Mississippi Today
Judge exempts 7 Mississippi universities from revised Title IX rule
A federal judge has temporarily excused seven universities and community colleges in Mississippi from complying with the Biden Administration’s revised Title IX rule that expanded protections for LGBTQ+ and pregnant and parenting students.
The state of Mississippi has been exempt from the new rule, which is set to take effect Aug. 1, since it worked with several Republican states earlier this year to successfully obtain a temporary injunction.
But now, seven colleges and universities in Mississippi, including the University of Mississippi and Mississippi College, will be subject to an additional injunction following a Kansas judge’s ruling on what one expert called a โclever legal gambit,โ because it applied to any campus that has one of three conservative education groups.
In that case, Kansas sued to block the new rule along with three conservative education groups, including Young America’s Foundation and Moms for Liberty. The judge’s temporary injunction was broadened beyond Kansas to any school, college or university campus where those organizations have a chapter โ all told, more than 670 institutions across the country, according to Inside Higher Ed.ย
The Biden Administration is seeking to contest the ruling, Inside Higher Ed reported.
The seven universities and colleges in Mississippi with chapters of those three groups are Holmes Community College, Pearl River Community College, Millsaps College, Mississippi College, Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi and University of Southern Mississippi, according to court filings.
Through university websites, Mississippi Today confirmed there are Young Americans for Freedom chapters at MSU and Ole Miss.
Officials in some conservatives states vowed to defy the new Title IX rules shortly after they were announced, citing state laws banning trans athletes from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Mississippi passed such a ban in 2021.
In Mississippi, USM “has not received any guidance on this issue from any outside state entity,” a university spokesperson, Brittney Westbrook, wrote in an email.
“Preparations have been made to comply with the revised policies should the temporary injunction be dissolved,” she wrote.
Sid Salter, the vice president for strategic communications at MSU, wrote in an email that the university is waiting for guidance from federal and state officials and the courts before implementing any Title IX changes.
“Our consistent set point as a university is to fully comply with federal and state policies when those policies have been clearly established and shared with us,” Salter wrote.
Ole Miss had intended to revise its Title IX policies this summer but had suspended the plans when last month’s injunction was issued, wrote Jacob Batte, the university’s director of news and media relations, in an email.
Last year, Young Americans for Freedom threatened to sue Ole Miss, alleging the university was violating its members’ free speech rights after officials claimed YAF had held an unauthorized event in the Grove.
The chapter had constructed, then torn down, a mock Berlin Wall that was spraypainted with the words “safe spaces,” “microaggressions,” “Taiwan #1” and “chicken.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
AT&T, union reach deal ending strike
AT&T workers are back on the job today after the company reached a tentative agreement with the Communications Workers of America to end a month-long strike in the Southeast.
The new deal includes a 19.33% pay increase for all workers, and more affordable healthcare premiums.
Wire technicians and utility operations employes get an extra 3% pay increase.
In a statement, CWA president Claude Cummings Jr. praised the solidarity of the striking workers.
โI believe in the power of unity, and the unity our members and retirees have shown during these contract negotiations has been outstanding and gave our bargaining teams the backing they needed to deliver strong contracts,โ he said.
CWA district president Jermaine Travis told Mississippi Today that he and his coworkers are happy to be back at work.ย
โIt’s been a long month, so everybody is excited to get back to work and get back to taking care of business,โ he said.
Travis also noted the significance of the strike, the longest telecommunications strike in the Southeast.
โI think we’re gonna look back at this strike, at this moment in history, and see it was really important for workers to stand up for the rights and force companies to do right by them, so I think we did a good thing,โ he said.
AT&T has also reached a tentative agreement with the CWA in the West.
“As we’ve said since day 1, our goal has been to reach fair agreements that recognize the hard work our employees do to serve our customers with competitive market-based pay and benefits that are among the best in the nation — and that’s exactly what was accomplished,โ AT&T said in a released statement. โThese agreements also support our competitive position in the broadband industry where we can grow and win against our mostly non-union competitors.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1925
Sept. 16, 1925
โThe King of the Bluesโ was born Riley B. King on a plantation near Itta Bena, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers.
While singing in the church choir, he watched the pastor playing a Sears Roebuck guitar and told the preacher he wanted to learn how to play. By age 12, he had his own guitar and began listening to the blues on the radio. After playing in churches, he went to Memphis to pursue a music career in 1948, playing on the radio and working as a deejay who was known as โBlues Boyโ and eventually โB.B.โ
Within a year, B.B. King was recording songs, many of them produced by Sam Phillips, who later founded Sun Records. In 1952, โ3 O’Clock Bluesโ became a hit, and dozens followed.
While others sought to bring change through the courts, King did it through music. The songs that he and other blues artists created drew many listeners across racial lines. One of the biggest fans walked into the studio one day and called him โsir.โ His name? Elvis Presley, whose first big hit was the blues song, โThat’s All Right, Mama.โ
King explained that music was like water โ something โfor every living person and every living thing.โ His smash hit, โThe Thrill Is Gone,โ made him an international star and led to collaborations with some of the world’s greatest artists.
He survived a fire that almost burned up his beloved guitar, โLucille,โ and won 18 Grammys as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Both Time and Rolling Stone magazines ranked him as one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
In 2006, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the greatest civilian honor. Two years later, his hometown of Indianola honored him by opening the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center. After he died in 2015, thousands flocked to the Mississippi Delta for the wake and funeral.
โHands that once picked cotton,โ the preacher told the crowd, โwould someday pick guitar strings on a national and international stage.โ He performed till the end, telling Rolling Stone in 2013 that he had only missed 18 days of performing in 65 years. He died two years later at 89 after battling diabetes for decades.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Sen. David Blount discusses tax cuts, retirement system, mobile sports betting
State Sen. David Blount sits down with Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison and Adam Ganucheau to discuss the push for income tax elimination and how that would affect the state’s budget. He also talks about needed funding for the state’s troubledย retirement system and whether Mississippi will soon adopt mobile sports betting.
READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs
The post Podcast: Sen. David Blount discusses tax cuts, retirement system, mobile sports betting appeared first on Mississippi Today.
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