Dec. 11, 1961

The U.S. Supreme Court threw out the convictions of Black students arrested for taking part in a sit-in at the Kress Department Store in Baton Rouge. After the sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, the all-white Louisiana Board of Education warned that any student taking part in a sit-in would face “stern disciplinary action.” 

Seven students at Southern University took that decision as an insult and headed to Kress’ lunch counter on March 28, 1960. Authorities jailed them, and nine other students took part in a sit-in, this one at Sitman’s lunch counter and the Greyhound bus station. They, too, were arrested, and 3,500 students marched through Baton Rouge to the State Capitol, where they protested and prayed. 

Southern University’s president Felton Clark expelled 16 students that had taken part in the sit-ins, and the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall began to represent them. The Kennedy administration filed a friend of the court brief backing the students. After the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the students’ convictions, more sit-ins and a mass demonstration took place, leading to the arrests of 23, including CORE Field Secretary Dave Dennis. 

The next day, about 4,000 people, many of them students, marched from the university to the courthouse. The continued protests finally led to the desegregation of lunch counters in 1963. A half-century later, Southern University bestowed honorary degrees to the expelled students.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin on Tuesday called college football’s current setup “a dumb system,” and he wasn’t referring to the playoff selection process for a change.

Kiffin, who has been outspoken about his team and others from the powerhouse Southeastern Conference getting left out of the College Football Playoff, ripped the college calendar that forces many coaches to juggle a transfer window while preparing for bowl games. It came on the heels of several coaches having to squeeze national signing day into a week of preparation for conference championship games.

“We just try to make the best of the situations,” Kiffin said during a Zoom call for coaches headed to the Gator Bowl. “It really is a dumb system.”

Kiffin’s comments came after first-year Duke coach Manny Diaz confirmed that starting quarterback Maalik Murphy had entered the transfer portal, leaving Henry Belin or Grayson Loftis to start the Jan. 2 bowl game in Jacksonville.

“Think about what we’re talking about or what (Diaz) just had to address: a quarterback going in the portal,” Kiffin said. “Just think about what we’re talking about. The season’s not over yet, and there’s a free-agency window open.

“Just think if the NFL was getting ready for the AFC, NFC playoffs, postseason, and players are in free agency already. It’s a really poor system, but we just try to manage the best we can through it, and hopefully someday it’ll get fixed.”

Kiffin also said his quarterback, senior Jaxson Dart, is planning to play in the Gator Bowl. The 16th-ranked Rebels (9-3), though, could have some other starters opt out.

The Blue Devils (9-3) closed the regular season with three consecutive wins to improve their bowl spot, all of them coming after Diaz told his players, “The more we win, the warmer the (postseason) destination.”

Now, they’ll make the trip without Murphy. The California native transferred to Duke after one year at Texas. He completed 60% of his passes for 2,933 yards, with 26 touchdowns and 12 interceptions while starting all 12 games in 2024. He led Duke to the program’s most regular-season wins since 2014.

“From our standpoint, we adjust,” Diaz said. “This is the new normal. What we’re not doing right now is we’re not on the road recruiting. We’re not on the road babysitting our commits who, up until last year, were signing on the third Wednesday of December.

“So the fact we’ve already had a signing day, that takes one of the distressers out of December and removes that. However the landscape changes, we adapt to it. That’s what football coaches are; we’re problem-solvers and we’re adjusters, and we adjust.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Opponents of a 2023 state law creating a separate state-run court system within Jackson with an appointed judge and prosecutors have withdrawn their federal lawsuit. 

Last week, the plaintiffs represented by the NAACP asked the court to voluntarily dismiss all of its claims and the lawsuit, which comes after months of deliberations. The defendants and Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Randolph, a former defendant, did not oppose. 

“Plaintiffs are heartened by reports that the CCID Court will be established with appropriate safeguards for Jackson’s residents, and have decided to drop their challenge to the manner of appointing officials to serve that court,” attorneys for the NAACP wrote in a Dec. 2 motion.

Judicial appointments have not been made to the court, which is not operational.

The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, which means it could be refiled if circumstances change. 

A challenge to House Bill 1020 was filed in April 2023, months after it was signed into law. 

What followed was over a year and a half in court, which included a temporary restraining order preventing judicial appointments that lasted several months and a failed attempt to secure a preliminary injunction to block appointments.  

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate said the plaintiffs have ignored the court’s directives and created “procedural chaos” through the filing of motions that don’t change his ruling on judicial immunity, which protects Randolph from civil liability. 

“Any further attempt by the plaintiffs to ignore this court’s judicial immunity ruling shall be viewed as deliberate misconduct,” Wingate wrote in a Dec. 5 order dismissing the lawsuit. 

Initially, Randolph and Gov. Tate Reeves were among defendants in the lawsuit, but they were removed not long after the lawsuit was filed.

Plaintiffs tried to keep Randolph, whose role will be to appoint a CCID judge, as a plaintiff, despite multiple written orders and verbal confirmations that he was no longer part of the lawsuit. 

Before its passage and signing, HB 1020 received pushback, with opponents seeing the court as a takeover and supporters seeing it as a way to address crime in the capital city. 

The law created the Capitol Complex Improvement District Court and expanded the Capitol Police’s presence in the existing district. 

Lawmakers gave the court the same power as municipal courts that handle misdemeanors. They also directed people convicted for misdemeanors in the CCID to be held in the state prison in Rankin County, rather than a local jail. 

HB 1020 directed the chief justice, Randolph, to appoint one judge to work in the court and the attorney general to appoint a prosecutor. In filing the lawsuit, some worried the state officials would appoint white judges to the majority Black city. 

Another lawsuit challenging a different law passed in 2023, Senate Bill 2343, was consolidated with the HB 1020 suit. Wingate granted a preliminary injunction of the bill last year, which prevents DPS from enforcing regulations stemming from the law. 

The bill calls for prior written approval for public demonstrations on a street or sidewalk at the Capitol or state-owned buildings or one where a state agency operates by the public safety commissioner or the chief of the Capitol Police, which falls under his agency. 

Attorneys in that suit were not immediately available for comment about the status of their lawsuit, now that the HB 1020 suit has been dismissed.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.