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The number of school districts missing annual financial audits is going down, falling to 32 from 47 since the Mississippi Department of Education has drawn attention to this issue, according to Paula Vanderford, the agency’s chief accountability officer. 

She told the state Board of Education Thursday that 19 districts are behind on the most recent year’s audit, and another 13 are missing audits for both fiscal years 2024 and 2023. Most have a plan in place to become compliant, Vanderford said. 

Education Department leaders have taken steps to be more proactive about struggling districts — amid a slew of fiscal issues and school takeovers. In recent months, the department took over two school districts — Wilkinson County and Okolona — the latter stemming from financial woes. 

READ MORE: ‘We can only go up from here’: Hope and apathy in Wilkinson County schools

Audits are required by federal law. Missing audits can mask urgent financial problems at school districts. 

In October, Okolona school district leaders reached out to the state education agency because they could not make the following month’s payroll. 

The state Board of Education approved taking over the district in November and subsequently voted in January to approve a temporary rule change that would put school districts with two or more outstanding audits on probation or downgrade their accreditation. Before, school districts could have missed filing four consecutive annual audits before potentially losing accreditation. 

The board made the rule change final on Thursday, ramping up accountability for districts behind on their audits.

“We don’t want any more Okolonas,” board chair Matt Miller said.

Some of the factors driving the missing audits are school administrative turnover, a lack of district business managers, auditor staffing shortages and the burdensome federal funding portion of the audits themselves, said Samantha Atkinson, director of the agency’s internal audit department.

“We do have a problem in Mississippi with a lack of CPA (accounting) firms that do audits for a number of reasons of which we can’t control,” board member Bill Jacobs said. “I don’t want to penalize a school district because there is an issue with finding CPAs that can do or will do the audits.”

But Vanderford said the agency is federally mandated to sanction schools missing their audits and doing so is in the public’s interest.

Miller said he was pleased with delinquent districts’ progress since November. 

School districts have until March 31 to submit financial audits for fiscal year 2025. Vanderford said at the meeting that this year’s audits are “coming in at a much faster pace.” Already, 63 of the state’s 138 public schools districts have submitted audits. 

Education officials have suggested suspending funding as a last resort for noncompliant districts.

There is “no way” the state Education Department’s Office of Accreditation would have capacity to review 32 districts at one time and downgrade their accreditation status, Vanderford told the board Thursday. Instead, if many districts are out of compliance this year, the agency would have to focus on the most egregious violators.

School districts across the state are facing more than financial struggles. On Thursday, the state Board of Education also approved 12 corrective action plans for districts that were largely sanctioned for fiscal and recordkeeping violations.

A majority of the districts with corrective action plans, which are meant to help districts correct issues of noncompliance with accreditation policies and process standards, are located in the Mississippi Delta. Jackson Public Schools, one of the state’s largest school districts, was put on probation in October for issues with school board policies, residency requirements, immunization requirements and student records. 

However, violations at two districts proved too severe for board approval. The board denied corrective action plans for Hazlehurst and North Bolivar school districts.  

Hazlehurst, which has been on probation for a decade, has been docked for issues such as poor recordkeeping, school board governance issues, dangerous campus conditions and not providing some special education services. With North Bolivar, the agency has also taken issue with the district’s nonfunctional alternative school, missing proof of employment for staff, poor recordkeeping, illegal school board policies, faulty financial reporting and poor fiscal management. North Bolivar schools have been on probation for nine years.

Vanderford said the agency needs to work more closely with both districts to bring them into compliance. Documentation from the agency also notes that districts have made insufficient progress in implementing the corrective actions detailed in their respective plans.

If the Hazlehurst and North Bolivar districts don’t correct their deficiencies by Dec. 31, they will be subject to an unannounced on-site audit or their accreditation may be withdrawn. Then, the state could take over those districts. 

But the state Education Department may not have the capacity for many more state takeovers. 

The state runs six school districts. State Superintendent Lance Evans said recently at a legislative meeting that there is only $4.8 million available to provide assistance to school districts taken over by the state. Since taking over Okolona schools, the agency has already spent $1.5 million. 

Evans has asked lawmakers for additional funding for next fiscal year.

Reporter Leonardo Bevilacqua contributed to this story.

The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School has selected the Mississippi Today and New York Times investigation on abuse of power as one of six finalists for the 2026 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.

“Abuse of Power: Beyond the Goon Squad” was reported and written by Mukta Joshi, Jerry Mitchell, Brian Howey, Nate Rosenfeld, Steph Quinn and Sarah Cohen in collaboration with The Times’ Local Investigative Reporting desk.

In 2023, the team at Mississippi Today and The New York Times reported that, for a generation, sheriff’s deputies known as the “Goon Squad” tortured suspected drug users across Rankin County, Mississippi, beating, burning and waterboarding their victims until they shared information. That reporting prompted a Justice Department investigation and a new state law increasing police oversight.

But, knowing that the full story was still unfolding, and in the face of mounting resistance and intimidation, the local and national collaboration continued reporting on the sheriff’s department. In 2025 they uncovered more extensive abuses: a sheriff allegedly using inmate labor for personal profit, a possible murder in the jail that had been written off as an accident, evidence of years of brutality in the jail, including a video showing guards shocking an intellectually disabled man with an electrified vest, and widespread abuse of Tasers by police across the state. 

This reporting led Mississippi lawmakers to propose two statewide Taser oversight laws, at least three investigations by state authorities and two probes by the FBI, a re-opened murder investigation, and several candidates indicating they will run against the sitting sheriff in 2027. 

The other finalists are Hanna Dreier and the staff of The New York Times; Alexandra Glorioso, Lawrence Mower and Justin Garcia for the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald; Eric Lipton, David Yaffe-Bellany, Ben Protess, Tripp Mickle, Bradley Hope, Paul Mozur, Andrea Fuller, Sharon LaFraniere, Seamus Hughes, Kenneth P. Vogel, Karen Yourish, Cecilia Kang, Ryan Mac, Theodore Schleifer, Charlie Smart and Elena Shao for The New York Times; Debbie Cenziper, Megan Rose and Brandon Roberts for ProPublica; and Craig Whitlock, Lisa Rein, Caitlin Gilbert for The Washington Post.

The Goldsmith Prize, first awarded in 1993 and funded by a gift from the Greenfield Foundation, honors the best public service investigative journalism that has made an impact on local, state or federal public policy or the practice of politics in the United States. Finalists receive $10,000, and the winner – to be announced at the April 9 ceremony – receives $25,000. All prize monies go to the journalist or team that produced the reporting.

“If there were any doubt about the continuing strength and impact of investigative reporting, this year’s finalists should silence the skeptics,” said Shorenstein Director Nancy Gibbs. “Because of their tireless work, Congressional committees held hearings, law enforcement launched or reopened investigations, and lawmakers introduced legislation and passed new laws. They have exposed fraud and corruption at every level of government and set a higher standard for transparency and accountability.”

The winner of the 2026 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting will be announced at the awards ceremony, to be held April 9 at the JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The in-person ceremony will be livestreamed at GoldsmithAwards.org and ShorensteinCenter.org.

OXFORD — Former Hollandale Police Chief Brandon Addison pleaded guilty Thursday to charges involving the transportation and distribution of illegal drugs through portions of the Mississippi Delta and into Memphis via Highway 61. 

He is the principal defendant in a federal drug trafficking case involving nine former Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers.

Addison, 41, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy. An indictment in October accused him of accepting $37,500 in multiple bribe payments, the most of any other defendant across six indictments of former Delta law enforcement officers and associates. He also traveled to Miami in April 2023 and September 2024 to discuss strategy with FBI agents posing as members of the Mexican drug cartel. 

Addison was also indicted in October for carrying or using a firearm during four drug trafficking runs as well as while conspiring to traffick illegal drugs. He also was charged with attempting to aid and abet the illegal transport of drugs on four separate dates, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi dropped the charges as part of Addison’s plea agreement.

Addison previously served as a Humphreys County sheriff’s office deputy and also had worked for the  police departments in Arcola and Metcalfe.

Senior U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills accepted Addison’s guilty plea and set sentencing for Aug. 13. Mills released Addison on the conditions of the $10,000 unsecured bond after his arrest.

Addison was arrested on Oct. 30 along with former Humphreys County sheriff’s deputy Javery Howard, former Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston, former Washington County sheriff’s deputy Truron Grayson, former Humphreys County Sheriff Bruce Williams, four additional former law enforcement officers, a former corrections officer and five associates as part of the conspiracy to aid and abet the transport and distribution of roughly 55 pounds of cocaine on multiple runs. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office dropped Washington County sheriff’s deputy Amber Holmes’ charges on Oct. 30 due to exonerating evidence from subsequent interviews with sources. Howard is scheduled to change his plea on March 26. 

The rest are scheduled for trial on July 20 in Oxford. Williams, who subsequently stepped down as sheriff, pleaded not guilty and promised to mount a “complete defense.”

Neither Addison nor his attorney Taylor Webb could immediately be reached for comment.

Under federal guidelines, Addison can be sentenced to between 10 years and life in prison. He could also face up to $10 million in fines.

On Oct. 30, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed six indictments, which ensnared more than 14 current and former Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers. Those charged were arrested in pre-sunrise sweeps in some cases at private homes by special agents in armored cars.

The Justice Department charged current and former officers from sheriff’s offices in Washington, Humphreys and Sunflower counties and police departments in Greenville, Greenwood, Isola, Hollandale, Metcalfe and Yazoo City.

The department also charged Mississippi Delta-based former highway patrolman Marquivius Bankhead and former state Department of Corrections guard Marcus Nolan on drug trafficking charges.

Asahn Roach, who was named in the same indictment as Addison, was employed by Memphis-Shelby County Schools as a school resource officer. Pierre Lakes, a Drew native, owns a real estate investment company. Torio Chaz Wiseman was employed by the Memphis Business Academy charter school as a football coach.

At the conspiracy’s outset, a local drug dealer and FBI informant introduced Addison and Howard to an FBI agent posing as a member of the Mexican drug cartel who offered bribe payments in exchange for the safe transport of illegal narcotics, namely cocaine, through the Mississippi Delta. Addison and associates escorted the drug transports on three separate occasions in March 2023, March 2024 and July 2024, also escorting the proceeds of the drug trafficking in October 2023 and March 2024.

House lawmakers are deliberating sending a bill to Gov. Tate Reeves that would make it illegal for doctors to prescribe medication that could be used to induce abortion to patients in Mississippi. 

Rep. Celeste Hurst, a Republican from Sandhill, said the intent of the legislation, which she introduced through an amendment to a drug trafficking bill, is to keep abortion medication, such as mifepristone and misoprostol, from entering Mississippi. The amendment would subject prescribers to no less than one year in prison. 

“There’s no oversight on this drug right now,” Hurst told Mississippi Today Wednesday. “Anyone, male or female, could fill out a form and have that drug shipped to them. A human trafficker could put it in a woman’s hot cocoa.”

Under the legislation, however, Mississippi could prosecute doctors. Currently, Mississippi doctors can prescribe the medications for purposes other than abortion. The legislation won’t technically change that, but experts say it will make doctors scared to prescribe certain drugs for non-abortion purposes.

The legislation specifies that doctors will be prosecuted only if they prescribe drugs, whose uses include inducing an abortion, with the intention of inducing an abortion. But intent is hard to prove, said Mary Ziegler, an expert on abortion law and a professor at University of California at Davis’ School of Law. If passed, the law could have a chilling effect on health care providers, making them more hesitant to prescribe medication in clinical settings for conditions other than abortion. 

“The possibility of a misunderstanding or a false accusation is going to be intimidating to a lot of physicians,” Ziegler said. 

Mississippi already has a near total ban on abortions, but lawmakers have been unable to stop residents from ordering pills online from states where abortion is legal. Experts say this proposed legislation won’t stop them, either, but it might hurt Mississippians in life-threatening situations. 

Mifepristone and misoprostol, the most common form of abortion medication, have been proven safe and effective in terminating pregnancy. But these medications are also used to induce labor, stop postpartum hemorrhaging, and for conditions such as miscarriages, or early pregnancy loss.  

In reality, the proposed law “almost certainly” will have no impact on out-of-state providers, Ziegler said. Shield laws protect abortion providers, patients and helpers from out-of-state investigations, lawsuits and prosecutions in 22 states and Washington D.C. 

“If governors in places like New York refuse to extradite their doctors, it’s not clear that Mississippi would be able to do anything about that,” Ziegler said. 

Even before the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion, in-person abortions were very limited in Mississippi. Instead, women in the state have used mail-order abortion medication as an alternative. A 2020 study that examined more than 6,000 requests from U.S. residents for abortion pills from an online telemedicine service in 2017 and 2018 found that Mississippians requested the pills at a higher rate than people in any other state. 

In 2024, Louisiana passed a similar law. Dana Sussman, senior vice president at Pregnancy Justice, a group that defends the rights of pregnant people, said the law has created fear among health care providers. She said Louisiana doctors have been practicing drills ensuring they have enough time to run between patient rooms and storerooms where the medications are now kept under lock and key. 

Hurst told Mississippi Today she does not want to limit the use of drugs such as mifepristone and misoprostol in situations where they are medically necessary, including during a miscarriage. 

“If a doctor gave that medication for an abortion, they would be doing a criminal act,” Hurst said. “But if they prescribed it for something that is not abortion-inducing, then there’s nothing in that law, or in current law, that would prohibit them from doing that.”

But Sussman said that lawmakers’ intent has very little bearing on how laws are enforced. 

“If the law is broader than what her intent is, then it will have far-reaching consequences that she may not want to be responsible for,” Sussman said.

Senators accepted the House’s amendment on abortion medication and sent the bill back to the House, where lawmakers can advance it to the governor, or call for further negotiations with the Senate.

On Monday, in meetings a hundred miles apart, Clinton and Clarksdale officials heard from residents about potential data centers coming to their respective towns.

Clinton has signed a fee-in-lieu of taxes agreement with a developer but the Clarksdale project is in very early talks.

While comments were mixed in both places, many Clarksdale residents see a data center as an economic boon for the city’s shrinking tax base and aging infrastructure.

“We’ve been praying for Clarksdale’s economic turnaround for a long time. And this is a godsend that can turn around Clarksdale,” said business owner Bob Wright during the meeting. 

Unions in Mississippi:

• Ingalls Shipbuilding union workers in Pascagoula secured the largest pay raise in the company’s history, with an immediate increase of at least 18%.
•  Ingalls is the largest manufacturing employer in the state, employing almost 11,000 workers in Mississippi.
• About 4% of Mississippi workers are union members compared to 10% nationally. 
• Last week, Gov. Tate Reeves signed SB 2202 into law. The law requires businesses receiving state economic development grants to have certain union organizing requirements, including requiring secret ballots for union organizing votes. 

Is child care a barrier to the state’s workforce development?

• The Mississippi Business Alliance released a report surveying state business leaders’ views on child care for their employees and opportunities to expand employer support for child care.
• 11% of respondents said they used current state child tax credits, but 19% were not aware of the tax credits.
• “This research confirms that child care is no longer a marginal issue – it is a central workforce challenge with direct implications for business productivity, employee retention, and Mississippi’s long-term economic competitiveness,” the report concluded.

Business expansion and other news:

• Southwark Metal Manufacturing Company announced a $29 million expansion in DeSoto county that will create 25 jobs. The company manufactures HVAC components and will build a new facility in Hernando.
• A new report ranks Mississippi last in the country in terms of innovation. Criteria included the percent of workers in science, tech, engineering and math and investment in research and development per capita.
• Nissan is still considering manufacturing Honda and Mitsubishi vehicles at its Canton plant. Last year, Nissan delayed production of two of its electric vehicles at Canton. The company said it was an “internally driven consideration, not a specific reaction to policy changes.”

Lawmakers sent a bill to Gov. Tate Reeves for signature Wednesday to fund clinical trials related to the psychedelic drug ibogaine, action that could add $5 million of Mississippi’s opioid settlement money to study the drug.

The bill, which passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support, instructs the Mississippi State Department of Health to create a state partnership to research ibogaine’s ability to treat mental health disorders like addiction, depression and traumatic brain injuries. No state funding is attached to the bill, although legislators have said they expect to soon appropriate the opioid settlement funds for the effort. 

Lawmakers across the country and political spectrum have pushed their states to research the therapeutic potential of ibogaine over the past two years. Political and cultural figures have claimed it to be a mental health panacea for which states have a responsibility to fund research trials. 

The drug, derived from a shrub native to West Africa, has interested medical practitioners for centuries. But ibogaine use has also led to fatal cardiac arrhythmias on occasion, and the federal government in 1970 added it to a list of drugs that it said had no medical use.

Bryan Hubbard, the executive director of the nonprofit Americans for Ibogaine, has gone from state to state in recent years encouraging legislatures to pool funds for ibogaine clinical trials. Because the federal government isn’t funding studies testing the drug’s potential therapeutic effects, he has been pushing for states — including Mississippi — to support research. 

He has close ties to former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who a 2023 Daily Beast investigation found had received over $1 million in campaign funding from a super PAC backed by an ibogaine industry investor. Almost all of the PAC’s 2023 fundraising came from a billionaire who stood to benefit from ibogaine’s development as a commercial medication, according to the newsroom. 

Cameron appointed Hubbard to lead much of Kentucky’s opioid settlement distribution process, a role in which Hubbard  tried to direct $42 million of the state’s lawsuit money for ibogaine research. He has publicly said he personally would not financially benefit from ibogaine’s development as a medication.

Hubbard frequently cites a 2024 Stanford study that some veterans’ negative symptoms related to traumatic brain injuries and other mental disorders decreased a month after ibogaine treatment, and taking the drug with magnesium mitigated additional cardiac risks. The paper didn’t compare people who received the treatment to those who didn’t, which is essential for determining whether new medications are effective.

Existing drugs approved for opioid use disorder, the deadliest addiction, are effective at treating the condition. Hubbard has criticized these existing medications in the past as unviable solutions for addressing an addiction epidemic that’s killed over a million Americans since 1999. 

While some who’ve traveled out of the country to be treated with ibogaine say it’s helped treat their opioid addictions, an academic review of studies that looked at ibogaine’s addiction treatment potential said most had “high risk of bias.” 

As part of his lobbying efforts, Hubbard helped host a meeting in Aspen, Colorado, with state legislators across the country last spring. Its goal, according to the summit’s website, was to encourage states to research the drug and its impact on addiction. 

Among those who attended the Aspen summit were Mississippi’s House Public Health and Human Services Committee Chair Sam Creekmore and Department of Mental Health Medical Director Dr. Tom Recore. In the following months, Creekmore started writing editorials encouraging the Legislature to join lawmakers in states such as Texas and Arizona that are using state funds for ibogaine trials. 

In August, Creekmore hosted Hubbard and other ibogaine advocates at the Mississippi Capitol, where many spoke about how the drug had personally helped them overcome mental disorders. At that event, Creekmore said he would not financially benefit from ibogaine’s development as an approved medication. 

The event was the first time Creekmore publicly said he wanted the Legislature to appropriate $5 million for this effort from the state’s nonabatement opioid settlement fund, money he and other lawmakers allow to be used on nonaddiction purposes. He told Mississippi Today that was still the plan Tuesday after the bill’s final House passage.

Opioid settlement funds the Legislature controls are expected to be appropriated through the attorney general budget bill.

Correction, 3/19/2026: This headline and article were corrected to reflect that legislators sent a bill for Gov. Tate Reeves signature. At the time of publication, Reeves had not yet signed the bill into law.

Attorneys defending Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr., the only person to face trial in a welfare fraud scandal that has rocked Mississippi over the last six years, kept their case succinct.

They began Tuesday and rested Wednesday afternoon, the 18th day of trial, after calling just four witnesses. DiBiase opted not to take the stand. On Thursday, the judge will deliver the jury’s instructions, both sides will present closing arguments and jurors will begin deliberating. 

DiBiase, an ex-WWE wrestler turned influencer, is on trial on federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, theft and money laundering. From 2017 to 2019, he accepted $3 million in federal funds earmarked to fight poverty after striking up a close friendship with John Davis, who was then the director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Davis had privatized a portion of the agency by pushing tens of millions in grants to two private nonprofits that used the money to pay DiBiase and other athletes.

The defense argued that DiBiase never solicited the money from Davis, but rather that Davis offered it freely. The lawyers sought to show DiBiase did carry out work under his agreements with the nonprofits – no matter how meager the agreed upon deliverables – and that any shortfalls were the result of interference from Davis and unresponsiveness from the nonprofit directors.

According to testimony, two of the defense’s witnesses were in that same boat. Nicholas Coughlin, a business consultant, and Jesse Pierce, a client success manager, were both introduced to opportunities in the welfare arena by DiBiase’s brother, Brett DiBiase. 

Both said they signed on to work for the nonprofits believing their skills – Coughlin’s relationships with industry leaders and Pierce’s passion for fitness and nutrition – would help the nonprofits in their mission to help families reach self-sufficiency. But both testified that the nonprofit directors were hard to reach, impeding them from seeing their vision actualized, despite the fact that they still got paid.

The defense also called businessman Kevin McClendon, who was working with DiBiase to pitch an idea for a phone app to the welfare agency, and New Orleans-based consultant Matthew Theriot, who helped DiBiase form one of his LLCs. 

The prosecution, on the other hand, spent many days over the last several weeks questioning nearly 20 witnesses – including Davis, former DHS employees, nonprofit directors Nancy New and Christi Webb and their former employees, bank executives, federal officials, an assistant attorney general and a forensic auditor with the FBI.

DiBiase’s role with the welfare agency was that of a celebrity promoter. He’d amassed a large following on social media during his time with the WWE. This was the same reason he and Coughlin began working together prior to their welfare dealings. “It quite literally opened any door we needed to get into,” Coughlin said.

But Coughlin also said during questioning by the defense that he wouldn’t have let DiBiase handle the more sophisticated matters of their businesses, such as submitting incorporating paperwork. 

Later, the prosecution tried to rebut this testimony with a text message in which DiBiase told Davis he’d only pretended not to know how to form an LLC or make powerpoints and that he pitied Coughlin.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves allowed the prosecution to read the long, frenzied text to jurors – the last piece of evidence they heard before the parties rested – to the dismay of defense attorney Scott Gilbert, who said the tactic was a blatant violation of DiBiase’s rights.

The prosecution asked for three hours for closing arguments, which amused Gilbert, who indicated the defense wouldn’t need nearly that long. The trial began in January and experienced several delays, with the jury preserved throughout. 
Despite the trial lasting longer than expected, jurors heard from just a fraction of the roughly 80 potential witnesses named at the outset. State Auditor Shad White, whose office investigated the case, and former Gov. Phil Bryant, Davis’ boss, never appeared on the stand.

MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:

Ex-wrestler sought to gamify self-help for poor Mississippians, defense witness testifies in welfare scandal trial

DiBiase defense seeks to discredit witness who testifies the ex-wrestler got federal welfare money but did almost no work 

DiBiase radio ads, conference talks and teen rallies were not in contract for federal welfare funds, Nancy New testifies

Ex-welfare director with ‘two separate personalities’ waffles on the witness stand. Some jurors tire

In trial of ex-wrestler, Mississippi’s former welfare director testifies about appeasing politicians, trying ‘my very best’

Defense for ex-wrestler seeks mistrial in welfare fraud case

Trump faith initiative drove decision to hire wrestler, ex-welfare chief testifies in fraud trial

Welfare director texted wrestler who was his high-paid aide about ‘money bags,’ testimony shows

Feds ask disgraced former welfare director ‘million-dollar question’: Why? Loneliness and love

Opening statements in welfare scandal trial paint former director as villain who doled out millions over infatuation

TRIAL PREVIEW: Ex-WWE wrestler faces feds in first – and potentially only – criminal trial in Mississippi welfare scandal

A federal judge dismissed a former University of Mississippi employee’s lawsuit against Chancellor Glenn Boyce, which claims he violated her First Amendment rights by firing her for comments she shared on social media after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, criticizing the politically far right activist’s stances on issues including gun rights and women’s rights. 

U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson ruled Monday in favor of a motion Boyce had filed to dismiss the lawsuit. Davidson determined that Lauren Stokes, a former executive assistant in the university’s development office, failed to prove that the chancellor violated her constitutional rights. Davidson also ruled that Boyce, in his role as chancellor, is entitled to qualified immunity.

Stokes sued seeking damages, legal fees, and a declaration that Boyce violated her First Amendment rights.

Kirk was shot and killed on Sept. 10. In a statement issued the next day on behalf of the university, Boyce did not name Stokes, but described the comments she shared as  “hurtful” and “insensitive,” and that they “run completely counter” to the university’s values of “civility, fairness, and respecting the dignity of each person.”

Davidson wrote in his ruling that Stokes, the plaintiff, “cannot rebut the Defendant’s qualified immunity defense because she cannot show her interest in her social media post outweighed the Defendant’s interest in the University’s efficient operation.”

United Campus Workers, which represents higher education employees in Mississippi, raised concerns about Davidson’s ruling and its implications for free speech within the context of ”modern online discourse.” 

In a statement, the union said Davidson also did not adequately consider the merits of Stokes’ claim that Boyce engaged in viewpoint discrimination when, after firing her, he attended a political rally honoring Kirk, the statement read. The “ruling will enable the mob to trump an individual’s right to hold and express contrary political opinions.” 

An Ole Miss spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alysson Mills, Stokes’ attorney, said they plan to appeal the ruling.

“This is not the law as we understand it,” Mills said Wednesday. “This is the heckler’s veto. We intend to appeal to defend the rights of employees at the University of Mississippi.”

The fate of a pilot program to provide public defenders in rural counties — called “a model for the nation” — is now in the hands of a legislative conference committee.

The Mississippi Senate has approved an amended version of House Bill 1930 that includes second-year funding for the three-year pilot program that provides resources for rural counties that lack a robust public defender program. On Wednesday, the House declined to concur on the changes, seeking final negotiations with the Senate.

Wednesday also marked the 63rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that established the right to counsel for people charged with serious crimes who can’t afford a lawyer. 

That 1963 case involved Clarence Gideon, who was convicted after he was forced to represent himself in court. As a result of the ruling, he received a new trial, this time with a court-appointed lawyer. He was acquitted.

The pilot program is taking place in Mississippi’s Fifth Circuit Court District. In Attala, Winston, Montgomery and Grenada counties, these new public defenders are tackling a third of the felony cases. In Carroll, Choctaw and Webster counties, the new defenders are handling cases where conflicts arise.

If the pilot program works, it could be expanded to rural counties across the state. “This is a new program,” State Public Defender André de Gruy said. “We’ve never done anything like this at the local level. Not every county is big enough for a public defender, so this is designed for the 67 counties that are less than 50,000 in population.”

He said the year two request in the original bill is $838,000 to fully fund four lawyers, an investigator and two support staff members. The Senate’s recommendation is to provide $778,677 in funding.

Pamela Metzger, executive director for the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center at Southern Methodist University’s law school, called the program “a model for the nation.”

Metzger, whose center collaborated with de Gruy to design the project, called the pilot program “a cut above” what she’s seen in other states. “The pilot office lawyers are working seven days a week to provide Day One representation in seven counties,” she said.

What makes the program different, she said, is these lawyers are getting involved in cases within 24 hours of an arrest and staying involved, “providing continuous representation rather than stop-start representation — a problem in Mississippi and other states.”

In its first five months, Mississippi’s pilot program has represented 84 clients facing felony charges. Because the public defenders became involved early in their clients’ cases, 31 of the case arrests were resolved without a felony conviction, Metzger said.

In another case, the judge originally set a $1 million bond, but after a preliminary hearing, the judge concluded the prosecution’s case was “very, very weak” and reduced the bond to $50,000, she said.

Such legal help creates a “smaller, smarter and fairer system of justice,” she said. “The quality of justice improves.”

The public defenders have also helped 16 clients obtain substance use and mental health treatment.

Only a handful of Mississippi counties currently have a full-time public defender’s office. In counties where boards of supervisors don’t establish a public defender office, the maximum amount an attorney can be paid for a single felony case is $3,000, plus expenses.

The Public Defender Task Force concluded in 2018 that Mississippi “has no permanent institutionalized oversight mechanism to ensure that its constitutional obligation to provide effective counsel to the indigent accused is met in noncapital cases in many of its trial courts.”

According to a 2018 report by the Sixth Amendment Center, Mississippi is the only state in the Southeast that doesn’t have either a statewide public defender system like Arkansas or state oversight like Louisiana. As far as de Gruy said he knows, that is still true.

The report also noted that lawyers hired as public defenders “consistently carry excessive caseloads that prevent the rendering of effective representation.”

Metzger said the pilot program’s success is enabling existing public defenders, who have been overburdened by caseloads, to do their jobs even better.

The Deason Center is gathering data on the pilot program so that lawmakers and others can see how well it works, she said. “Nothing I’ve done in the past has made me more proud than to be associated with the pilot program now going on in Mississippi.”