University of Mississippi Sociology Professor James ‘J.T.’ Thomas was at his Oxford, Mississippi, home in the late afternoon of Sept. 11, 2020. One of his kids was bathing, while the other sat in her bedroom.
Preparing for dinner, Thomas heard a hard knock at his front door from where he stood in the kitchen. Afton, Thomas’ wife, was already home—and she had no reason to knock anyway.
There was no peephole. Thomas opened the door blind.
Two men with guns on their hips—no uniforms, just polo shirts and pants—stood before him. Their badges—and orders—came from Mississippi State Auditor Shad White. It had been just a few days since nonprofit Thomas’ participation in the nationwide Scholar Strike.
The officers asked Thomas if they could talk to him and if they could ask him a few questions, Thomas recalled in an interview with the Mississippi Free Press.
“No, I’m not going to answer any of your questions,” Thomas said. “You can contact the general counsel at the University of Mississippi if you have questions.”
Thomas’ ‘no’ was not good enough. The officers kept asking, he told the Mississippi Free Press, but eventually left.
About two minutes later, one of Thomas’ neighbors texted him, asking what happened and telling him that they saw two people looking around the exterior of his home, Thomas said.
His kids had questions, too.
“They wanted to know what these people with guns were doing at our door,” Thomas said. “They saw that I was visibly upset about the fact that they came to my house, and so they had questions about all of that, and so Afton and I just kind of talked them through what it was about.”
The incident was over, but White’s presence in Thomas’ life was just beginning. On Sept. 14, White sent a letter to University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce, accusing Thomas of participating in an illegal work stoppage and saying the university should begin a legal process to determine whether Thomas should be terminated from his position.
Years later, Thomas and White are embroiled in a defamation lawsuit the Mississippi Center for Justice brought forward on Thomas’ behalf, alleging White defamed Thomas by falsely accusing Thomas of breaking the law and calling on UM to terminate Thomas’ employment. Notably, White is being sued in his personal capacity, with the lawsuit arguing White’s alleged defamation occurred outside his duties as state auditor.
MCJ’s position is that while Thomas did participate in the Scholar Strike, the strike is not an illegal strike as defined under Mississippi law, which the complaint defines as a strike taken “for the purpose of inducing, influencing or coercing a change in the conditions, compensation, rights, privileges or obligations of public employment.”
Now, White is asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to step in and dismiss the defamation lawsuit after a lower court declined to do so.
Rejected Motion for Dismissal
White’s appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court came after Hinds County Circuit Judge E. Faye Peterson denied White’s motion to dismiss Thomas’ lawsuit in an Aug. 5 order.
In the motion for dismissal, White’s legal team argued the case should be dismissed because they believe Thomas did not suffer any obvious financial harm, that White did not defame Thomas in the first place and that White had qualified immunity because of his position as Mississippi State Auditor at the time of the incident.
James A. Bobo, an attorney at the Mississippi State Auditor’s Office, argued Thomas’ alleged damages do not meet the legal threshold for “special harm” required in defamation lawsuits because he did not suffer any specific financial damages as a result of White’s statements.
The examples of defamation cited in Thomas’ case against White are “cherry-picked snippets” that are not actually defamation in the greater context of the statements, Bobo alleged in his Aug. 8 motion for dismissal.
Finally, Bobo argued White’s statements are protected by qualified immunity due to his position as Mississippi State Auditor at the time of the incidents in question. Qualified immunity is the judicial doctrine that protects government officials from civil liability claims, designed to prevent them from facing legal prosecution for performing the duties of their jobs.
Peterson dismissed most of White’s claims in an order later that same day, determining that Thomas did not need to prove specific damages in this case because several of White’s statements constituted defamation per se, meaning the statements were so harmful on their face that Thomas does not have to prove damages. Further, she ruled that White’s actions were not entitled to protections of qualified immunity.
Although Peterson allowed most of Thomas’ defamation claims to go forward, she did grant summary judgement for two of the claims against White. One was for White’s Sept. 14, 2020, letter to University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce and the other for his Dec. 1, 2020, demand letter to Thomas.
Qualifying for an Interlocutory Appeal
Legal cases typically need to go to trial before they can be appealed, but White’s legal team filed an interlocutory appeal, allowing them to appeal before a hearing date is ever set.
Interlocutory appeals can only be made if there is a “substantial basis” for differing opinions on the law.
The Mississippi Supreme Court might have a differing view on the case because Judge Faye Peterson’s decision was allegedly based on a “disputed reading of Mississippi Code Sections 37-9-75 and 25-1-105 rather than on any disputed historical fact,” White’s legal council, led by Mark C. Baker, Sr., argued in the Aug. 19 petition for interlocutory appeal.
To qualify for an interlocutory appeal, the appellate court’s resolution would also either have to prevent substantial, irreparable injury; prevent unnecessary legal expenses by shortening the judicial process; or resolve “a generally important issue in the administration of justice,” the Mississippi Rule of Appellate Procedure rules dictate.
Baker argued White’s petition for interlocutory appeal meets all three of the criteria that qualify a case for such an appeal to the state’s supreme court.
The Mississippi Supreme Court’s intervention could protect a constitutional officer, meaning White in his former position as state auditor, “ … from the substantial and irreparable injury of submitting his official acts to a jury where qualified privilege bars the claim,” Baker said in the Aug. 19 petition.
McDuff: Accusation Was Stunningly Irresponsible, Made in Reckless Disregard of the Truth
James Thomas’ attorney, Rob McDuff, questioned the basis of Mark Baker’s justification of an interlocutory appeal in his Sept. 16 reply to the request.
Even if White had qualified immunity, it would be negated by actual malice, McDuff said in the response. Actual malice would mean White allegedly knew his statements were false at the time they were made, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
White’s comments about Thomas following the Scholar Strike called for his termination for allegedly violating Mississippi’s anti-strike laws, which prohibit teachers from participating in work stoppages in protest for improved working conditions.
However, the Scholar Strike did not call for changes to working conditions, and Thomas worked his regular hours, replying to emails and writing a chapter for a now-published book “Getting Real About Race”, Thomas told the Mississippi Free Press on Sept. 3.
“Given that Mr. White knew of Dr. Thomas’s public statements about the #ScholarStrike, and given that he claimed to have read the statute, Mr. White knew that Dr. Thomas was not striking over pay and working conditions and therefore had not violated the law,” McDuff said in his reply to the interlocutory appeal. “However, Mr. White repeatedly stated that Dr. Thomas had violated the no-strike statute which, by its own terms, requires that public employees be terminated if they violate the statute and be prohibited from re-employment absent a public necessity.”
White claimed to have read the statute before accusing Thomas of violating the strike law, McDuff said.
“If he did read it, he knew the law applied only to actions undertaken for the purpose of improving compensation or working conditions, and that Dr. Thomas did not violate the law,” McDuff said. “Thus, his numerous claims that Dr. Thomas did violate that law were knowingly false. And if for some reason he made the accusation without reading that key provision of the statute, his accusation was stunningly irresponsible and was made in reckless disregard of the truth.”
Meanwhile, Thomas sees Shad White’s interlocutory appeal as a last-ditch effort to avoid going to trial.
“I think the auditor saw that ruling, saw that writing on the wall, and I think he made a strategic choice to ask the Supreme Court to step in, hoping that the Supreme Court behaves not like a fair and impartial body but like a partisan body that would support him and his cause,” Thomas told the Mississippi Free Press. “I’m not accusing the Supreme Court of being that way. I’m just saying I think that’s his calculus and so, you know, we’ll see.”
McDuff: Punishing Progressive Speech Is a Sign of the Times
James Thomas was one of only two professors in the country to face disciplinary action for participating in the Scholar Strike.
The other, Wendy Leo Moore, was a sociologist professor at Texas A&M at the time. The university eventually settled a lawsuit with Moore for disciplining her with a two-day suspension following her involvement in the Scholar Strike.
Moore sees what Thomas dealt with as more extreme than her own situation.
“In my situation, I did not have any public officials get involved the way that (Thomas) did,” Moore told the Mississippi Free Press on Sept. 8. “So he not only experienced what the battles that he was having at the university, but he also had public officials.”
Although Thomas and Moore were the only professors to face attempted discipline for their participation in the Scholar Strike, questions about the limits of free speech on campus have become more common at places like the University of Mississippi in recent years.
Just a few months after the Scholar Strike incident, the university fired history professor Garrett Felber, allegedly related to his criticism of the university as racist. The university claimed Felber was not fired, but that it chose not to renew his contract. The university later reached a settlement with him.
Around the same time, UM suspended an ombudsman after he declined to reveal confidential information intended to help the university identify a whistleblower who leaked information about racism and sexism in communications with university donors. They replaced him with a new ombudsman shortly after.
In 2025, the university fired Lauren Stokes, an administrative employee, for reposting social media content about Charlie Kirk shortly after his death. Faculty later testified that the decision chilled free speech across campus. Thomas, alongside two other UM professors, submitted an amicus brief detailing the history of free speech on campus in support of Stokes’ wrongful termination lawsuit against the university.
“Let me put it that way: they were all attacked for things they said that reflected their progressive political views, and it’s just a real sign of the times, and it’s unfortunate, but they’ve all pushed back in their own way, which is a good thing.” Rob McDuff told the Mississippi Free Press.
It is unclear if the Mississippi Supreme Court will be accepting Shad White’s interlocutory appeal at this time, McDuff said. If the court sides with White, the case can be thrown out; if it sides with Thomas, the case will return to Hinds County for trial, he explained.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of free speech and read past stories here.
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