FOCUS: Medicaid Expansion • Pauper’s Field Burials • State Legislature • National News • Fact Checks • #MSWelfare/TANF Scandal • Jackson Water • Race & Racism
An Asian man facing prison time on a drug charge got a plea deal soon after his attorney alleged selective prosecution and used the Oxford Police Department’s own data to reveal worsening patterns of racial disparities for arrests and prosecution of drug charges. Now, he is facing five years of supervised probation instead.
A Lafayette County drug unit has lost at least $34,000 that its agents seized during busts and arrests targeting local residents and University of Mississippi students, including for crimes involving marijuana. Government documents show that local officials have known since at least 2016 that the funds were missing—a fact that remained hidden from the public until now. Federal investigators suspect the funds may have been stolen.Â
University of Mississippi Ombudsman Paul Caffera is back at work months after he became ensnared in the administration’s effort to root out a group of whistleblowers who unearthed a collection of emails between university officials and wealthy donors who expressed racist views.
Since the Mississippi Free Press published our initial three-part UM Emails exposé in August 2020 about communications that revealed how university officials have catered to and coddled wealthy donors and alums, oftentimes against the wishes of students and current faculty, the story has continually unfolded. This timeline puts the events that have unfolded at the embattled university in context and allows readers to examine many of the emails that informed our original investigative reporting.
Concerns grew among some faculty members at the University of Mississippi today after Chancellor Glenn Boyce announced he had appointed William W. Berry III, a longtime law professor in the UM school of law, as the university’s new acting ombudsman.Â
The University of Mississippi has placed its ombudsman, Paul J. Caffera, on administrative leave and is seeking a temporary replacement after he sued to stop the university from compelling him to share confidential information about faculty, staff and graduate students who have privately confided to his office about issues on campus.Â
Members of the University of Mississippi faculty fear the school’s effort to root out whistleblowers who exposed issues of racism in the administration could also expose private information about employees and graduate students who have confided concerns to the university ombudsman.
University of Mississippi officials have launched an investigation into a group of anonymous whistleblowers who earlier this year sounded the alarm about dozens of secret emails that showed how school officials privately coddled racist and sexist sentiments to woo wealthy donors.
After Ashton Pittman’s Mississippi Free Press story on Oct. 29, 2020, about the Madison County election commission’s office recently rezoning 2,000+ mostly Black and Latinx voters to The Mark apartments precinct, photographer Allie Jordan just had to see it for herself.
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
125 S. Congress Street #1324
Jackson, MSÂ 39201
info@mississippifreepress.org
tips@mississippifreepress.org
events@mississippifreepress.org
601-362-6121
The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).