the CFP. Chambliss routinely produced explosive, clutch plays, overcoming his less-than-ideal size (6-foot-1, 200 pounds) and emerging from a relative obscurity in ways that captured fans’ imagination.

NIL endorsements, estimated at $1.5 million by On3, followed. AT&T, for example, traded off Chambliss’ transfer story, stylish demeanor and puckish smile.

Another big win for Chambliss came off the field after a three-month legal challenge that resulted in an additional year of eligibility. The ruling became a big win for Ole Miss when Chambliss opted to stay in Oxford.

“It was very stressful,” Chambliss said shortly after the Mississippi Supreme Court denied the final appeal by the NCAA in March. “I knew I was going to play football somewhere, either the NFL or here (Ole Miss), but not knowing was tough. I knew whatever happened was in God’s hands, but it was still tough.”

The decision to remain at Ole Miss was less difficult.

“You know, when I visited Oxford from Ferris State, I really liked it here and wasn’t promised anything about being the quarterback,” Chambliss said. “The thing that helped was my parents really liked it here, too, on the visit. We’ve been treated great and once Ole Miss decided to go with PG (Pete Golding), we wanted to stay.”

While Chambliss takes his hiatus from Oxford, the Ole Miss media department intends to organize a Heisman Trophy campaign. Chambliss finished eighth in last year’s voting and has been listed with preseason front-runners Arch Manning of Texas and C.J. Carr of Notre Dame.

Ole Miss has a solid track record with quarterbacks in the Heisman Trophy race, with five – Charlie Conerly, Jake Gibbs, Archie Manning (twice) and Eli Manning — finishing in the top five.

The Rebels also have produced other prominent NFL quarterbacks, including 2025 first-round pick Jaxson Dart of the New York Giants.

The nation’s highest court bought itself more time on Monday to decide whether to restrict the mailing and telehealth prescription of mifepristone, one of two main forms of abortion medication. Mifepristone will continue to be fully accessible through Thursday. 

The case before the Supreme Court originates from a lawsuit Louisiana filed last year, claiming that the accessibility of abortion medication via telehealth subverts the state’s abortion ban. The lawsuit does not name misoprostol, the other form of abortion medication. Experts say doctors will likely shift to prescribing misoprostol-only regimens for abortions and miscarriage management, but that it is not the gold standard of care. The lawsuit opens the door to banning telehealth prescriptions of misoprostol, as well.

Justices have until Thursday to push the deadline back again or make a substantive decision that would affect hundreds of Mississippians who rely on telehealth to access these drugs each month. 

The lawsuit is “the biggest upset since the Dobbs decision,” said Rachel Jones, principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy organization. In 2022, the Dobbs decision overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. Since then, the number of abortions performed in the U.S. has paradoxically increased. Experts say that’s largely due to the expansion of telemedicine, which allows patients in states with abortion bans to access abortion medications through the mail. 

Now, the potential federal restriction on mail-order mifepristone could lower the number of abortions in a way that the Dobbs decision, and other state laws — such as one recently passed in Mississippi — have not. 

“This would be the silver bullet that the Mississippi Legislature has been looking for in terms of shutting down access to abortion,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor and abortion historian at the University of California Davis. 

On April 8, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill that will criminalize abortion-inducing drugs in Mississippi, starting July 1. Experts say that on its own, Mississippi’s law likely will not do much to stop the flow of abortion medication coming in from other states. They say the most profound effect of the state’s law will likely take place in doctors’ offices, where providers may become hesitant to prescribe the medications for their non-abortion uses, such as in the case of miscarriages, postpartum hemorrhaging and labor induction, out of fear of their actions being misinterpreted by law enforcement. 

However, despite the profound effect on healthcare, the state’s new law would do little to cut down on the number of abortions happening in the state. That’s because under abortion shield laws, which protect abortion providers, patients and helpers from out-of-state investigations, Mississippians could likely continue to access mail-order abortion medications without consequence, Ziegler said.

In 2023, 65% of abortions in the U.S. were medication abortions. Each month in Mississippi, there are anywhere from 200 to more than 600 medication abortions. 

But the federal case before the Supreme Court could change that. 

“If Mississippi wants to go after doctors in other states,” Ziegler said, “shield laws won’t protect those doctors if the federal law no longer allows them to operate via telehealth.”

The timeline of Louisiana v. FDA

How the case started

• In October 2025, Louisiana sued the Food and Drug Administration, arguing that Louisianans’ ability to receive out-of-state abortion medication in the mail undermines the state’s abortion ban. 
• In December 2025, Louisiana requested an injunction to stop the telehealth prescribing and mailing of mifepristone until the full case was heard in court. 
• In April, Judge David C. Joseph, a federal judge in Louisiana’s Western District, declined that request and ordered a pause on case proceedings until the FDA finished a review of mifepristone. 

This month

• On May 1, a federal appeals court granted Louisiana’s request and rolled back telemedicine access to mifepristone.
• On May 4, the Supreme Court put the appeals court ruling on hold for one week, allowing telemedicine prescriptions of mifepristone to continue. 
• On Monday, the Supreme Court temporarily extended full access to mifepristone through at least Thursday. 

When the lower court restricted access to mifepristone on May 1, nearly two dozen states signed an amicus brief opposing the ruling. They argued the court was prioritizing the policy preferences of states with abortion bans over the policy preferences of states that promote access to abortion care.

Why mifepristone?

Unlike misoprostol, which is FDA approved for several non-abortion conditions, mifepristone is only FDA approved for medication abortions and to treat high blood sugar in adults with Cushing’s syndrome, a rare disease caused by high cortisol levels. 

Because there are fewer approved uses of mifepristone, it is the more obvious target for anti-abortionists, said Dr. Kristin Lyerly, a Wisconsin-based OB-GYN who successfully fought to reinstate legal abortion in her home state. Lyerly said she believes the stigma is part of the reason the drug doesn’t have more approved uses.  

If politics didn’t interfere with science and healthcare, Lyerly said she believes there would be far more approved uses for mifepristone. 

“It’s just been hard to study, it’s been hard to access and it continues to be controversial,” she said.

One of mifepristone’s off-label uses is to aid in miscarriages. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends using a combination of misoprostol and mifepristone, when available. The addition of mifepristone “may significantly improve treatment efficacy,” according to ACOG’s practice bulletin. 

It’s important to note, Lyerly said, that misoprostol-only regimens are safe and highly effective for miscarriage management and abortion care. But they are suboptimal, she said, because of the risk of having to repeat the dosage or undergo another procedure, increased side effects and time away from work. 

If the Supreme Court ultimately rules in favor of Louisiana, Lyerly worries misoprostol and countless other drugs could be banned next. 

“Can you just now wave a magic wand and say that this medication that’s been known to be safe and effective for over 25 years — not just by scientific studies but experience — can you just say that it’s not safe anymore?”

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here.   

Some of my youngest memories are from the playground at Head Start. I remember the routine, the feeling of safety and the sense of belonging that came with having a place to go each day where adults provided me with quality care.

For my family, Head Start meant stability, and that stability gave me a foundation that helped shape my life and my love for early childhood education.

When I was not at Head Start, I was cared for by a neighbor who provided childcare for families throughout our community. Parents trusted her, children felt comfortable in her home and families relied on her care to make work possible.

That kind of care existed long before formal systems or federal funding streams. Today, it is often referred to as Family, Friend and Neighbor care, or Family Child Care. At the time, it was simply how families supported each other.

That care existed before the federal Child Care and Development Fund was established in 1990. It existed before subsidies, reimbursement systems, applications and eligibility requirements. It has always been part of the childcare system’s backbone, particularly in rural communities and areas with fewer childcare options.

Decades later, it feels like a full-circle moment as I now support and advocate for the same care that helped raise me. I have spent years supporting early childhood education and workforce development while building early educator apprenticeship pathways and working alongside family childcare educators who open their homes each day to care for children. Through this work, I have seen what happens when we invest intentionally in children and the adults who care for them, and I have also seen the consequences when that investment is withdrawn.

Mississippi is now experiencing the latter.

In 2025, cuts to the Child Care Payment Program, combined with the decision to pause applications, pushed the childcare assistance system into crisis.

Providers who were already operating on thin margins have been forced to reduce services or consider closing. Families who depend on childcare to maintain employment are losing access, often with little notice and few alternatives. These impacts are rippling through communities across the state, particularly in rural areas.

A recent report documents what childcare providers across Mississippi have been experiencing for months. Funding shortages have caused significant harm to programs and the families they serve, and since the data was collected, conditions have continued to worsen. More providers are reporting instability, and more families are being left without reliable care.

Family childcare educators are central to this conversation because of their unique role in meeting families’ needs. These programs offer flexible hours, mixed-age care and long-standing relationships with families that cannot be replaced overnight. In many communities, particularly rural and low-access areas, family childcare is the primary option available. When these programs are destabilized or forced to close, families often have few, if any, alternatives.

None of this was unpredictable. Childcare does not operate on margins that can absorb sudden cuts or prolonged uncertainty. Early childhood educators still have rent to pay, food to purchase, utilities to cover and staff to compensate, regardless of whether payments are delayed or assistance is paused. 

Programs like Head Start were created with the recognition that supporting children early strengthens families and communities over time. Childcare plays a similar role. It is essential infrastructure that allows parents to work, businesses to function and children to grow in stable environments.

The solutions before us are practical and achievable. Childcare providers need predictable, uninterrupted funding to plan, staff and keep their doors open. Families need consistent access to assistance so they can work without fear of losing care.

Mississippi must treat childcare as essential infrastructure for its workforce and economy, with stable funding and timely payments rather than temporary fixes or pauses. 

As a native Mississippian, a product of Head Start, and someone who has spent a career building early childhood systems, I know what is at stake. When we fail to invest in childcare, we have gravely missed the mark as a society. 

Mississippi once invested in me, and that investment made a lasting difference. Every child in this state deserves the same opportunity, and the responsibility now rests with our leaders to ensure that opportunity is not out of reach.

Eboni Delaney is the director of Policy and Movement Building at the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC), and a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.

Doug Hutton of Clinton and Mississippi State was surely one of the most gifted and versatile athletes in Mississippi history. What you need to know about that is this: You never would have learned about Hutton’s remarkable athletic exploits from Doug, who died Saturday at the age of 84. He was as humble as he was versatile.

Without question, Hutton enjoyed the greatest day in the history of the Mississippi High School Basketball Tournament with two performances that more than 66 years later still boggle the mind. This was before there was a Mississippi Coliseum, before there was a 3-point line, and, yes, before integration. It was also before ESPN and SportsCenter, which is a shame, because if it happened today, the whole sports world would know know about it.

This was back when the State Tournament championship was held at old City Auditorium in Jackson. The semifinals were played in the afternoon, the finals the same night. On March 5, 1960, William Douglas Hutton performed a basketball feat for the ages.

That afternoon, Hutton scored a state tournament-record 47 points to lead Clinton to a 95-79 victory over Philadelphia. Six hours later, before a standing-room-only crowd of nearly 3,000, Hutton broke his own record, scoring 54 points in Clinton’s  81-72 victory over Florence.

That’s right, Hutton, who stood all of 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed all of 150 pounds, scored 101 points in one memorable day of basketball. In two games, Hutton made 38 of 71 field goal attempts and 25 of 31 free throws.

“To me, it’s still unbelievable,” Hutton told me years ago. “I had no idea I had scored that many points. I was so involved in the game, I didn’t realize what was going on. If you had asked me after the games how many points I had scored, I would have said, maybe, 30.”

In the stands watching that afternoon and night was Babe McCarthy, the Mississippi State basketball coach. State was Hutton’s dream school. He had grown up rooting for the Bulldogs, who, under McCarthy, had begun to challenge Kentucky for SEC basketball supremacy.

McCarthy had held out on offering Hutton a scholarship, probably because of Doug’s height and slight build. Hutton thought he would probably wind up playing at Mississippi College. But how could you ignore 101 points in one day? McCarthy could not. He signed Hutton the very next day and he had his future point guard. Back then, freshmen could not play varsity basketball, but Hutton was a three-year starter and and a key player on back-to-back SEC championship teams.

But that’s not all. He also pitched for State’s Diamond Dogs and made All-SEC in baseball. In 1963, he achieved a perfect 5-0 record and a 2.15 earned run average. In ’64, he won his first three decisions before hurting his arm.

And that’s not all. In track and field, competing at the same season as he was playing baseball, Hutton ran on the SEC Championship 4×100 relay team and also long-jumped over 24 feet.

And, still, that’s not all. Later, he became a coach, including freshman basketball coach at State the year after he graduated. Later, he coached high school teams at Hazlehurst, Florence and in his hometown of Clinton. Besides being in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, he also is a member of the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame. His 1990 Clinton Arrows won the state baseball championship.

That’s not all either: Trust me on this, if you were playing golf with Doug Hutton, you wanted to be on his team. That way, you could win. See the photo above. That’s Doug on the left and Willie Richardson, the Jackson State and NFL football great, on the right. A dozen years ago, I had the opportunity to play with the two of them in a tournament that honors Mississippi State and NFL football great Kent Hull. Hutton and Richardson rode together and, trust me on this, seldom has one golf cart carried so much athletic talent at once.

We came to the last hole where an award was given for the longest drive of the day, and we were the last group to play it. Doug, who was 72 years young, hit first and drove the ball 275 yards right down the middle of the fairway, the long drive of the day. Willie, who was 74, hit next and drove it precisely one inch past Doug. And, oh, my gosh, did they – and I — get a kick out of that!

Later that day, I documented the occasion, snapping the photo of two of Mississippi’s greatest athletes, both as humble as they were gifted. 

Mississippi’s youth court proceedings could grind to a halt and federal child welfare funding could be jeopardized come July if the Legislature does not revive one of the state laws dealing with the confidentiality of records involving children, state officials are warning Gov. Tate Reeves.

In Mississippi, records involving juvenile delinquency or child abuse and neglect allegations are confidential. This law is not in jeopardy.

However, the state has another law that permits those records to be shared between the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, youth courts, parents of the child, a child’s legal representative, law enforcement and other parties providing care and resources to children. This law needs to be renewed every few years – and if legislators don’t do that by July 1 of this year, this law will disappear.

The law set to repeal provides the crucial exemptions to confidentiality that allow parties involved in these sensitive cases to communicate the facts and make decisions involving a child’s placement and care. 

A bill introduced in the Legislature this year would have reduced youth court confidentiality altogether as part of a proposal of sweeping reforms that led to intense debate among lawmakers. The bill died, leaving the confidentiality in place but allowing the law containing the exemptions to lapse.

CPS Commissioner Andrea Sanders asked Reeves in a letter April 30 to call a special legislative session to prevent the law’s repeal. 

She explained that if the exemption disappears, chancery court judges hearing custody cases may not be able to see any youth court or Department of Child Protection Services records that would inform their decisions. Parents with children before a youth court would not have access to court orders that spell out what action they must take, such as requirements they must meet to retrieve their children from CPS custody. CPS could not disclose records involving its investigations to the court, the letter warned. The judge holds the sole power to decide when to remove a child from their home and when to return them.

“Essentially, all legal proceedings involving children under MDCPS’s supervision and care would grind to a halt,” she wrote.

CPS would also be prevented from sharing information with Medicaid, children’s advocacy centers, hospitals, doctors, mental health providers, schools, foster parents and relatives offering support. 

Sanders expressed concerns in the letter that the agency’s inability to disclose information could impact the state’s ability to demonstrate compliance with federal regulations in order to draw down federal foster care funding. The law’s repeal would have significant and detrimental consequences, she wrote.

Reeves has already called a special session for legislators to conduct judicial district redistricting later this month following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which many believe will make it easier to change electoral boundaries that were drawn to ensure Black representation. Reeves would need to add the youth court matter to a special session’s agenda for lawmakers to consider it.

State Public Defender André de Gruy also asked Reeves for a special session, saying the repeal of the law would harm his office’s ability to represent children in juvenile delinquency cases and parents in child welfare matters.

“It really defeats the whole purpose of youth court, which is to provide services to help children and families,” said Jennifer Morgan, the parent defense program manager for the public defender’s office. “The inability of CPS to connect children and families with services leaves families stuck.”

Four other laws are set to repeal July 1 as a result of the reform bill’s death, which could create additional issues for youth court operations, according to consultants working with the Mississippi Administrative Office of Courts. 

Among the laws going away are requirements that youth court case details be entered into the state’s case management system, a prohibition on sex offenders accessing information through that database, state funding requirements for local youth courts, and the ability for parents, such as those in the military, to grant temporary power of attorney.

Reeves’ office did not respond to emails requesting comment for this story.